By Gregg Beever
I consider myself to be a reasonably politically savvy dude. A steady RSS feed of the CBC, the Edmonton Journal, and Jeff’s daily link dump here at the edmontonian arms me with just enough knowledge to claim my wildly inflammatory political opinions aren’t completely unfounded.
I’m familiar with the majority of the local and national movers and shakers, and I mostly understand political and electoral speak.
Mostly.
Plebiscite is a word that has been kicked around a lot with the coming closure one of the Edmonton City Centre Airport’s (ECCA) runways next month. I understood what the word meant, in context, but had to look it up in the dictionary to be sure I grasped the meaning completely.
There is virtually no way to look up a word in the dictionary without feeling stupid. I know, because I do it often trying to avoid sounding like a dolt in front of you guys.
Now you know why I mostly write about movies. Movies are easy and fun; the petition to keep the ECCA open is complex and not that much fun to read about. So let’s discuss it, shall we?
The case for the ECCA has all the makings of a classic David versus Goliath match up. Small, private aviators versus big civic government and corporate interests who stand to turn a sizable profit in the land’s redevelopment.
Proponents of the ECCA, like Envision Edmonton, who are running the Demand the Vote campaign, are certainly the underdog. Underdogs always generate a certain amount of sympathy from the public.
That’s fine. It’s natural to root for a David. But in this case the right thing for the city, long term, is to stand squarely behind Goliath.
Thirty-three bids were received from companies around the globe seeking to redevelop the airport grounds. The new district would be home to over 30,000 people in what Mayor Stephen Mandel promises will be a “world-leading, environmentally-friendly” community. Redeveloping the City Centre Airport would also provide an inexpensive northerly expansion of the LRT.
The cornerstones of this plan are all key components of our city’s future. We need an environmental vision; we need improved public transit; and we definitely need to develop within city limits and stem our reckless outward expansion.
Envision Edmonton claims that the ECCA is profitable and full of economic opportunity; which is fair, the airport may well be in the black. However, I don’t have to do any research to unequivocally tell you that the City Centre Airport will never be as profitable as collecting taxes on 217 hectares of developed land. That Envision Edmonton would even argue economics is baffling.
The strongest argument ECCA supporters have is the issues of medical transport. Medevac flights arrive from not only Alberta, but from Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon. In an emergency the City Centre Airport’s location allows for speedy patient or organ transport to nearby medical facilities.
When the ECCA closes down the Edmonton International Airport will take on the extra air ambulance traffic. That presents a problem because our international airport is awesomely located in Leduc, a good distance from Edmonton’s hospitals.
I could not immediately find any article or study that suggests moving medevac services to the Edmonton International Airport (EIA) would not present challenges. It is, however, worth noting that only 10% of medevac flight are time sensitive, some of which will be directed to facilities in Vancouver and other cities, upon the ECCA closure. There is also talk of building a dedicated medevac centre at the EIA.
The point being, while there are some challenges, we will be able to adapt to meet the medical transport needs.
Envision Edmonton has until the end of this month to collect 79,000 signatures to force a plebiscite. As of July 22 the petition was signed by roughly 35,000 people, so it is unlikely a vote will take place.
I say “good.” Make with the environmentally sustainable communities, please!
(Gregg Beever is the edmontonian’s resident movie genius. He is actually known to pen thoughtful items too.)
So what about cleaning up the land to put a housing development on it? How long will that take and at what cost to taxpayers? I dont’ think I want my kids playing on the playground they try and develop and tell me “yes sir it is safe for your little ones” Reminds me of another saying “we are from the governemnt and here to help”
So if the city closes the airport how many years will it sit as an emptly lot? The City planning for this area was outlined in Phase 2 which was in 20+ years.
If the CCA was developed and more businesses were added I can guarantee you they will be adding more to city coffers than an affordable housing district for 35,000 people.
I’ve heard alternately that they have until the end of the month and that they have 60 days (which would be three weeks from the intro press release, but maybe they started early?). Could you provide a source?
Curious if anyone has looked into other (than Edmonton) airports, such as Villeneuve Airport, or Cooking Lake Airport. There are also several heliports such as Kelsonae and Eastport. Perhaps Lancaster would even be interested in the contract?
As I understand it, Envision Edmonton is attempting to halt the closure of the runway, which happens in August, they even have a count down on their website. Their website also claims it as an “irreversible” closure.
