So, for our first presentation
I'm pleased to introduce Tom Lumsden. Tom
is currently the development manager
for the Blatchford redevelopment project
in Edmonton. He is a professional
engineer and a graduate of the
university of Waterloo
and he has extensive experience leading
and facilitating land development for
major projects in Edmonton.
His career began with three years of
private sector consulting and then 10
years working for the city of Edmonton.
Facilitating land development
and he spent the next 12 years as a
senior development manager working for
karma now brookfield residential.
With over 22 years of experience Tom
brings a wealth of knowledge and
expertise in land development
in the public and private sectors and in
the Blatchford role Tom leads the team
responsible for building or planning
building and selling the community one
of the largest sustainable development
projects in North America.
So, without further ado please join me in
welcoming Tom to our virtual stage.
Tom I'll hand things over to you now.
Thanks Yvonne.
Okay should be good to go.
Like I said thanks Yvonne. As she
said my name is Tom Lumsden and I'm the
development manager for the neighborhood
in Edmonton called Blatchford and I'm
happy to be here today to tell you about
the start of our journey to build
one of North America's largest
sustainable communities.
But before we get into our future I'd
like to briefly take a look at our past.
There's an incredible history tied to
this land it's because of this history
that we have this once in a lifetime
opportunity.
The fact that we have 536 acres of
centrally located land in Edmonton
goes back to a decision made about 100
years ago to purchase what was a
farmer's field
for the grand sum of four hundred
dollars. Because of the visionary
nature of the mayor at the time Kenneth
Blatchford here you can see here
the land became the first licensed
airstrip in Canada. Making it Canada's
oldest airport.
And this plan played a major role in
Edmonton's development as a city and
what we know is the gateway to the north.
When the decision to close the airport
was made in 2008,
our city council recognized the need to
do something special with this land
which began the journey
we are on today.
Council set a bold vision for this land,
the vision is Blatchford will be home
to up to 30 000 Edmontonians living
working and learning in a sustainable
community
that uses 100 renewable energy, is carbon
neutral,
significantly reduces its ecological
footprint and empowers
residents to pursue a range of
sustainable lifestyle choices.
I personally like this vision because
it's concise and quite impressive.
Thinking back to 2010 when it was
created no one was really talking about
climate crisis.
It shows how forward thinking our
city council was at that time and the
city to agree to it and at the heart
of this vision we are examining one
question as a developer.
How do we want to live? I'm going to
share a video of
that explores that very question
[Music]
How do we want to live?
[Music]
How do we create community during a time
of change?
How do we build places for the people?
Who would call them home?
How do we take care of our neighbors? How
do we think about what a neighborhood
should be?
[Music]
How do we get around them to and from
them?
How do we power our lives when power has
been a part of the problem?
How do we remember our past while
respecting our future?
How do we make sure it's accessible to
everyone,
socially, physically, economically?
How do we want to live?
We're building a neighborhood where we
can find the answers:
renewable infrastructure, sustainable
design,
historic
urban design. That's never been tried in
Canada.
A community that's never been tried like
this
anywhere in the heart of Edmonton.
[Music]
So, did you get goosebumps from that as
we work to explore the question of how
to create a community that accomplishes
all those things?
We rely on three core guiding principles
social, environmental, and financial
sustainability.
When we consider social sustainability
we are thinking about our residents
health and well-being and the livability
of the community.
We want to create a neighborhood that
people live, love to live, in
one way they feel a sense of connection
to their neighbors. Where they feel proud
to know they have lowered their carbon
and environmental footprint,
where they're excited to get out and
explore their streets, and where they
feel healthier both mentally and
physically
because the neighborhood has been
intentionally designed to let people
live
a more active and connected life. There
are many ways to achieve this but I'd
like to share three examples of what we
are doing.
First, we're building engaging public
spaces, parks, plazas, community gardens,
skating rinks, and streets.
We want to create spaces that people
connect with and want to visit,
as you can see in the photo from our
first stage of the neighborhood,
we have built a playground that is next
to community gardens, that is next to the
former air traffic control tower that
will eventually become a community hub.
It's about all about creating
interesting spaces that draw people in.
Next we thought about the way it feels
when you you're shopping at a big box
store versus the experience of going to
a local boutique store.
Why does it feel so different? By making
sure we have integrated retail and
commercial throughout the community.
We are creating that pop down to the
local bakery feel
this mix of land use allows residents to
have all their needs met within the
community
and can foster relationships between
residents and businesses.
Lastly, we want Blatchford to be a
community for everyone so we are
providing a diversity of housing and
housing that supports density in an
attractive and appealing way.
For us, that means no single-family homes
are currently planned
only townhouses condos and apartments
are being built.
This achieves the density and is
sustainable.
We also plan to integrate affordable
housing throughout the neighborhood so a
diversity of
people can all live together. How a
community is designed
impacts how people live it can impact
how healthy they are how connected to
their neighbors they are
and how they connect to this sense of
community. To share an example of these
people first principles
that can impact somebody's lifestyle,
Anjali, who you see in the picture,
is a planner on my team. She used to live in
a five-minute walk from a grocery store
in a suburban community
even though it was very close to her
home, she would never walk.
It meant walking down a loud busy street,
crossing six lanes of traffic,
and then a giant parking lot. It didn't
even cross her mind to walk. She always
drove.
She's has since moved to a more
centrally located community in Edmonton
still five minutes from a grocery store
but she always walks. It could be minus
30, which happens in Edmonton,
and it would never occur to her to drive
why? Because her neighborhood has been
designed with short blocks, narrow
streets,
and huge elms lining the road, making
walking practical and enjoyable.
