[Out of Towner]

Communal fire pits are a rare sight in urban areas, interesting inclusion to the neighbourhood. I would love to have one of these nearby, but people have a tendency to ruin things like this for everyone else.

While the needlessly heated discussion about the comparative GHG impacts of in-city gas and wood-burning fires continues, there have been 5,065 forest fires in Canada this year, burning 8,323,898 hectares of important, biodiverse land. In 2023, these fires created 640,000,000 metric tons of GHG emissions. "They found that the Canadian fires released more carbon in five months than Russia or Japan emitted from fossil fuels in all of 2022 (about 480 million and 291 million metric tons, respectively)."

Let's not argue about candle scents while the house is on fire.

You guys have it all wrong. The debate isn't about the quantity of GHG emitted by the fire pits you cite or the fire pit emissions at Warehouse Park that you pooh pooh. It's the inconsistency of the City's GHG policy that's the issue. If the City's GHG policy is imposed and measured by the quantity of emissions generated, then I should be permitted to walk into the next Edmonton Elks game and light up a cigarette or cigar as I please. It shouldn't matter that there's a possibility that it bother others because the GHG emission is small. Surely, one can see that it's not the quantity of the emission that's the issue.

 

[chrisvazquez7]

The equipment was removed from Ecoden's site yesterday; no movement seen today aside from someone working in the site office. Any idea what's going on here, and if this is normal?
View attachment 680022

Spoke to the guy on site today. He said they’re just waiting on the Building Permit. They have a shoring company on standby. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks they’ll get going again.

 

[fjordgard]

Spoke to the guy on site today. He said they’re just waiting on the Building Permit. They have a shoring company on standby. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks they’ll get going again.

Is this (digging down 4-5 feet before a building permit, then waiting for the permit to be issued) a normal practice or should we be concerned that they do not have their stuff together? This isn't my world so genuinely curious - and I desperately want these 4-6 storey projects to be successful!

 

[Coprolite]

You guys have it all wrong. The debate isn't about the quantity of GHG emitted by the fire pits you cite or the fire pit emissions at Warehouse Park that you pooh pooh. It's the inconsistency of the City's GHG policy that's the issue. If the City's GHG policy is imposed and measured by the quantity of emissions generated, then I should be permitted to walk into the next Edmonton Elks game and light up a cigarette or cigar as I please. It shouldn't matter that there's a possibility that it bother others because the GHG emission is small. Surely, one can see that it's not the quantity of the emission that's the issue.

This is the thread for talking about Blatchford.

 

[policyenthusiast]

Spoke to the guy on site today. He said they’re just waiting on the Building Permit. They have a shoring company on standby. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks they’ll get going again.

Is the turnaround for building permits that long right now? Also since the Blatchford land is repurposed, is it being called greenfield or infill?

 

[Out of Towner]

This is the thread for talking about Blatchford.

So then why don't you practice what you preach?

"We do have an actual honest to goodness wood burning fire pit in Littlewood Park, just north of the Control Tower (picture 1). Its entire lifetime operational GHG output to date is going to be less than that of burning a few tanks of gas for an SUV, and most of that would have been the night when some canine copulation technician decided to use it to burn construction waste in a bonfire far exceeding the pit's actual capacity. Were it not for that one guy, the total output would be handily less than burning one tank of gas in a RAV4. It would admittedly be a bit more GHG efficient if in terms of the actual combustion equation if it burned propane instead of firewood, and not to mention produce much less by way of micro particulate air pollutants. Either way, it's a pretty weird thing to get worked up about even in the context of such "controversies" as "is CO2 an efficient absorber of IR wavelength radiation with long atmospheric residence times and are anthropogenic sources of it significant". It's the kind of thing that's easily offset by me personally biking to the downtown farmer's market instead of driving, which is an easy thing to do since we have an actual bike network and the connections are getting better."

"The new 113 Street bike lane (picture 2) enabled by the funding for the bike network expansion in particular is going to be an amazing connection for us, since it stands to make reaching the network much less convoluted and just make it a bit easier to cross Kingsway Ave without getting hit by a numpty truck."

 

[Coprolite]

So then why don't you practice what you preach?

"We do have an actual honest to goodness wood burning fire pit in Littlewood Park, just north of the Control Tower (picture 1). Its entire lifetime operational GHG output to date is going to be less than that of burning a few tanks of gas for an SUV, and most of that would have been the night when some canine copulation technician decided to use it to burn construction waste in a bonfire far exceeding the pit's actual capacity. Were it not for that one guy, the total output would be handily less than burning one tank of gas in a RAV4. It would admittedly be a bit more GHG efficient if in terms of the actual combustion equation if it burned propane instead of firewood, and not to mention produce much less by way of micro particulate air pollutants. Either way, it's a pretty weird thing to get worked up about even in the context of such "controversies" as "is CO2 an efficient absorber of IR wavelength radiation with long atmospheric residence times and are anthropogenic sources of it significant". It's the kind of thing that's easily offset by me personally biking to the downtown farmer's market instead of driving, which is an easy thing to do since we have an actual bike network and the connections are getting better."

"The new 113 Street bike lane (picture 2) enabled by the funding for the bike network expansion in particular is going to be an amazing connection for us, since it stands to make reaching the network much less convoluted and just make it a bit easier to cross Kingsway Ave without getting hit by a numpty truck."

Yes. That is talking about an extant park and fire pit in Blatchford and a very promising new bike connection to Blatchford.

 

[Coprolite]

Is this (digging down 4-5 feet before a building permit, then waiting for the permit to be issued) a normal practice or should we be concerned that they do not have their stuff together? This isn't my world so genuinely curious - and I desperately want these 4-6 storey projects to be successful!

It's eerily similar to some of the things I've seen working on projects for pipeline companies, which is one of the big reasons that I charge them more.

 

[Out of Towner]

Is the turnaround for building permits that long right now? Also since the Blatchford land is repurposed, is it being called greenfield or infill?

View attachment 680091

Blatchford has a master plan so it's presumably classified as greenfield. Note the variance in the processing time targets between the greenfield and infill designations. One might assume that its related to development opposition from residents living in infill communities. With a master plan such as at Blatchford there should theoretically be less public consultation work slow downs.

 

[Coprolite]

Is the turnaround for building permits that long right now? Also since the Blatchford land is repurposed, is it being called greenfield or infill?

View attachment 680091

In terms of actually getting a building permit, that's more like greenfield, albeit with the complexity that Blatchford has its own unique zoning framework.

Yes, it's not TRUE greenfield, but the permitting process once the land is prepped and transferred to the builder are similar to building in a new subdivision. The quirks of it being brownfield (demolition, remediation, etc) are handled by the developer.

 

[fjordgard]

Encore has applied for development permits for lots in the next stage of development. They are really moving now.

 

[thommyjo]

View attachment 680203

Encore has applied for development permits for lots in the next stage of development. They are really moving now.

Where is this map from?

 

[fjordgard]

Where is this map from?

The City's maps website. I just searched for development permit applications in September and took a screenshot.

 

[Coprolite]

Received notification of a request to amend to BLMR zone text today.

 

[husky]

Is the turnaround for building permits that long right now? Also since the Blatchford land is repurposed, is it being called greenfield or infill?

View attachment 680091

It should also be noted that those times are based on a complete application. Times can be longer is additional information etc. is required for review.