Heritage experts who spoke during a Taproot Exchange event said Edmonton's future will include infill but that keeping people on board will mean being sensitive to the character of mature neighbourhoods.
Taproot's co-founder Mack Male and managing editor Tim Querengesser were joined by David Ridley, executive director of the Edmonton Heritage Council, and Harrison Sheremeta, chair of the Edmonton Historical Board and a City of Edmonton planner, to discuss the future of infill during a members-only livestream on Nov. 7.
"As long as the city keeps growing, people (have) got to live somewhere, and it's always been a lot more efficient to have them live in the closer proximity through multi-unit housing than (have them) spread out," Sheremeta said. "But of course, there's the historical board's view, and my view generally with character (or) heritage houses — you do want to see those preserved as well, because in Edmonton, we don't have much of that at all, because we divulged a lot of that back in the previous decades."
Sheremeta said that because colonial settlement has only existed in Edmonton for roughly 150 years, and because of the energy industry's importance to the city's economy, Edmonton just doesn't value heritage as much as other Canadian cities.
"With the boom and bust cycle of oil and gas, I think people just got used to always wanting something bigger, better, newer," he said. "We have a handful of beautiful commercial Edwardian buildings left (downtown). Everything else was demoed, wholesale, in the '60s and '70s, during the first oil boom."
Ridley said residents could encourage heritage preservation by pooling resources and purchasing homes to turn them into co-op housing through a land trust, as some neighbours in Allendale and Garneau are looking to do.
"I think it's a fantastic development if these result in form of co-op development, and that it means that people are there and live in the neighborhood, but understand that infill and hopefully preservation can go together," Ridley said.
Taproot holds members-only livestreams every second Friday, where guests such as Ridley and Sheremeta go deep on issues of interest to Edmontonians. Become a member for access to future livestreams.