City Building Conference 2023

Summary: Building a just city demands that we properly diagnose urban crises by locating their structural causes. This panel will explore how so-called "urban social disorder" in places like the downtown can be linked to intersecting deficiencies in our housing system, health system and justice system.

• Damian Collins, PhD, Director, Community Housing Canada Research Partnership, and Professor in the Faculty of Science
• Joshua Evans, PhD, Associate Professor of Human Geography
  
• Elaine Hyshka, PhD, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Health Systems Innovation at the U of A’s School of Public Health
• Daniel Jones, Criminologist and Associate Chair of Justice Studies at Norquest College
• Angela Staines, Research Assistant, School of Public Health

Summary: What does it take to build an environment for retail to be profitable? Over the last three years, the landscape of retail has completely shifted. We will discuss the current situation and what needs to change to ensure we have a thriving retail community.

• Chad Griffiths, Partner, Associate Broker, NAI Commercial Real Estate
• Gabriel Lorieau, Partner, Omada Commercial
• Alex Thomson, Vice President of Development, Cameron Corporation
• Heather Thomson, Director, UofA Centre for Cities and Communities

Summary: With GenX, GenZ and Gen Alpha coming in and reducing the role for boomers, what does this mean for our cities, our workforce, and our real estate markets?
Together we will discuss the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

• Allison Watson, Associate Vice President, Leger 360
• Gillian Stevens, PhD, Professor and Associate Chair (Graduate), Faculty of Arts - Sociology Department

The City of Edmonton Zoning Bylaw Renewal and District Planning: Planning for Change

Summary: Join City of Edmonton staff to explore the Zoning Bylaw Renewal Initiative and district planning, two projects that will change how we plan our city to welcome an additional million residents in Edmonton.

Summary: In this session, we will share two examples of collaborations between the University of Alberta and the City of Edmonton that address complex challenges. Collaborations such as these can lead to potential benefits ranging from leveraging each other’s assets to addressing systems-level transformation. This session reflects one aspect (i.e., student learning) of the Grand Challenge partnership framework between the city and the university, which will be previewed. The intent of the Grand Challenge is also to support research collaborations between the two institutions as well.

• Leo Wong, Associate Dean, School of Business Office of Education
• Heather Thomson, Director, Centre for Cities and Communities

Summary: Canada is arguably at a tipping point with the lowest available housing supply per capita of any G7 country, and attendant escalating prices for homebuyers. Within this context, Edmonton is the most affordable big city in Canada. Relative housing affordability is one of Edmonton’s major strategic advantages when it comes to talent attraction and retention. This advantage cannot be taken for granted, though, and is easily eroded. What goes into housing affordability in our region and what factors may impact this in the future? From policy to regulation to supply chain issues and financing, much affects our current position and where it might move next. With strong migration into Alberta, Edmonton has the opportunity to capitalize on this growth or see its share diverted to Calgary and other centres. What should we be focusing on, locally, not just to preserve our affordability advantage but to enhance the metro region’s real estate development success and economic competitiveness overall?”

• Kalen Anderson, Executive Director, Urban Development Institute (UDI) Edmonton Metro
• Scott Fash, Executive Director, BILD AB
• Adil Kodian, Senior Vice President, Rohit
• Andrew Usenik, Partner, Strata Developments
• Travis Pawlyk, Director of Planning Coordination, City of Edmonton

• Ahmed Hammad, PhD, PEng, PMP, Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering
• David Dale-Johnson, PhD, Stan Melton Executive Professor and Director, Centre for Cities and Communities
• Tracey Didluck, Project Manager, Integrated Planning, Development and Partnerships, U of A Facilities and Operations
• Eleni Stroulia, PhD, Acting Vice Dean, Faculty of Science (supported the creation of this topic but was unable to attend in person to present)

Summary: (Research Update) Provide information, ideas and updates on the Housing for Health cross-sector partnerships between University of Alberta researchers and faculty across multiple faculties, and the public-private development and planning sectors in Alberta and Canada to improve housing developments and neighbourhoods for active living, healthy food access and social connections, and to evaluate innovations implemented for their impacts, Updates on available and upcoming resources, such as the Healthy Community Guidelines being developed from working on pilot housing developments, for broad-scale use and implementation among developers, planners and municipalities will also be provided.

• Karen Lee, MD, MHSc, FRCPC, Director, Housing for Health
• Greg Christenson, CEO, Christenson Communities

Summary: As downtowns across North America grapple with the changing landscape of hybrid work, unique approaches to rebuilding vibrancy are unfolding in different cities and Edmonton is leading the way. Join the founders of the Downtown Recovery Coalition, a collaborative industry group advocating for policies that shift the outlook of the heartbeat of our city. The panel will focus on how this developed, to what we've accomplished and the next phase of radical transformation we need to see in downtown cores across the country.

• Alex Hryciw, Director of Strategy and External Relations, Edmonton Chamber of Commerce and Chair, Downtown Recovery Coalition
• Anand Pye, Executive Director, NAIOP and Vice Chair DRC
• Puneeta McBryan, Executive Director, Downtown Business Association and DRC Steering Committee Member
• Dave Young, Executive Vice President and Managing Director, CBRE and DRC Steering Committee Member

Summary: The purpose of the session is to provide an overview of:
(a) the main themes of the Illustration Competition,
(b) key take-aways from the first upcoming book, and
(c) the building of a research + design community internationally and locally.

• Paul Messinger, Professor, Alberta School of Business
• Kishwar Habib, PhD, MAHs. Urban Design. B.Arch, LEED Green Associate

Summary: 95% of Canadian residential mortgagors have mortgages of five years or less and there are virtually none with terms greater than 10 years. At the same time, 80% of US mortgagors have 15 or 30-year fixed rate mortgages. This workshop is meant to explore this issue and contemplate a push for change.

• David Dale-Johnson, PhD, Stan Melton Executive Professor in Real Estate, Alberta School of Business