Plan Connected Communities
Encourage suitable density, mixed-use development, and zero-carbon transportation networks with smart land use planning.
Table of Contents
The Rationale
In 2021, emissions related to land use planning were responsible for around 7.2% of Alberta’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Land use planning creates emissions through spread-out and car dependent communities that increase Vehicle Kilometers Travelled (VKTs) and through the conversion of agricultural and natural land for urban and suburban uses. For instance from 2011-2020 in Alberta, 104,000 hectares of agricultural and non-agricultural land was lost to development (about twice the size of Waterton Lakes National Park), while 65,000 hectares of land was converted to urban and rural residential (about the size of the City of Edmonton). To reduce these emissions, many municipalities in Alberta and other jurisdictions around the world are adopting smart land use planning principles to support appropriate density and to build a case for expanding public transit and active transportation.
Smart land use planning that enables shorter trips and encourages active and healthy modes of transportation, such as walking and biking, can reduce vehicle emissions and support public health. High-quality, high-frequency public transit systems can further reduce the emissions associated with commuting and accessing amenities. Multi-unit buildings with shared walls facilitate decreased heat loss, enhancing energy efficiency and contributing to lower heating and cooling emissions per capita. Compact buildings and infrastructure that require less carbon-intensive materials like concrete and steel may help reduce embodied emissions.
Smart land use planning doesn’t just reduce emissions, it also enhances resilience by incorporating local risks and hazard data into planning and decision-making. Through hazard, risk, and vulnerability assessments and mapping, municipalities can address vulnerable areas like floodplains and develop alternative uses and spatially based adaptation options. This can include limiting development in hazard-prone areas, fortifying the built environment against climate impacts, preserving natural ecosystems as protective buffers, and advocating for nature-based adaptation measures. These strategies can equip communities with built-in mechanisms to face and adapt to climate-related challenges. Communities can bolster the impact of smart land use planning with supportive actions like educating stakeholders and decision-makers about risks, fostering dialogue, and implementing measures such as zoning, building codes, and land use permits.
Vision: What does success look like?
Alberta’s municipalities have modernized zoning bylaws to encourage suitable density and mixed-use developments along major corridors. This supports efficient, zero-carbon transportation networks that empower residents to access daily amenities through walking, cycling, or public transit. Municipal Development Plans (MDPs) seamlessly integrate climate data and targets to guide sustainable urban development and reduce the conversion of natural areas.
The Reality
Getting started requires foundational steps to set your municipality up for the successful implementation of Local Actions, as suggested below.
Foundations: Understand your Waste Stream and Develop a Waste Management Strategy
A critical starting point for municipalities as they plan to close the loop on waste is to understand the composition of their community’s waste – its composition, volume, and properties – and develop a comprehensive waste management strategy with diversion targets. Municipalities can either do this on their own or in partnership with other municipalities in their region. A waste management strategy is a crucial step to ensure subsequent solutions reflect actual processing capacity and that policies, programs, and infrastructure are designed to effectively tackle specific waste challenges. This strategy can also underpin the transition to a circular economy by outlining policies and programs focused on preventing materials from becoming part of the waste stream in the first place. For some municipalities, a waste management strategy might also include how to redirect waste feedstocks – the material or substance that is used as a raw material in industrial processes or for energy production – to support production and innovations in the local economy.
Foundations: Take Time to Build Relationships and Partnerships
In the transition to a circular economy, fostering strong community relationships and economic partnerships is pivotal. Inviting enthusiastic and dedicated community and business leaders who share the circular economy vision to participate in the planning stage can make your plan more effective and enable successful implementation. These community champions can bolster buy-in within the municipality by helping community members understand the value of a circular economy and thus support projects as they roll out.
The Response
It is essential to have relevant data before embarking on the local actions below. This data is a starting point for decision making and will help inform the actions that are relevant to your community. We recommend acquiring the following data independently or with a consultant for a deeper look:
- Emissions Data: Use the Climate Action Explorer to understand emissions sources by sector and type and explore how the Big Moves can reduce emissions.