Here is CBC’s article claim end of July as the deadline:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2010/07/01/edmonton-airport-closure-petition-caterina.html
Lorne: I actually work with a gentlemen who owns a private aircraft. He claims Villeneuve was designed to take on ECCA’s traffic. I don’t have any other source for that though, just my co-workers word.
jo20: The issue of clean-up is an absolutely fair point, and I have not come across anything that suggests what the costs might be and if that price tag will affect taxpayers.
However, if the cost was astronomical I’m not sure City Council would be looking at developing on the land. Also, if it were dangerous to families who eventually live there, I again doubt the City would want to build on it.
“The new district would be home to over 30,000 people in what Mayor Stephen Mandel promises will be a “world-leading, environmentally-friendly” community.”
That would be double the density of the next most dense neighborhood in the city, the one called ‘Downtown’. Coincidentally Edmonton City Council was committed to revitalizing ‘Downtown’ (part of the plan is to bring the population in that area up to over 20,000, it is currently ~ 13,000) which is ill-served by plopping a bunch of housing eight blocks North.
Not to mention that ‘Downtown’ also has an equal or greater amount of slack space than #yxd ripe for redevelopment, in line with city plans, already serviced by roads, transit, water, power, etc….
If we’re worried about the environment let’s figure out how many trips people make empty one way to #yeg and how many of those could be saved by having, say, a transit accessible city-centre type airport facility?
“I say “good.” Make with the environmentally sustainable communities, please!”
Environmentally sustainable communities don’t situate services like Airports 35km from the city centre. Yes, that has happened in other communities – it doesn’t need to happen here. Environmentally sustainable communities are condensed, more accessible by means other than automobile, and have mixed use commercial / residential, a concept which welcomes commercial aviation in a location which is close to Government and the CBD. Good communities grow, they aren’t dropped from the sky (Century Park, Station Lands). Urban renewal isn’t just tearing down something old to make way for something new, sometimes we have to take the old and make it new again.
#yxd was a successful commercial airport and can be again for a marginal (in city budget terms) cost. The EIA has an agenda, as does City Council. Both have been quite open about their distaste for #yxd as an airport – even though the last two plebiscites included wording that compels Edmonton City Council and the EIA to keep #yxd running as a General Aviation facility, Medevac or no.
I doubt the cleanup would be any worse than cleaning up some gas stations.
But wait, you’ll say, that one gas station site on Whyte has been empty forever. Yes, that’s because there aren’t enough rules to get owners of property to cleanup the “brownfields,” as they’re known. The City owns the airport land and wants to redevelop it the City cleans it up.
And if the site is so dirty, shouldn’t we clean it up as soon as we can?
As for how long it will sit “empty,” there’ not a definitive timeline for closing the second runway, so it can be up to a lot of market forces, decisions.
I’m not certain on the population of downtown (downtown as defined by the City, etc…) or how many people can fit where, but I do know if the neighbourhoods are planned you can plan to get more people in there.
Trips to an airport aren’t the same as driving around, living and working in the same neighbourhood, etc… And since I can’t book a flight on WestJet at ECCA it’s a moot point.
And everything with the development, everything, ultimately hinges on future city councils and city staff. If they don’t get developers building new homes on the ECCA lands instead of on Edmonton’s fringe then none of the debates even matter.
Have you considered the 100′s of millions, if not billions of dollars it is going to cost the city to make this land clean enough to use? Do you think any of the, so far, 0 developers are going to foot the bill for land reclamation?
Thanks for writing this Gregg! I have been having a really hard time wrapping my brain around the airport debate, because while the pro-airport side is super passionate, I haven’t yet heard a reason for keeping the airport open that makes much sense to me.
It seems like most pro-airport arguments are based around false logic, implying that this is an either or scenario: either the airport stays open, and maintains the status quo, or it doesn’t and all the businesses there will go bankrupt, and every medevac patient will die. I really appreciate your point about how only 10% of medevac services are time sensitive. That’s the kind of information that will let us make the most rational decision for the land! Good job, buddy!
I do have to say, though, that people complaining about the cost of cleaning up the land seems ridiculous to me. Am I misunderstanding, or isn’t “this land is highly contaminated and would be expensive to clean up” the best argument to be made for getting it cleaned up ASAP? I mean, if you worked somewhere for years, and one day found out the walls were full of chemicals or garbage, I doubt anyone would say, “Well, those highly polluted walls have served us well to this point, and it’s cheaper to leave all the carcinogens in there. So let’s just keep things as they are!”
