CTV News Edmonton and Global News Edmonton have reported:

Alberta has ordered Edmonton to roll back key zoning rules that encouraged higher-density housing in established neighbourhoods, escalating tensions between the provincial government and the city. Premier Danielle Smith announced the directive on Thursday, requiring the city to return to pre-2024 rules for housing types, density and building heights and to restore minimum on-site parking requirements that were removed in 2020. Council has three months to comply, while the province says the changes will remain in place during a broader review of land-use rules, public consultation and discussions with industry, which Edmonton will have 18 months to complete.

Edmonton has infill projects at different stages of completion, but the directive has left questions about what they will look like in three months. University of Alberta housing scholar Damian Collins said the city’s infill policy has sought to meet housing needs as the population grows. “It’s actually been very successful at adding housing to our established neighbourhoods, and in doing so, reducing the need for sprawl around the edges of the city,” he said.

Smith said the province acted to address what she described as “unintended pressures on utilities, water supply, parking, [and] other municipal services like transportation and waste removal.” “These need to be considered in a thoughtful and balanced approach,” she told reporters at a Thursday news conference. Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams called the situation an extraordinary circumstance and said he hoped the province and city could hold constructive discussions.

“This is really giving Edmonton a lot of options, in terms of what they can do moving forward,” Williams said. “I think Edmontonians and Albertans generally want to see a constructive relationship. This is not a dictate or an ultimatum, this is a conversation.” The province’s direction requires Edmonton to revisit rules largely in place since 2024, which were designed to enable more infill development across the city.

Mayor Andrew Knack said Friday that he was surprised by the decision. “Yes, because I think governance should actually mean something,” he said on Global News Morning Edmonton. “This is going have a direct impact on people’s ability to make housing choices for themselves. This will have an impact and create chaos in investment attraction and retention.” He said Smith’s decision could affect municipalities across Alberta.

Knack argued that limiting infill would make housing less affordable and move growth to Edmonton’s outskirts, where new infrastructure and services add long-term costs. Collins said the directive could also change developers’ interest and investment in Edmonton, with a “negative effect on developers and people who were already committed to building more houses in our established neighbourhoods.”

“The goal of the City of Edmonton is to have 50 percent of new housing within the established neighbourhoods, and a lot of that is achieved through infill,” Collins told CTV News Edmonton. “If that’s no longer possible, the new housing will almost by default end up being in the green fields on the edges of the city, contributing to suburban sprawl and the costs that puts on both taxpayers and people who live in those outer areas, who, almost by necessity, will find themselves living a very car-driven lifestyle.”

Some neighbourhood groups have long challenged city zoning bylaws and policies, especially in mature areas where higher-density buildings replace single-family homes. Residents have raised concerns about crowded parking and municipal services. Edmonton Neighbourhoods United, an independent community organization, called the provincial change an “opportunity to address residents’ concerns and develop a more responsive approach to infill through meaningful community engagement.”

Ward Métis Coun. Ashley Salvador said many contentious points had already been covered in public engagement over the years, and that Edmonton had been considering infill housing for nearly two decades. “Over the last 15 years, the City of Edmonton has been taking incremental steps to ensure that we are building enough housing to keep up with demand … To have the provincial government coming in with an unprecedented step, a directive, to tell us to reverse course after all of the work has gone into this is completely unacceptable,” she told CTV News Edmonton.

Residents have complained about inadequate notice before construction began. In the two years since the current zoning bylaw took effect, some neighbours have said they were surprised and upset by the size, design and number of multi-plexes in mature areas. Waste carts have also cluttered alleys as populations increased. A city spokesperson described the bylaw consultations held over several years as “the most comprehensive level of engagement the city has ever done before or since.”

Smith said many residents do not notice construction until it is underway. Salvador agreed that people may become aware of a change at that stage, but said this is not unique to infill. “That is how neighbourhoods change and evolve over time,” she said. “We spent five years engaging on the zoning bylaw, we delayed approving the zoning bylaw for an additional year to allow for further consultation and engagement.” A city spokesperson said council had also adjusted permitted multi-plex sizes, building heights and site coverage after receiving more feedback.

Salvador said council had been addressing waste-cart problems with a new bin-sharing system and that water supply concerns had been addressed. Epcor requires infill developers to provide water infrastructure for a new development or upgrade infrastructure in an existing area, according to its website. Parking remains a separate point of concern for neighbourhoods worried about street availability: Edmonton became the first major Canadian municipality to remove citywide minimum parking requirements in 2020. Under the policy, called open option parking, businesses and landowners choose the amount of on-site parking they believe they need. City data shows an average of about four parking spaces are built for every eight-plex.

Salvador called some of Smith’s comments a “misguided” approach that was not based on facts or data. The premier told reporters she had heard of 32-unit rooming houses with no parking and no consideration for neighbourhood effects. Edmonton council passed new rooming-house restrictions last month.

“We are witnessing the erosion of local democracy in real time,” Salvador said. “This is a continued pattern of overreach and another redirect attack on the local autonomy of duly elected local councils. Today it’s infill. Tomorrow, bike lanes, libraries, safety, photo radar.” Both Salvador and Knack have said the rollback will cost taxpayers.

Knack said Edmonton was not consulted before the provincial announcement. “At the end of the day I would have preferred to work with the provincial government, but they didn’t give us the courtesy of even a five-minute phone call before deciding to make changes,” he said. Asked about challenging the directive, he said council will “have to examine all the legal options.” The city’s urban planning team said it was reviewing and assessing the announcement.

A special Edmonton council meeting is scheduled for Oct. 16 to discuss the directive and possible next steps. CTV reported Knack expected to call an emergency council meeting the following week. Ward tastawiyiniwak Coun. Karen Principe cautioned against treating the dispute as a war between the city and province. “They see it as war,” she said of some colleagues. “When you go in with a frame of mind of ‘it’s us against them,’ I don’t think anyone wins. We have a job to do. We need to work with other levels of government and it’s just the reality. “We need to pull up our socks and get to work and figure this out.”

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas also criticized the directive, saying it threatened local democracy and set a dangerous precedent for provincial influence over city councillors. He said councils must hear citizens at public hearings and use that evidence in their decisions. “Just because the premier agrees with how I voted yesterday, does not mean that she gets to decide how I vote tomorrow,” Farkas told reporters outside Calgary city council chambers Friday. “You can’t order me to vote a certain way at city council, and if I don’t adhere to your order - are you actually going to fire me as the mayor of the City of Calgary?”

Jan Hardstaff of the Residential Infill Working Group said she hoped the intervention would reset relations between the two governments. “I think we need to start having a conversation instead of a confrontation with the city,” she said. “I think city council needs to stop looking at this as a kind of doom-and-gloom scenario. Instead, I think we need to see this as an opportunity to reset.” CTV’s Jeremy Thompson and Chelan Skulski and Global News’ Dayne Patterson, with The Canadian Press, contributed to the coverage.