- Climate Data: Use tools like Climate Data to identify historical data and future climate projections for decision making. Go further and identify the risks and vulnerabilities of future climate projections on your community.
- Socio-Economic and Demographic Data: Understand how your community interacts with the Big Move to make equitable decisions and optimize co-benefits. Identify opportunities to engage with the community early on and often.
REFERENCE
The Local Actions
The following local actions have been identified in response to the information above, as well as best practice research, current available data related to waste in Alberta, and criteria such as how the actions reduce emissions and risk, support equity, their feasibility, and cost. These local actions may be designed and/or implemented on their own, or in combination with other community strategies and programs and are recommended for local governments to more toward low carbon resilience as efficiently as possible.
Local Actions Reference
Expand for descriptions of the four types of interventionsEmpower
Providing educational programs, training, grants, and resources that enable community-driven initiatives to empower local residents, community organizations, and businesses to take an active role in climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. Empowering local stakeholders fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility for climate action, ensuring that solutions are tailored to the unique needs and characteristics of each community. Empower also includes the education of staff and industry.
Incentivize
Implementing a range of financial and non-financial incentives to motivate individuals, businesses, and institutions to adopt climate friendly practices. This may include tax breaks, subsidies, and recognition for businesses implementing sustainable practices.
Require
Establishing regulations and bylaws to mandate or compel adherence to climate-conscious practices. Clear requirements help create a legal framework for a baseline level of environmental responsibility.
Partner
Forging partnerships with local businesses, academic institutions, non-profit organizations, neighbouring municipalities, and community organizations helps local governments leverage collective expertise, resources, and builds influence and buy-in for comprehensive climate action.
Local Action #1: Implement cluster zoning
Cluster zoning is a planning practice by which new dwellings are positioned on the same parcel of land in close proximity, instead of spread across a larger area. This is a popular approach because it does not prevent residential development; it merely reduces the footprint of development and prevents fragmentation. This practice has already been implemented by many Albertan municipalities, so there is a strong foundation for knowledge sharing to accelerate the adoption of cluster zoning in new communities. Furthermore, this zoning approach allows municipalities to protect ecological and cultural heritage for future generations. The following interventions can be customized where necessary for the community’s context and reflect best practice research to implement cluster zoning in Alberta.
Additional Lots: Allow developers to create additional lots if they are smaller and clustered in one area (this is also known as “density bonusing”).
Prescribed Contiguous Space: Designate and assign zoning to specific areas of a municipality for cluster development. In these areas, all new developments must preserve a prescribed amount of contiguous open space. The exact amount will vary among jurisdictions. This intervention often aligns with a Hazard, Risk, and Vulnerability Assessment and is an important proactive approach to balance the cultural and historic value of natural spaces with growth and the rights of landowners and residents.
Bylaw No. 21/21
In Mountain View County, the municipality has adopted a measured approach to cluster zoning in its community. Cluster zoning is permitted in identified growth areas, ensuring that development sprawl does not occur. Parcels between 2.0 acres– 2.99 acres were identified for clustered housing, to ensure that the area’s agricultural land can be maintained. This highlights a proactive approach to land use planning that preserves significant land whilst meeting residents’ needs.
Bylaw 7-08
A proposed development at Wizard Lake in Leduc County, Alberta, has committed to cluster zoning to efficiently manage the development site. The residential component of the development has been allocated up to 7.3 hectares of land (25% of parcel); the remaining 75% of the parcel is earmarked for agricultural land use and stormwater runoff, as per the bylaw. This is an example of a small community setting an effective municipal bylaw and implementing responsible land use planning measures.
Local Action #2: Introduce planning and design standards that promote sustainability
Municipalities can use planning and design standards to steer developments towards climate change resilience measures. For example, reducing parking standards and enabling and requiring density. The following interventions can be customized where necessary for the community’s context and reflect best practice research to promote sustainability in land use planning in Alberta.
Public Awareness of Central Locations: Collaborate with community partners to design and implement educational or incentive programs that highlight the benefits, like cost savings, associated with more land-efficient locations. More visibility of associated benefits can encourage people to choose to live and/or work in land-efficient locations, such as those closer to business and commercial centers. One way this can be done is by working with community partners to assign a “walkability score” to neighbourhoods. This can help residents better understand the value of density and the benefits of living and working in places where they can walk/bike to services and amenities.