I’d think the city would be paying for cleanup. Again, since this land would be part of city projects and developments that would be part of the plan.
The more cleanup cost is used as a deterrent to redevelopment the more it would say to me the ECCA lands are about the dirtiest around. Which would be something we couldn’t let continue anyway.
Also, without the land being up for development I’d expect 0 developers ready to build.
Which is why it’s so curious the Katz Group doesn’t have their entertainment district developers all lined up and in YouTube videos…
“Coincidentally Edmonton City Council was committed to revitalizing ‘Downtown’ which is ill-served by plopping a bunch of housing eight blocks North.”
I’m not sure how Downtown would be ill-served by a major development right next to it. A more dense population in the surrounding area means a great number of consumers who find the City centre a convenient place to shop. If you assume that 30’000 new Edmontonians will just get plunked in all at once maybe Downtown is il-served, but the ECCA land will be developed slowly, allowing the population of both areas to increase together.
“Environmentally sustainable communities don’t situate services like Airports 35km from the city centre.”
Yes, yes, the EIA is very far away, and that sucks. I just don’t agree that the ECCA is capable of handling enough traffic to make an environment impact. The environmental impact of a large, central community is quite evident, however.
“I’m not certain on the population of downtown (downtown as defined by the City, etc…) or how many people can fit where, but I do know if the neighborhoods are planned you can plan to get more people in there.”
Head to http://maps.edmonton.ca/ for the most recent data and Neighborhood delineations. DT Population (2009 Municipal Census) 11,572 persons.
Planned neighborhoods have pretty much flopped in this city, as I pointed out before; Century Park is two towers and a giant parking lot (pretty much negating the LRT stop there); Station Lands is, so far, one uncompleted building. A third attempt at this won’t yield much better results, I wager. Especially building it betwixt a highway, a college, and a shopping mall.
“Trips to an airport aren’t the same as driving around, living and working in the same neighbourhood, etc… And since I can’t book a flight on WestJet at ECCA it’s a moot point.”
A 70km round trip to the airport times six million trips per year (EIA ~ passenger estimate 2009) is a lot of kms, no matter how you slice it. Unless 30,000 people can work at NAIT and Kingsway Mall you’re asking a lot of that development re: cutting down on commuting.
You COULD book a flight on a Westjet plane if the EIA and City Council had not conspired to limit the number of passengers per flight at #yxd in the Airport Bylaw. The entire Westjet fleet CAN take off and land at #yxd, it’s the ‘powers that be’ who will not allow it.
“If they don’t get developers building new homes on the ECCA lands instead of on Edmonton’s fringe then none of the debates even matter.”
Or IF they get developers to build on the acres and acres of slack space in the existing neighborhood of Downtown, as was the plan before. Or in any of the other central neighborhoods which could use some serious redevelopment as well.
“Planned neighborhoods have pretty much flopped in this city, as I pointed out before; Century Park is two towers and a giant parking lot (pretty much negating the LRT stop there)”
To be fair, we hit a major economic downturn before the LRT expansion was completed. I have to wonder where Century Park would be if the economy kept on truckin’.
“A third attempt at this won’t yield much better results, I wager. Especially building it betwixt a highway, a college, and a shopping mall.”
Yeah!! Who would want to live beside a college and a shopping mall?
…oh…
“To be fair, we hit a major economic downturn before the LRT expansion was completed. I have to wonder where Century Park would be if the economy kept on truckin’.”
Fair enough. The same? That development was flopping from the beginning – it was imagined as a dense pseudo-hood and developed as anything else will be, with the developer building and selling the properties with the greatest short term return, i.e.: High density towers, not mid density residential or commercial space.
“A third attempt at this won’t yield much better results, I wager. Especially building it betwixt a highway, a college, and a shopping mall”
Yeah!! Who would want to live beside a college and a shopping mall?”
30,000 students? The entire full-time base of the U of A? I can almost guarantee that:
i: Not every single student in the city will choose to live in one area with zero night life, culture, or much in the way of, um, anything at the moment. That would essentially be ghettoizing post-secondary students.
ii: Not many real estate developers want to rent or sell to a group so ill equipped to afford the prices they would like to charge, with a two to four year transience pattern, who are notorious for noise and carousing.
