West Edmonton neighbourhoods ready for spring renewal

By Katrine Sorensen

EDMONTON – This spring, construction workers will begin revitalizing some of the old and ravaged streets in a number of west end communities.

As a part of the City of Edmonton’s Neighbourhood Renewal program, sidewalks, roads, lights, curbs and gutters will gradually be renewed and restored.

Rio Terrace neighbourhood renewal

Tony Andrezejewski, the community league president in Rio Terrace, says street re-surfacing will lend a helping hand to community members who are less mobile.

“The sidewalks were very badly chewed up,” Andrezejewski said. “Especially for the people, the handicapped people, in our neighbourhood, they can’t walk on the sidewalks sometimes.”

Andrezejewski said the roads of Rio Terrace were rated among the worst in Edmonton before the renewal was started, something that was taking a toll on the daily routines of its citizens. Andrezejewski said he would hit cracks in the sidewalks when clearing snow or sweeping.

“I can’t wait ‘till they fix the sidewalks and the roadways,” he said.

Rio Terrace is halfway through a $14-million renewal process that was started in 2010. Avi Thiessen, construction project manager for Rio Terrace, said the neighbourhood will be done in 2011.

He says the construction was slated to start around May 3, but the construction teams may be able to move in earlier depending on the weather.

The anatomy of a neighbourhood renewal

West Jasper Place is also scheduled to start street renewal this spring, while other neighbourhoods such as North Glenora and Laurier Heights will start renewal in 2013. Meadowlark was completed last September.

View this map of the neighbourhoods picked for a renewal in 2010-2014.

The renewal is executed in phases stretching over two years. New street lights are typically installed first.

Director of neighbourhood renewal, George Tepley, said the city tries to coordinate with drainage departments and utilities to make sure underground work is done before the construction workers start working on road surfaces.

“We look at what plans they have for neighbourhoods, and try to match them as much as possible,” Tepley said. “Because we’re trying to maximize the bang for the buck here.”

If maintained properly, the average lifespan of a road surface is 50 to 60 years, but Tepley says in the past roads have been neglected.

“The unfortunate part is that not much has been done to the roads since these neighbourhoods were built, until now,” he said.

Now, the city works with a thorough maintenance cycle that buys the streets more time. 12 years after a neighbourhood is paved, it will be coated with an emulsion that seals up cracks and holes. About 30 years after paving, the streets will be covered with a new layer of asphalt. This cycle continues until a neighbourhood is due for a renewal once again.

The cost of new sidewalks

Although most of the renewal is funded through a property tax hike of two per cent – reduced to 1.5 per cent this year – homeowners will have to pay half the cost of fixing up the sidewalks in front of their houses.

A new sidewalk will cost around $164 – or about $12 per metre a year for 20 years. Homeowners will be billed when the neighbourhood renewal is complete.

According to Andrezejewski, this is a price Rio Terrace residents are willing to pay for their sidewalks. The community in each of the renovation projects are required to put the sidewalk renovations to a vote. About 98 per cent of homeowners in Rio Terrace voted for a new sidewalk.

Tepley said this is also the trend throughout the city. Sometimes residents ask for a renewal before their neighbourhood is due, he added.

“If they see how the rest of the neighbourhood looks, a lot of times they come back the second year and say: ‘ok we changed our mind, can’t we get the same curb gutter and sidewalk installed in front of ours’,” Tepley said.

Well-organized renewal

Andrezejewski is pleased with how smoothly the construction has been executed. Even the prospect of construction trucks taking over his normally quiet community this spring doesn’t make him cringe, he said.

“(We’ll) just have to bear with it, at least until its fixed up,” he said. “It’ll look nice after.”

 

 

Want to better understand the transformation? Check out the video here –> Renewal