There are always lots of people
out on foot
and in fact getting into her car
wouldn't even make sense for her to do
this trip. The reason I tell you this
story is because Anjali's change of
mindset and thus lifestyle
is the epitome of what we're trying to
do in Blatchford
by designing Blatchford from the ground
up we're able to incorporate the best
urban design practices into the
community.
These are principles that are proven to
foster more active more sustainable
and more socially connected residents.
When we consider our ambitious
vision, if you recall the beginning
of 30 000 people net zero carbon neutral
for environmental sustainability, we're
carefully examining how we can minimize
heat power and water consumption.
The biggest piece of the puzzle for us
to solve is around the goal for 100
renewable energy usage and carbon
neutrality.
We need to start somewhere so we started
with our homes. We know homes are a major
source of greenhouse gas emissions.
We developed a three-part energy
strategy to reduce the emissions
associated with heating and cooling our
homes.
It's a strategy based on conservation
efficiency and renewables.
First, we looked at conservation, we
developed our own green building code to
make sure the homes
that are being built in
Blatchford are using less energy.
Using less energy is always our first
line of defense.
Next, we look at efficiency even though
we are reducing the amount of energy
needed to
our green building codes we
still need to find a way to provide
energy for heating, cooling and providing
hot water to buildings.
So, we've built the district energy
sharing system.
The system allows energy to be captured
and shared between buildings across the
neighborhood.
It can also share energy between seasons
by capturing
and storing the summer heat
energy to be used in the winter and vice
versa.
The last thing we looked at was
renewables, in order to charge the
district energy sharing system
we used renewable energy sources like
geo exchange sewer, heat exchange and
solar.
The first stage of the
community actually uses a geo exchange
field that was built under the first
storm pond.
This harnesses the heat energy from
below, the earth's surface
essentially the entire neighborhood's
heating and cooling needs
will be met by shared renewable energy.
Through this energy strategy
we believe the homes and buildings in
Blatchford will emit about 75 percent
fewer greenhouse gases than buildings in
a typical neighborhood.
In addition to energy we're also
reducing water waste and transportation.
From the start we have prioritized
recycling materials and reducing waste
during construction
one thing we did is we actually crushed
the former runways
and use that material to build the roads
in our first stage and we will continue
to do that through the future stages.
We also deconstructed the former airport
buildings as opposed to demolishing them.
This resulted in over 90 percent of the
materials being diverted from landfill
our water management plan is a good
example of putting the pieces together
to build a system that is functional,
beautiful, and sustainable. We have water
cistern set up on
to collect the rain water off the roots
of the buildings. These are located close
to the community gardens so residents
have a good source of water for their
gardens.
We have bio soils and rain gardens set
up to not only slow down the water
during storm events,
but to also beautify the neighborhood. We
have also built
our storm water pond into a
wetland
that filters pollutants and also
increases biodiversity of insects and
animals.
And we couldn't talk about
sustainability without considering
transportation.
Transportation accounts for 30 of
Edmonton's greenhouse gas emissions.
We know cars are still going to be a
part of people's lives
but we want to provide opportunities for
them to choose to drive less.
To do that we've made deliberate
decisions to design all of our streets,
to prepare prioritize pedestrians,
cyclists, train, and transit commuters
over private vehicles. This means
creating a seamless experience for
people.
If you want to ride your bike to the LRT
not only is there a path to take you
there
but there's a secure place to store your
bike and maybe even a fountain to fill
up your water bottle.
This kind of goes back to my story about
Anjali.
If you make walking or cycling the
easier, more enjoyable choice,
people will naturally choose that option.
Finally, we look at financial
sustainability.
We are considering both the economics
for the people that live there as well
as the economics for the city
of Edmonton. As a municipality, having
amenities and businesses in the
community isn't just a benefit for the
residents,
it's also a job creator. In addition,
to having the smaller retail
and commercial shops
that I've mentioned before about the pop
down to the local bulk
bakery field throughout the community
Blatchford
will also have a large town center which
will be a community hub for retail
office and commercial uses. We anticipate
that when the community is fully built,
thousands of people will be working here.
Living centrally
and sustainably can also provide an
economic benefit to residents, whether
through reduced car usage
or growing food in one of the community
gardens or reducing your monthly water
bill.
Finally, we also consider the cost
savings being realized by putting 30
thousand people
in a central location. As we know, the
cost of urban growth for a city can be
tremendous.
In addition to environmental impact of
longer commute times,
the financial costs of building new fire
stations and rec centers
can be significant because Blatchford is
located in the heart of Edmonton
surrounded by amenities, businesses,
transportation routes and neighborhoods.
The community can take advantage of the
existing services and infrastructure
already there. At the end of the day, we
want other communities to copy us
and we know that making decisions that
are fiscally responsible is key to
having other
Blatchford model adopted by others.
We believe Blatchford will be a landmark
development for Edmonton. It has
potential to transform our city
in a province best known for its oil and
gas industry
and a city that builds environmentally,
socially and financially sustainable
communities. Equally important it will
offer edmontonians a neighborhood that
they will be proud to be a part of.
A neighborhood that offers them an
affordable higher quality of life.
By achieving these things Blatchford will
help
position Edmonton as a leader in
sustainable community design
in North America and around the world. My
name is tom
and I thank you for taking the time to
hear the story of Blatchford
I'm happy to answer any questions you
might have.