Downtown needs per-door housing incentives, report authors argue

The authors of the new Downtown Investment Plan told the co-hosts of Episode 281 of Speaking Municipally that public investment is necessary to stimulate Edmonton's struggling downtown core, even though the requests are expensive and ambitious.

The plan, detailed in Taproot's Oct. 18 Business Roundup, outlines nearly $500 million in funding requests to the municipal, provincial, and federal governments. Alex Hryciw, chair of the Downtown Revitalization Coalition, and Jason Syvixay, vice-president of strategy and operations for BILD Edmonton Metro, authored the report and told co-hosts Mack Male and Troy Pavlek that concentrated efforts, including per-door incentives, are needed to spur housing development downtown.

"Our region has grown by 64% in the last year, and none of that has been within the core," Hryciw said. "The reason why we need a per-door incentive comes down to the market rates in Edmonton. Our rent hasn't increased like the rest of the country, and we're not facing as big of an affordability crisis as other cities, luckily. But because of that, because rents haven't kept up with inflation, it's very hard for builders to actually convince banks to lend them the money to get these things started (downtown)."

The report's suggestion of a per-door incentive would be part of its larger idea for a $100 million Attainable Housing Fund, which it calls to be created within a year. That plan is a response to challenges created by housing starts downtown, which have been stagnant since 2021, as well as low spending at downtown shops, and the falling share of the city's tax revenues that downtown generates. The report found that number has fallen from 10% to 6.4% as of 2024.

Co-host Pavlek asked why that number matters when the city's operating budget has doubled since the 10% figure was calculated in 2009.

"If you look at downtowns across North America, generally, the healthy percentage that we have seen over the past couple decades has been about that 10 to 20% number," Syvixay said. "When we look at the actual millions in tax revenue that we've assessed, total tax revenue (from downtown) in 2024 was around $155 million. That peak revenue was $191 million in 2018. So, if we look at it just from that dollar value, there has been a pretty stark decrease. And a lot of that really is connected to vacancies in our office space. (In) our assessment base, 80% of that comes from the office and commercial sector … There's kind of a grim story there."

The report drew input from 35 steering committee members from BILD, the Downtown Revitalization Coalition, the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, the Edmonton Downtown Business Association, NAIOP, and BOMA Edmonton.

Despite the report calling for the Attainable Housing Fund to be created within a year, Hryciw said it could potentially draw on already existing pots of money like the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, of which the City of Edmonton has received $175 million.

"Part of (the Attainable Housing Fund) being in the short term is actually more to express the urgency to all orders of government than it is to say the expectation is we find $100 million and invest this right now," she said. "There are different policy levers we can pull to also help aid with this money."

Another aspect of the plan is to improve downtown infrastructure. Pavlek asked if the report's request for $15 million to develop the 100 Street Pedestrian Bridge might face political challenges as a funding priority. Hryciw countered that the bridge could improve how Edmonton is viewed by visitors and ease traffic.

"That's the first impression people have when they come into our downtown, truthfully, especially if you're coming from the airport. You're coming up MacDonald Drive, which is the worst drive in the entire city … (and) it is embarrassing to me," she said. "If we can make that look better, we should absolutely be doing it."

The plan is far from the first for downtown. The new report calls for a population boost of 25,000 people downtown, first requested in 1997 with the Capital City Downtown Plan, the same plan that planted the seeds for the 2013 Capital City Downtown Community Revitalization Levy Bylaw that helped realize Rogers Place and the ICE District. The new plan calls for the levy to be extended and for $250,000 to prioritize an update to the Capital City Downtown Plan.

Hryciw said the Capital City plan and subsequent guiding documents like the Downtown & The Quarters Downtown Streetscape Design Manual and the Downtown Vibrancy Strategy have not achieved all they intended to, but her group's plan is built differently.

"All of those other reports were really built in partnership with the city and really steered by the city. Our hope is that the city takes this as kind of a work-back plan now," she said. "We didn't invite politicians to the launch of (our plan). It's not aimed at one specific government at all. It is aimed at all three (levels of government), and our expectation is that these political leaders try to rise above their differences and find a way to do what's in the best interest for the entire city."

Hryciw said she wants the report to bolster cohesive, holistic investment in downtown as opposed to disjointed initiatives. For example, she said, work in different parts of the core has an inconsistent appearance.

"We've also had a really patchwork approach to all of this," she said. "What we're trying to accomplish in this report is also calling out that there has to be a deliberate approach to planning and investing, with that central idea of not doing this piecemeal and having 17 different design standards," she said.

Podcasters and guests all agreed that the sheer volume of city-building plans and Edmonton's track record executing them had some funny irony. Syvixay recalled another of his Speaking Municipally appearances, when he discussed the Downtown Pedestrianization Plan. "Not a lot has happened since that plan was adopted and released last year," he said.

The group also joked that they might reconvene in a year to discuss the next attempt at a downtown blueprint. "We can call it the DRIP — the Downtown Re-Investment Plan," Syvixay quipped.

Jokes aside, Hryciw said it's not just the people who live, work, and gather downtown who can benefit from the area's improvement.

"When downtown fails, when downtown's economic output is sitting at 6.4% instead of 10% (of the municipal tax base), the people in Terwillegar are paying the price tag on that on their own property taxes," she said.

While the calls to the action in the report have timelines as short as six months and as long as 10 years, the authors are already pushing for outcomes through engagement with city administration.

"They're working on a downtown plan. They're looking at a downtown vibrancy 2.0. They're looking at thinking about mobility strategies for the downtown, as well as the (Community Revitalization Levy) extension," Syvixay said of the city. "They have been looking to us, and for us, for some of these ideas. So I think we've already done a bit of the heavy lifting in terms of getting our groups to agree to some big-ticket items here, and we'll be connecting with them over the course of the month."

The Oct. 18 episode of Taproot's civic affairs podcast includes more on the Downtown Investment Plan, including why its authors believe it will reap returns for the city and a spirited debate on the effects of closing the Edmonton City Centre Airport. Plus, Taproot's managing editor, Tim Querengesser, provides an update from the Taproot newsroom. Speaking Municipally comes out on Fridays. Listening and subscription options are all right here.