The way and the speed at which Edmonton develops is starting to change, thanks in part to the updated zoning bylaw, according to city administration.
Travis Pawlyk, branch manager of development services, told Taproot on May 23 that the city approved 16,519 new dwelling units in 2024, a 30% increase compared to 2023. The volume of development permits the city received also increased by 41% in 2024.
Pawlyk said the increase in housing development is surprising but encouraging.
"Obviously, (the increase) was fuelled by population growth, so I would say that (the new bylaw) is working," he said. "We've been able to accommodate all of these new Edmontonians, and for the future, that's what we would like to achieve through this zoning bylaw — to accommodate and facilitate that future growth to maintain Edmonton as an affordable city, a livable city, and a fiscally sustainable city."
These numbers are all within a report that details the first year of the new zoning bylaw, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. Council's urban planning committee is scheduled to discuss the report on June 3. Taproot dove into the data for interesting nuggets. Here's what we found:
Tale of two cities
The data shows that Edmonton is growing differently in the developing area, located outside of Anthony Henday Drive, and in the redeveloping area inside the ring road. Even though the city saw a lot more infill and multi-unit housing built in 2024, the data shows that suburban sprawl with single-family homes is still the most common development pattern.
About 60% of the 16,519 housing units approved in 2024 will be built outside the Henday. Of those units, 43% are single-detached homes, about 20% are secondary suites, and the remainder are row housing (15%), multi-unit housing (13.5%), duplexes (5%), and backyard housing (1.4%).
Meanwhile, within the Henday, only 5% of approved units were single-detached homes. Just more than half of the approved units will be in multi-unit buildings. Row housing and secondary suites each make up about 18% of approvals, respectively.
A seven-unit infill apartment building under construction in the Strathcona neighbourhood. (Stephanie Swensrude)
Proportion of infill increasing
But though Edmonton is still building a lot of sprawl, the city did move closer to its infill goals. The proportion of housing units approved in the redeveloping area increased. In 2024, 40% of approved housing units were located in the redeveloping area. In the past few years, the percentage has ranged between 20% and 30%. "What we're expecting with the new zoning bylaw, and what we're seeing under development permits, is that (range will) fundamentally shift upwards, so your range becomes 25% to 35%, or larger," Pawlyk said.
Reaching 40% in 2024 puts the city well on the way towards meeting a City Plan target of adding 50% of new housing units through infill in developing areas.
Eight units are allowed, but not always built
A major change the updated zoning bylaw introduced was the small-scale residential (RS) zone, which allows buildings of up to eight units on mid-block sites that are 600 square metres or larger. The city issued 242 development permits for RS sites of that size in 2024. But only about half of the applicants with a lot that size actually built eight units; the other half built single-detached homes or duplexes.
"This suggests that while the RS Zone is facilitating opportunities for greater housing forms and density, homeowners and applicants are choosing a variety of housing options," the report said.
Council had asked administration how the city could encourage multi-unit housing in the RS zone through incentives in the bylaw. Administration said the zone is working as intended and that it does not recommend adding incentives. Council also asked administration to study whether the eight-unit maximum should be increased or decreased. Administration said it does not currently recommend revisiting the eight-unit maximum.
Administration is proposing changes, however, to the design regulations for row housing that's located in the middle of a block. "What we're seeing on the front facade, or the facade that faces the street, is that it doesn't really look like a front (of a building) — it looks like a side of a building," Pawlyk said. "We're looking to increase those architectural features that help it integrate into the streetscape." Bylaw amendments relating to the design changes are scheduled to be debated in June.
Garden suites growing
The number of garden suites approved in 2024 increased by more than 200% compared to 2023, according to the report. The city approved 435 garden suites in 2024, which is even more than the October forecast from backyard housing advocate Travis Fong.
"You know, we hear about a tower going up in Mill Woods, and that's a really exciting development, but at the same time, we nearly have a tower's worth of homes going up every year in backyard homes, but they're dispersed," Fong told Taproot in October. "They're spread throughout the city — they're gentle density, they're hidden density. It's not all being led by one developer."
Row housing quadruples thanks to federal financing
The report said, on average, that row housing developments added 146 new units per year in 2019 to 2023. In 2024, that number increased to 1,216. This can be explained by a greater demand for this housing type, more flexibility in the RS zone, and financing programs from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the report said.
In October, Fong told Taproot that mortgage loan products such as MLI Select are making row housing projects more viable.
Bike parking needs new gears
The report notes that both city staff and developers said it was difficult to meet the bylaw's bike parking requirements, and that the requirements for commercial properties were too high. Commercial buildings smaller than 2,500 square metres must have two bike parking spaces for the first 280 square metres and one space for each additional 140 square metres. Commercial buildings larger than 2,500 square metres must have 18 spaces for the first 2,500 square metres, and one space for each additional 414 square metres.
To visualize the requirement, the Army & Navy building on Whyte Avenue is approximately 2,790 square metres. If a store that size was built today, it would be required to have 18 or 19 bike parking spaces (however, parking spaces located within 50 metres of a building can be used to meet a portion of the requirement, at the discretion of a municipal development planner).
Next for the bylaw
Administration said it will consider tweaks to the bylaw based on development permit data and stakeholder feedback.
Staff will review mixed-use zones, including the requirement for multi-unit buildings in the mixed-use zones to have commercial bays on the ground floor. Administration will also review the requirement for multi-unit buildings outside the Henday to have access from the alley. Any proposed changes to the zoning bylaw will be brought before city council for a vote.
Correction: An earlier version of this story has been corrected after the City of Edmonton provided revised information on the number of dwelling units it approved, from 16,511 to 16,519, and where eight-unit buildings are allowed in the RS zone.