Garbage will be sucked underground in proposed Edmonton airport lands development

Image is a futuristic example and not a photo of the actual city.

EDMONTON - Noisy garbage trucks won’t be rumbling down neighbourhood streets in the new City Centre Airport Lands. Instead, residents will dump their bags of waste into street-level garbage chutes that connect to an underground vacuum collection system, which will whisk the bags off to a nearby sorting plant.

The proposed community of 30,000 will also have “agri-hoods,” a term coined to describe residential areas with large green spaces between block of apartments and townhouses where people can grow food, city architect Barry Johns told about 250 people at the Food in the City Conference in the first update on the airport lands in many months.

If there are surplus vegetables, the city might be persuaded to put on a mobile farmers’ market in an LRT car and zip to another party of the city, said Johns, adding local food production is a key element of the community plan.

“There are about 1,000 community garden plots in Edmonton and that number will almost double when the airport lands are built out,” said Johns, adding that rooftop gardens will be part of the mix.

If all goes well, migrating birds will use the wetlands being built on the north end of the site near stormwater lakes where he hopes kids will be able to wade.

The master plan for the projected community north of downtown is getting the final touches and will go before council this fall, said Johns. Construction could start in two years and student housing for NAIT is ready to go.

Johns’ firm, in a joint venture with Vancouver firm Perkins and Will, is devising architectural guidelines in the plan to ensure buildings meet the goals of a carbon neutral housing as mandated by council.

The density of the new community will be about 55 housing units per hectare, lower than the central community of Oliver at 70 units per hectare, but much higher than the 1950s’ Westwood community at 10 units per hectare. Vancouver’s False Creek has 100 units per hectare.

Heating and electricity for the entire community will be provided by a biomass heating plant on the site, said Johns, adding there have been talks with a number of private utility companies interested in building the plant.

Water use in Edmonton is about 209 litres per person per day, and the airport lands will aim for an average of 138 litres daily, party by using grey water to flush toilets.

A simple measure like getting rid of garbage trucks goes a long way to reduce carbon emissions and eliminate the need for wide alleys and roads, he said.

The city will install the services and then plots of land will be sold off to developers, he said.

Despite the environmental conditions put on buildings, Johns said he did not think there would be difficulty attracting developers to start building in the community, which will have very few single-family homes, but many townhouses and four-storey apartments.

“The market is changing. Young urban people are demanding a quality of life and want crowds,” said Johns.

Also, retiring boomers don’t want to live in suburbia.

Some delegates expressed concern that building houses to higher environmental standards might make them more costly.

Johns said one solution is to take the costs of a parking stall out of a the price of a condo for people who do not have a car. That could save $50,000 to $75,000 on a condo priced at $350,000, he said.

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Article from:  http://www.edmontonjournal.com/life/Garbage+will+sucked+underground+proposed+Edmonton+airport+lands+development/6685279/story.html

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