Armature

An example of the proposed look, from the City of Edmonton.

An example of the proposed look of the area, from the City of Edmonton.

I attended a very interesting meeting last night. Edmonton NextGen invited people to a public consultation meeting about the proposed “Armature” development in the Quarters. There is a long-term plan to revitalize the Quarters and the Armature project is central to that plan. But rather than focus on the development of buildings the Armature is the development of the greenspace that will make those future residential developments a community – and a showcase community for the city of Edmonton.

This post is just my impressions from the meeting, I’ll have more detailed information next week.

Basically, the plan is for a pedestrian parkway running from 103 Avenue, south to Jasper Avenue and the top of Louise McKinney Park along 96 Street. There were a number of things that excited me about this project:

Founded on the concept of One Planet Living: sustainable features including using runoff in water features throughout the space
Highlights the areas two key heritage buildings: the flatiron building and St. Barbara’s Orthodox cathedral
Promotes active living: the entire greenspace is pedestrian, bicycle (and other non-motorised transport) friendly, includes play spaces for children and sports fields for older children.
Promotes safety through urban planning: clear sightlines through the space, spaces designed to bring people in (sports fields, market space, cafes/restaurants) for ‘safety in numbers’

The project is designed to progress in phases, and the time line is moving ahead quickly.

Recommendations will go to council very soon and the hope is to “have shovels in the ground” for phase one in Spring 2010. I wish I could tell you which part of the project will be phase one, but that decision will be made by council later this fall.

There was a great question and answer session, but I didn’t feel like we got complete answers to the following:

How will the Armature development and the larger Quarters development affect the population that is currently in the area?

The short answer is that the residential plans include a minimum of 5% affordable housing (but they are shooting for 20-25%), but there are no plans for social housing. I can appreciate that the project can’t manage every individual’s housing needs, but there wasn’t really an answer for where the current transient population would go once residential development ramps up.

Does this revitalization project coordinate with the other revitalization projects happening?

The developers said they’ve invited members of other project teams to their consultation meetings and there are clear links to the Boyle-McCauley revitalization and a complimentary relationship to the Jasper Avenue plan, but no real response to the idea that all of these projects (Stony Plain Road, Alberta Avenue) seem to be targeting similar target groups to make the community revitalization a reality.

The best part of the meeting for me was the end of the Q&A when we were asked what would need to happen in the area to make us want to move there. I got too distracted to make great notes of everyone’s responses, but key themes were having family-friendly options (apartments as well as townhouses), integration of diverse income brackets and generations (both in buildings and in the area in general), and a commitment to improve safety in the area.

Stay tuned for a more detailed follow up post next week after my meeting with the City’s rep for the project. If you have any specific questions you want asked, please leave them in the comments!