Transit Oriented Development: Consider educational and incentive programs that encourage development along transit corridors and around transit stations. Transit Oriented Development benefits residents (as they have convenient access to transit), transit services (as ridership increases), the community (high density neighbourhoods, as discussed, present numerous health, well-being, and environmental benefits). The Cities of Edmonton and Red Deer both encourage transit-oriented development.
Density Bonusing: When developers provide amenities or benefits to the community, approve density that surpasses what is currently allowed or in place. This can reduce the development footprint and is an economic benefit to the developer.
Cash-in-Lieu Parking: Allow developers to meet minimum parking requirements by contributing cash to a municipally managed fund rather than constructing all the required parking on site.
Community Revitalization Levy (CRL): This program allows municipalities to borrow against future property tax revenues to help pay for infrastructure development that might be required in a specific area. The levy is typically in place for 20 years, and no longer than 40 years. CRLs have been used to reduce urban sprawl through better land use, address affordable and social housing needs, and improve the economic viability of neighbourhoods, and clean up environmental damage. For instance, the City of Airdrie’s proposed Downtown Community Revitalization Levy Area Plan proposes to use funding to undertake a comprehensive environmental site assessment of the downtown area and potentially initiate soil contamination clean up in partnership with landowners.
Of note: Between 2014 and 2022, the Government of Alberta placed a moratorium on CRL approvals, pending review of the financial impacts of the program. On July 4, 2022, the Government of Alberta reintroduced of the Community Revitalization Levy program with new provisions.
Minimum Density Requirements: Implement a requirement that new developments meet or exceed a minimum density on a given area of land. This is often expressed as residential units per hectare or floor area ratio. For example, the City of Red Deer sets a minimum residential density target for new neighbourhoods of 14.8 units per net developable hectare.
Minimum Intensity Requirements: Develop intensification targets for development that takes place through infills or redevelopment in existing urban areas, for instance developing a brownfield, and consider doing so as part of local or regional growth strategy. These requirements can direct growth to under-utilized land in existing urban areas and can utilize existing roads, sewers, and other infrastructure.
Sustainability Scorecards: Encourage development to align with specific criteria and principles geared towards sustainability by implementing a scorecard or checklist system. These are useful tools to track climate action and sustainable planning initiatives at a local level and can enable accountability by showing decision-makers how well a development meets land use objectives. Scorecards can also provide a snapshot of progress and can be used to present the current situation of sustainability and development to Council.
This system could also be used in conjunction with other land use approaches. For instance, creating a checklist to ensure that alternative design standards or cluster zoning are implemented, or using scorecards to enforce existing municipal bylaws (e.g., ensuring developments are adhering to the parking standards defined by the local parking standards bylaw).
Optimize Lot Sizes in Rural Areas: Establish minimum or maximum lot sizes to make land use more efficient. This limits overt residential development in agricultural areas and reinforces urban growth boundaries. For example, the County of Vermillion River’s MDP discourages the premature subdivision and development of agricultural land by limiting the number of parcels permitted and restricting the size.
Eliminate Minimum Parking Requirements: Instead of requiring a minimum number of parking spots, introduce maximum parking requirements that put a hard cap on the number of parking spaces that can be built in new development. This is an approach adopted in several jurisdictions and works in tandem with transit-oriented design, Low Impact Development (LID) Guidelines, and preserving natural spaces.
Interjurisdictional Agreements: Small and medium-sized municipalities can leverage their proximity to one another to create coordinated planning services, in areas with overlapping civic boundaries. Interjurisdictional agreements can streamline land use planning for municipalities with similar goals and priorities and ensure common and individual interests are met. This is especially true in places with overspill between development boundaries.
This approach can be adapted to meet partner needs – agreements can be codified as a bylaw or entered into as a voluntary agreement. There is flexibility regarding what policies and principles municipalities can include to guide planning and manage future land. Consider: agreeing on the location of future drainage systems, identifying environmentally sensitive areas (especially those integral for resilience), improving public transportation, or even developing shared utility services.
