Development at Blatchford remains behind schedule. Some councillors are worried it's too pricey to live there

Edmonton city councillors are pushing for more affordable housing in the Blatchford neighbourhood while keeping lofty environmental goals set out in the original business plan from 2014. 

Coun. Andrew Knack noted that when Blatchford was created, the idea was that the city would make money on land sales. 

"By doing that, are we pricing people out of the market right now?" Knack said at an executive committee meeting Wednesday.

"And if sales don't materialize as quickly as we want, we potentially don't see that return that we first thought." 

Knack said he was also concerned to hear the average cost of a townhouse on the former City Centre Airport lands is $650,000 — about $200,000 more than the average single-family home elsewhere in Edmonton.

"Is this going to be an urbanist Glenora — essentially a spot that no regular person can afford to live in because we haven't expanded those options?" Knack asked during the meeting. 

City managers have been tasked with finding ways to make building and buying in Blatchford more economical.

A progress report on Blatchford, presented at the meeting, shows there are only 45 occupied homes on the site. The neighbourhood's original plan called for building 500 residential units per year starting in 2018. 

Knack's message was echoed by Adil Kodian, with the Edmonton branch of the Canadian Home Builders' Association (CHBA).

"We do not believe there is a financially viable path forward without some adjustments to Blatchford's model," he told councillors Wednesday.

He said the CHBA would suggest a more gradual energy transition instead of a leap to 100 per cent renewable energy as outlined in the Blatchford business plan. 

"Blatchford has a long list of fairly laudable goals but none of those goals are being achieved without houses being built and people actually living there," Kodian said. 

Tom Lumsden, city manager of the Blatchford redevelopment office, said it's estimated to take 20 to 25 years to build out the some 280 acres, still a reasonable timeline considering what the site was ten years ago. 

The townhouses presently on site are bigger than new multi-housing units in the works on the same size of land, making those less expensive at about $465,000. Apartment styles are also still in the works, he said.