A “world-leading, environmentally-friendly” community that insists on having two cabs for every fare leading to the most remote major airport on the continent? Count me out of that one.
This has nothing to do with “environmentally friendly communities” and everything to do with making developers rich and the city taxman even richer. Anything they tell you otherwise is a lie.
“A “world-leading, environmentally-friendly” community that insists on having two cabs for every fare leading to the most remote major airport on the continent? Count me out of that one.”
I don’t understand how people equate the EIA drive to being an environmental blight. Yes, it’s not awesome for the environment, but it also isn’t a daily commute for thousands and thousands of workers. The city centre is, and moving people closer to it will have a much greater environmental impact.
“I don’t understand how people equate the EIA drive to being an environmental blight. Yes, it’s not awesome for the environment, but it also isn’t a daily commute for thousands and thousands of workers. The city centre is, and moving people closer to it will have a much greater environmental impact.”
I would love to see some numbers on how many people work in the city centre, how many already live there, and how many not already there would choose to move to the #yxd. Those numbers would back up your argument a little. What about all of the daily commuters TO #yeg?
From the EIA website: “Edmonton Airports and a partnership of 65 companies and 3,600 employees at Edmonton International Airport have joined to create EIA Team, which is dedicated to improving customer service and satisfaction. We’re all working together to be sure that Edmonton International Airport remains an industry leader in delivering outstanding airport and aviation services.”
That’s ~3,600*70km or 252,000 km per day (assuming all 3,600 employees work every day and all live in Downtown Edmonton, and commute alone). Still a lot of kms there, because not all those employees are taking the bus (I would wager none of them are, seeing as there isn’t one, but some do take Sky Shuttle).
The real downer is that we have a Transit ready airfield in the City Center which can accommodate a significant portion of #yeg traffic, if permitted. This is not something which could happen in 20 years, it could happen in a very short time, months to maybe a couple years.
Also please address the issue of encapsulated energy. How much goes to waste by demolishing the airport and building all new on fresh land, adding all of the municipal infrastructure (water, sewer, power, etc…)? We can’t just keep building all new, all over and calling it green because it has low-e windows and a bus stop nearby. Cradle to Grave energy consumption is a bigger issue than many people believe. Concrete and steel are very energy intensive to manufacture (i.e. not very environmentally friendly) and that’s what you need for the types of building which can house 30,000 people in 533 acres of space.
some more info on #yxd. http://www.citycentreairport.ca/admin/contentx/default.cfm?h=11120&PageId=11120
There’s no doubt energy and resources will be consumed by creating a new neighbourhood on ECCA lands. Energy, however, will be expended on new neighbourhoods on Edmonton’s borders too.
We can save on infrastructure, and long-term energy expenditure, by creating more central communities. Especially if people live where they work, even a little more.
And, since the plan is one with a long vision, we could be talking about high-speed trains to Calgary, and other domestic cities, in a few decades. Which changes the air transport discussion altogether.
Jeff, it is zoning and the city allowing sprawl a problem which can not be fixed no matter how much development takes place on any land in or around downtown. There are already many vacancies and slack space for development in downtown without wasting time and energy on demolishing and rebuilding on #yxd. Many people oppose building a new arena because ‘Rexall is good enough’. How about ‘the acres of empty space along Jasper Avenue (already serviced) is good enough for development’? Why are people so attached to demolition when better options already exist?
Long term vision is fine, but that rail linkage idea has been floating around for at least a decade now and zero progress has been made. The plan has been scuttled by CN, the municipalities, the Province, lack of funding, lack of interest, etc… it is also outside of the jurisdiction of the city and a completely different issue from #yxd.
Here’s one giving the later date for wrapping up the petition drive. It makes a huge difference as to whether they’re on pace to make it.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/sports/Runway+will+shut+when+Indy+ends/3317153/story.html
From CTV I found this quote:
“It’s really about a bunch of people who have their own planes wanting to fly in and out and wanting to have their own personal airport. It’s a bit selfish,” said Mandel.
As a commercial pilot I have flown various passengers, patients and what have you in over a thousand trips into Edmonton since moving to Alberta.I have lived in smaller communities north and also right here in Edmonton. It would seem obvious to me that if he is honestly believes what he said in the quote on CTV, then the man making the decision to destroy this airport actually has no idea what the city center airport is currently used for.
Also the quote from lesoteric
“Why are people so attached to demolition when better options already exist?”
Now I consider that a really good question.