Parking Standards
The City of Airdrie is a medium-sized community north of Calgary, Alberta. In 2023, the City of Airdrie consolidated its Land Use Bylaw B-01/2016, which contains its revised parking standards. A study conducted in 2001 formed the backdrop for the City’s parking standards, which concluded that the majority of on-street public parking was not used during peak hours. As such, the alternative design standards enforced by the bylaw reduced the parking requirements in line with the lower parking demand in the downtown core. The policy encompasses shared parking and centralized parking locations. The impact of alternative design standards that reduce parking is increased walkability and more efficient use of downtown land.
Sustainability Screening Report
The Town of Canmore has developed various methods of tracking its progress towards effective climate action, for instance the Sustainability Screening Report (SSR). Canmore’s SSR requires developers to provide written evidence of the net environmental, social, and economic benefits to the community, alongside an impact-offset matrix. A numerical impact value is calculated to determine the estimated total impact of the project. A score of zero is at least required, or a base case scenario in which the offsets outweigh the impact. Public engagement provides necessary feedback to the developers, a common facet of the planning process in Alberta. Therefore, this approach requires little adjustment to be integrated into the existing planning process across small and medium municipalities.
Photo: Mack Male.
Intermunicipal Development Plan
The Town of Millet and County of Wetaskiwin entered into an Intermunicipal Development Plan. This plan protects prime agricultural land from development, establishes a framework for attracting economic opportunities, ensures that the municipalities are development ready and future oriented, and to identify areas for growth and development.
Carbon Budget
Edmonton’s City Plan combines a Municipal Development Plan and Transportation Master Plan and includes direction for environmental planning, social planning, and economic development. The City Plan’s five Big City Moves are bold, transformative priorities that advance ConnectEdmonton’s goals, including the goal of climate resilience, to support the transition to a low carbon future. An innovative way that the City is doing this is through the development of a Carbon Budget. The Carbon Budget helps guide decision-making and actions by providing additional carbon emissions information. GHG emissions for each budget request with the 2023 -2026 capital, operating, and utility budgets were used to inform financial investment decisions throughout the budget deliberation process. The carbon budget is not the same as a capital and operating budget in that it is not deliberated or approved, rather it is presented for information to augment capital and operating budget decisions. As the carbon budget is being implemented by Edmonton, additional work is needed to use it as an effective decision-making tool.
Local Action #3: Plan to protect natural spaces and support connected green infrastructure.
Under the federal government’s Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program, Alberta will receive $1.25-billion for green infrastructure projects over the next 10 years (2018-2028). Projects over $10 million are required to undergo climate assessments including a GHG analysis and a climate change resilience assessment. The following interventions can be customized where necessary for the community’s context and reflect best practice research about the adoption of green infrastructure and protection of natural assets in Alberta.
Construction Standards: Create construction standards to ensure that green infrastructure (defined above) is properly designed, implemented and, importantly, maintained over time. These standards generally use a mix of prescriptive and performance-based elements.
Public Awareness: Municipalities can invest in public awareness campaigns to educate residents on the benefits and value of green infrastructure. Higher awareness can encourage residents to adopt nature-based solutions and increase public support for municipal action to protect and expand natural assets. Municipalities can also educate residents about the importance of biodiversity and practices to protect it, like native vegetation or “no mow” lawns.
Value Natural Assets and Infrastructure: Municipalities can assign a monetary value to natural assets. This practice illustrates the value, in real financial terms, of services provided by nature and builds a case to protect and expand natural assets if only to avoid future costs. For example, an assessment by the Natural Assets Initiative (NAI) and the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation showed that a seven-kilometer riverbank in Ontario provides $18.9-million worth of stormwater conveyance/drainage annually to nearby communities. This value is based on how much it would cost to replace this service with an engineered solution. Communities can start this process by creating an inventory and assessment of the natural assets in their jurisdiction.
