Edmonton is getting into the private building business, with an arm’s-length development corporation designed to meet the community needs regular developers won’t touch.
City councillors voted unanimously on Tuesday to endorse the creation of a city funded community development corporation (CDC).
The CDC will be provided with vacant city land and charged with building energy efficient buildings that look good and benefit the community.
“They’ll also be looking to fill niches in the housing market that the market itself doesn’t provide,” Mayor Don Iveson said.
Iveson said the plan is for the CDC to eventually be able to make enough profit to sustain itself without the need for government grants.
In the fall, administration will present an initial list of city land the CDC will be able to develop.
Coun. Bryan Anderson hoped to exclude surplus school sites from the inventory of land, on the advice of city branch manager Walter Trocenko.
“I don’t fundamentally agree that we should be taking that open, green, treed, active playing field space and putting a range of housing on it,” Anderson said.
“We can’t get those spaces back.”
Coun. Mike Nickel was the only other councillor to support his motion. Iveson said the CDC won’t be targeting surplus school sites and should never have been brought up.
Coun. Dave Loken said there was no sense shying away from the controversy of potentially developing surplus school sites.
“We’re in the business of controversy,” Loken said.
Council will review a more detailed business case in the fall, and vote on the initial budget late 2016.