IDEA Letter - Infill Fire Protection Program

1 Sir Winston Churchill Square
Edmonton AB, T5J 2R7
City of Edmonton

June 24, 2021


Re: Infill Fire Protection Program 

Dear Mayor and Utility Committee,

Infrastructure deficits and costs are some of the biggest barriers to medium-scale development projects in North American cities. Over the past two and a half years, the City of Edmonton, EPCOR and IDEA have worked together to pilot and collect data in an innovative way to rebuild our public infrastructure. Through the Pilot Program, we were able to help fund seven missing middle projects that help to diversify neighbourhoods, better utilize existing infrastructure and create a program that would help distribute costs fairly to all users.

Recap of the Pilot Program: Thirty-four development projects were submitted to the Pilot project for review and the seven highest-ranking projects were selected for funding. Six development projects for low-rise apartment buildings and one row house style development (112 units of housing in total) were supported with funding from the Pilot project. The Pilot project was not able to support more projects due to funding constraints. Projects that ranked highly were typically missing middle style developments near transit priority corridors as defined by the Bus Network Redesign and transit/LRT stations. Costs of fire protection upgrades eligible for Pilot project funding ranged from $60,000 to $475,000 per development project.

At the beginning of the Pilot Program, we did not know how many projects were unable to move forward because of deficient water main infrastructure, and high costs. Through this pilot, we were able to gain a better understanding of future infrastructure demands to support what the infill industry is building. After the pilot, we surveyed those who applied for the funding and 50% of the applicants that followed up through a survey said that the reason the project didn’t move forward was because of high infrastructure costs.

We wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to City Council for taking the bold move and funding the pilot. We want to thank EPCOR and City Administration for working with us over the past years to get us to this point. We ask that Utility Committee approve the creation of a permanent Infill Fire Protection Program with $20 million in funding over the next five years as it will without a doubt help to achieve our City Plan goals.

Sincerely,

mariah signature.PNG

Mariah Samji
Executive Director
Infill Development in Edmonton Association