Density Bonus: Permit developers to increase the density of their building through the allowance of additional floor area than otherwise allowed when they include green infrastructure in their construction design. This allowance incentivizes solutions like green roof installations, permeable surfaces, etc.
Residential Stewardship Programs: Provide financial incentives and technical support to property owners so they are inspired and encouraged to voluntarily install and/or maintain green infrastructure and stormwater management techniques. As property owners experience the benefits of their green infrastructure they may also become influential stewards in the community.
Low Impact Development (LID) Guidelines: Provide technical support to developers and property owners through LID guidelines so they can develop land in a way that works with nature to manage stormwater runoff where it falls. This ensures new developments use stormwater as a resource rather than manage it is a waste product. Examples of LID projects include rain gardens, green roofs, permeable pavements, and absorbent landscapes.
Provide a Public Mandate: Develop new (or align existing) regulatory and policy tools that embed natural assets and/or green infrastructure values and goals. For instance, include nature-based solutions in Community Plans, or develop a Green Infrastructure Management Strategy, Green Infrastructure Design Standards, a Stormwater Management Strategy, Asset Management Plans, Urban Forest Management Plans, Green Roof Bylaws, etc.
Targets: Develop relevant green infrastructure targets to guide implementation activities, facilitate monitoring and reporting, and provide rational based on data. Targets can be based on performance measures and data can take different forms. For example, the volume of rain captured by a particular piece of infrastructure, the amount of tree canopy, or the area of impervious surfaces. The land area within Calgary currently comprises approximately 44% impervious surface – a 12% increase over a 1998 baseline. The City’s Municipal Development Plan has set a target of drastically reducing the total impervious area in the city to 10-20% by 2076. By setting a target and tracking change over time, the city can justify and prioritize approaches to meet the target.
Shared Commitment: Collaborative efforts with developers, community stakeholders, and environmental organizations can help foster a shared commitment to green infrastructure goals. Partnerships can support the interventions above by enabling adoption, compliance, and implementation.
Collaborate with Educational Leaders: Identify opportunities to learn from experts doing work in these areas already. For example, the Alberta Low Impact Development Partnership supports LID training and education in communities across the province.
Low Impact Development
Low Impact Development (LID) management practices, including rain gardens, green roofs, permeable pavements, bioswales, and absorbent landscapes, hold significant potential to assist the City of Calgary in balancing development with efficient stormwater runoff management. The City’s LID initiative, a component of Calgary’s Stormwater Management Strategy, aims to reduce the rate and volume of stormwater entering rivers, maintain sediment levels in the Bow River, and develop sustainable stormwater management practices. The initiative is aligned with long-term growth plans outlined in the Municipal Development Plan, Calgary Transportation Plan, and 2020 Sustainability Direction. Collaborative efforts with the Alberta Low Impact Development Partnership (ALIDP) further reinforce LID research and initiatives, focusing primarily on land planning, building, and development practices to foster watershed protection and sustainable urban development in Calgary.
Infill Resilience Landscaping Research and Demonstration Program
Edmonton’s older neighbourhoods are undergoing densification through infill development and facing challenges such as inadequate stormwater services, increasing imperviousness, and elevation discrepancies between new and existing buildings, all of which contribute to overland and downstream flooding. When densifying neighbourhoods, it is generally recognized that source control, in other words, controlling how much flow makes it to the street, is integral for stormwater management. The City of Edmonton, in collaboration with EPCOR, has introduced the Stormwater Integrated Resource Plan (SIRP). Under this initiative, corner-lot triplex and quadplex units have the option to forego stormwater tie-ins if green solutions like rain gardens can match the performance of conventional piped systems. The Alberta Low Impact Development Partnership (ALIDP) program aims to showcase such green solutions, with plans to implement 165 square meters of rain gardens across six sites, aligning with EPCOR’s efforts to prioritize sustainable stormwater management in urban areas.
Local Action #4: Assess climate risks and incorporate climate adaptation measures into land use planning.
