The Christmas holiday break is a great time for reflection, partly because it falls at the end of the calendar year and partly because in Yellowknife, overeating and socializing aside, there isn't all that much to do. It's very cold outside, businesses and the territorial government shut down, people head south, news websites are full of useless "year in review articles", my wife and I don't have kids, the Philadelphia Eagles weren't in contention for the playoffs - you get the picture.
Over this year's break I spent a lot of time thinking about the City of Yellowknife's approach to downtown revitalization. Now is a good time for this particular type of reflection because we've just hired a new Senior Administrative Officer and we are about to begin the search for a new director of Planning and Development. Decisions made in the next three months will have a huge impact on the next decade or two of City planning. In many ways, this will be the most important three-month stretch in a very long time.
When evaluating the City's track record on downtown revitalization we have to distinguish between things, good and bad, that the City has actually had a hand in versus those that have happened without the City's involvement. For example, previous Councils deserve heaps of credit for investing in Somba K'e Park, but neither they nor the current Council should take credit for the recent proliferation of restaurants and hotel rooms in or near our downtown.
Likewise, although the City has stepped up to the plate to assist the growing population of residents struggling with homelessness and addictions, I don't believe it is to blame for failing to find solutions quickly enough. That unfortunate distinction belongs to higher levels of government.
Perhaps even more important than looking at what has happened in our downtown is looking at what hasn't happened - and this has really been the focus of my thinking on this topic. The Downtown Plan was adopted by Yellowknife City Council in 2002. It, and every downtown revitalization document produced in Canada in the 15 years since, placed an emphasis on two key tools for effecting change - intensification of the downtown residential population and the development of mixed use buildings.
Has the downtown population grown since 2002? We don't really know. Until last year Council had never asked for statistics on the downtown population. We now have numbers for 2015 but with only that one data point we can't really talk about growth with any certainty. Anecdotally, however, it doesn't seem like we've added more than a handful of residents. A couple dozen condominium units perhaps. Meanwhile, outside of the downtown, we've experienced a boom in condominium development. Given this, I don't think any objective observer could justify giving Council more than an F when it comes to increasing our downtown residential population. Especially given that for all those years, while we were professing to support growth in the downtown population, we hadn't bothered to measure it. "You can't manage what you don't measure."
Now on to the second essential tool of revitalization, mixed-use development. Mixed-use buildings are valued because they not only bring residential population to a given area, they also bring retail space, which is essential for "activating" the street front. I can only count one mixed use building that has been built since 2002. It is located on 52nd Street and, in truth, it doesn't fit the model used by most urban planners when they refer to multi-use projects due to its small footprint (3,000 sqft). Fourteen years, one (sort of) building. I think it's fair to say that we deserve an F in this category as well.
Is City Council truly to blame for a lack of population growth and mixed-use development in the downtown? We're not in the condo development business, after all. Should we perhaps blame the development community or the condo-buying community instead? In my opinion, that wouldn't be fair. They've been pulling their weight. As I mentioned above, condo development since 2002 has been a runaway success - it just hasn't happened where it could have an impact on downtown revitalization. And this is and was very much within the City's control. As is the form of development. Strategies for attracting mixed use buildings to a revitalization target area are well known and have been for a long time. Twenty or so great examples are contained in this 2004 CMHC how-to guide for cities.
Now for the silver lining. Both Council and the City's administrators have been learning by trial and error. Attempts have been made to incentivize development through tax abatements, grants, parking requirement reductions and even land assembly, although the latter has been imperfectly applied in my opinion. On at least one occasion these incentive programs have been measured, have been found wanting, and have been beefed up. It's time to repeat this evaluation because, in the eyes of developers, the costs and risks of developing in our downtown still outweigh the benefits. We know what tools other cities use to spur downtown development; we've tried to use some of these same tools; it hasn't worked; we now need bigger tools and more of them.
The other positive in this whole situation is that in the last two years, City Council has shifted its focus. Prior to about 2015, Council supported a number of beautification and streetscaping projects in our downtown. But the redevelopment of 52nd Avenue, with its now-infamous bike lane, served as a turning point in Council sentiment towards these types of projects - or at least their role as the primary tool of revitalization. A civic plaza proposal on the 50/50 lot has failed to receive Council support two years in row now, and this year a 50th street revitalization project was also rejected - with comments focusing mainly on the fact that it seemed premature. This is not to say Council isn't investing in the downtown, it is just doing so it different ways - ways that should lay the groundwork for revitalization. In the 2017 budget alone Council approved new or continued funding for joint Federal/Territortial Municipal Housing First Program, the Day Shelter, a Homelessness Coordinator position, a pilot program to provide short-term employment for residents experiencing homelessness, another pilot program for mobile Street Outreach Services, and a substantial outlay for a new Community Safety Officer program (which will require matching funds from the GNWT to get off the ground). These commitments should send a message to the development community that the downtown is on its way to becoming a safer place for all residents and a more attractive place to live, work and play.
And let's be clear, attracting development should be the most strategically important objective of our downtown revitalization initiatives. We have ventured far into Territorial Government territory with our investments in public safety and social programs, aided in large part by federal funding that won't last forever. Once the federal funding runs out, I don't believe taxpayers will accept an increase in property taxes to make up the gap. But if we've succeeded in attracting development and thereby increasing the downtown tax base, we shouldn't have to raise taxes.
So, if I were to give City Council grades in several important downtown-related categories they would be as follows:
Increasing the residential population of downtown Yellowknife - F
Attracting mixed-use development - F
Trying out various development incentives and figuring out what doesn't work - B- (because we could have figured this out 8-10 years ago)
Shifting the focus away from streetscaping and beautification towards social spending and public safety - A+
Approving a slate of projects in the 2017 budget that can and should make a real difference not only in people's lives but in improving the investment climate downtown - A++
A mixed report card to be sure, but it's trending in the right direction.