NEW AND EMERGING PLANNING INITIATIVES
Award for Planning Excellence
2021
Project Name: City of Edmonton Open Option Parking
Company: City of Edmonton
Like many cities, Edmonton has long had minimum parking requirements in its zoning by-law, which has contributed to the City’s over-supply of parking. However, in 2020 the City approved a new Open Option Parking approach that removes the regulation of parking from the zoning by-law and shifts it to being a market-driven amenity.
By ”right-sizing” parking needs to what the market demands, Edmonton has the potential to transform urban spaces, add density, and better support the creation of new affordable housing. The initiative allows for shared parking spaces between users, while still prioritizing the provision of fully accessible spaces. This large shift represented the conclusion of a decade of incremental changes that Edmonton has made to parking requirements in their zoning by-law.
The City undertook a robust education and public consultation effort as part of this project. Innovative efforts were used to crowd-source data collection and get opinions from residents and businesses on an otherwise dry and technical topic. This project is just one of many in the City driving towards a more sustainable future.
The jury applauds the City of Edmonton for its leadership on this project and being the first major Canadian city to take such a drastic step away from regulatory parking.
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CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING
Award for Planning Excellence Merit
2021
Project Name: Edmonton City Plan
Company: Edmonton City Plan
The Edmonton City Plan is a comprehensive document that promoted the means to move Edmontonians forward with focus, boldness, and agility within the global context. It is a modern policy document that integrates all city strategic plans.
Anchored in economic and health realities, the City Plan is a living document built with resilience to disruption in mind. The overall goal of the plan is to lay out the path for a city of one million to grow in the coming decade, by responding to social and environmental challenges through people-focused, evidence-based, integrated, and measurable actions. It builds on the city’s transformational priorities (the five Big City Moves). The Edmonton City Plan was recognized for its sustainability goals: people-oriented, compact, and efficient urban form, fueled by the integrated Municipal Development Plan and the Transportation Master Plan, a geospatial approach to analyze nodes, corridors and urban fabric, growth management, preservation of the North Saskatchewan River Valley and ecological corridors, and clear strategic objectives and indicators, while seeking synergies with the Edmonton Metropolitan Region Growth Plan.
The Edmonton City Plan is a good example of how technical studies, strategic documents, and multifaceted participation techniques can reach a broad audience and engage stakeholders and the community to support and enable the re-imagining of sustainable development policies and actions by city staff.
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