Municipalities should complete a Hazard, Risk and Vulnerability Assessment to gain a thorough understanding of locally specific current and projected climate risks to inform adaptation measures. This assessment will clarify where there is a need to update or develop new land-use policies, plans, or bylaws and help prioritize adaptation needs. The following interventions can be customized where necessary for the community’s context and reflect best practice research about incorporating climate adaptation measures into land use planning in Alberta.
Public Engagement: Invest in stakeholder engagement activities in your community to inform your understanding of how climate impacts and affects residents. This builds relationships within the community, ensures solutions are relevant, and contributes to buy-in as adaption measures are implemented.
Cost of Inaction: Evaluate the real value of adaptation measures by comparing their cost to that of responding or rebuilding after a climate impact or event. This means understanding how much it would cost the municipality to respond to climate hazards if no proactive actions, and uncovering which is the most cost-effective approach – preparing or responding. For example, the Canadian Climate Institute found that using climate resilient materials when maintaining and replacing roads can reduce climate change related costs by up to 98%, this is equal to $5–billion in annual savings over the next few decades.
Provide Mandates: Develop or update Hazard, Risk and Vulnerability Assessments at the community-scale. Funding opportunities often require applicants to identify the implications for adaptation and mitigation, and having this data available can expediate application processes.
Update Policy: Provide clean and consistent governance avenues for building climate resilience. The City of Edmonton’s Climate Resilience Policy outlines how the City will increase climate adaption and minimize exposure to the impacts of climate change by, for example, an adapted urban form, investing in and protecting ecosystems, and undertaking proactive risk management.
Shared Commitment: Collaborate with developers, community stakeholders, and environmental organizations to inform risk assessments and support implementation of the needed measures.
Regional Partnerships: Work with neighboring communities to understand and plan for climate impacts and collaborate on implementing related climate adaptation measures. This can offer added benefits like capacity support, cost efficiencies, peer learning, and knowledge sharing and can ultimately lead to more effective, holistic solutions.
Climate Resilience and Adaptation Plan
The Summer Village of Ghost Lake is a small community in the Bow River watershed, sited just north of Ghost Lake, a reservoir created on Stoney Nakoda land for TransAlta power generation. As a community that holds self-sufficiency and citizen action as core values, the Climate Resilience and Adaptation Plan was developed to equip staff and residents with an understanding of local climate risks and the ability to integrate that understanding into action and decision making. Recognizing the constraints of a small, rural municipality, the plan strikes a balance between government-led and community-level approaches. Many of these actions also integrate with the Municipal Development Plan (2020) and the Sustainability Plan (2012).
Municipal Development Plan
Within the City of Calgary, residents and businesses face significant challenges related to both urban and riverine flooding. To address these concerns, the city incorporated a dedicated section into its Municipal Development Plan (MDP), ratified in 2018. This section specifically focuses on policies aimed at providing guidance for planning and regulations governing development within the Flood Hazard Area (FHA). Highlighting the escalating risk of flooding and the heightened frequency of such events due to climate change, this portion of the MDP outlines a strategic approach to bolster public safety, mitigate damage to private and public properties, and fortify the city’s overall resilience to floods, reflecting the City’s commitment to proactive and climate-responsive urban planning.
ReCAP: Recommendations for Climate Adaptation Planning
Calgary developed a toolkit of climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction measures based on the latest advancements in best practices that can inform City planners and partners as they implement measures to reduce risk and increase resilience.
The report highlights “Options” for city planners to consider based on the effectiveness, barriers, costs, and implementation considerations of specific adaptation actions. Each Option encompassing best practices for adaptation in the built environment, natural environment, and social systems—addresses one or more of the six primary climate hazards impacting the City of Calgary.
Helpful Resources
- Municipal Planning Hub, Alberta Municipalities (formally AUMA)
- Land Use Planning Tools for Local Adaptation to Climate Change, Government of Canada
- Advancing Climate Action through the Land Use Bylaw, City of Calgary
- Understanding Land Use in Alberta, Government of Alberta
- Land Use Framework, Government of Alberta
- Efficient Use of Land Tools Compendium, Government of Alberta
- Pathways to Living Cities, Green Communities Canada, University of Toronto
- Climate Resilience Express Planning Guide, Municipal Climate Change Action Centre