Edmonton Minute: Photo Radar, Rental Licenses, and Warehouse Park Plan

Edmonton Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Edmonton politics

This Week In Edmonton:

• There will be a City Council meeting on Monday at 9:30 am. On the agenda are several public reports including a Capital and Operating Budget Priorities, Funding, and Tax Tolerance report and a Memorandum of Understanding with Bigstone Cree Nation. Council will also receive a report entitled Snow and Ice Control - Options to Increase Service Standards and another regarding licences for rental providers. If this meeting doesn’t conclude on Monday, it will continue on Wednesday at 9:30 am.
  
  
• On Tuesday, at 9:00 am, there will be an Agenda Review Committee meeting, followed at 1:30 pm by a City Council Public Hearing for 25 zoning amendments. You may recall one of these zoning amendments near the Prince Rupert neighbourhood where residents opposed the building of a crematorium. This time, the rezoning application specifically excludes crematoriums at this site.
  
  
• There may also be a City Council Non-Regular Meeting to discuss a tax bylaw. This meeting is only listed on one of two City schedules, so we are not sure if it will go ahead. We will keep an eye on this and let you know if anything of consequence happens! If it happens, it will happen on Wednesday from 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm.

Last Week In Edmonton:

• The City held some public engagement sessions to get feedback on the design of the Warehouse Park Plan. Two designs have been selected as finalists, a more formal one with flat terrain and straight paths, and an organic option with meandering paths and sloping hills. The public space will be in the downtown core and will replace several surface parking lots that the City has been acquiring. An online forum will take place on Tuesday for residents who were unable to attend the in-person sessions.
  
  
• The decision to close washrooms at LRT stations has been reversed and City Officials have decided that washrooms will be re-opened in phases, with new security measures in place. Hourly checks from security guards, an extended cleaning program, and disposal containers for sharps will be part of the new measures. The decision to close the washrooms was made in an effort to prevent drug overdoses.
  
  
• The City of Edmonton said it cannot afford to continue funding traffic safety programs. They say this is thanks to them receiving less cash from photo radar tickets thanks to reduced traffic volumes due to work-at-home orders and the Province letting them keep a smaller share of the revenue. It's interesting that traffic safety was what the City chose to cut to make up for this reduction though, isn't it? If it's such an important program, couldn't they have kept it and cut something else that's far more wasteful?

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