Blatchford is a
carbon neutral
Carbon neutrality is a state of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. This can be achieved by balancing emissions of carbon dioxide with its removal (often through carbon offsetting) or by eliminating emissions from society (the transition to the "p ...
community being developed on the site of the decommissioned
City Centre Airport in
Edmonton
Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...
,
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
.
With an area of , Blatchford is approximately the size of Edmonton's
downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
core.
It is planned to be a medium-high density neighbourhood which will rely on renewable energy and a
district energy sharing system, contain two
Light Rail Transit (LRT) stations, and be carbon neutral.
The first residents moved into Blatchford in late 2020, approximately five years after ground was broken and four years after the first homes were originally expected to be occupied. Development of Blatchford is occurring in phases; phase one, which is currently under construction, will see 250 townhouses and mixed-use buildings constructed on six parcels of land.
Blatchford is expected to take 20 years to fully develop, and contain approximately 30,000 residents once it is complete.
History
![Kenneth Blatchford 1928](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Kenneth_Blatchford_1928.jpg)
A plan to develop a sustainable community on the grounds of the City Centre Airport was first approved by city council in 2009, when it voted to close the airport in phase
The community was named Blatchford in 2012, to honour
Kenny Blatchford, Kenneth Blatchford, who helped to establish Blatchford Field (later the City Centre Airport) in 1926, when he was Mayor of Edmonton.
In 2011, Edmonton awarded a contract to architects
Perkins + Will
Perkins&Will is a global design practice founded in 1935. Since 1986, the group has been a subsidiary of Lebanon-based Dar Al-Handasah (Arabic: دار الهندسة). Phil Harrison has been the firm's CEO since 2006.
History
The firm was establ ...
to design the community. However, the city scaled back the resulting plan when council gave it final approval in 2014.
A proposed pneumatic waste collection system, and a biomass and geothermal energy system, were scratched from the plans in order to cut costs.
Instead of geothermal and biomass energy, the city chose to utilize a district energy sharing system, which provides renewable heating and cooling to all buildings in Blatchford.
Because of these changes, the city plans to make a profit of $45 million from developing Blatchford, rather than losing $280 as it would have under the original plans.
Ground was broken on the project in 2015, as the city began work on underground utilities. As the project's developer, the city was responsible for installing roads, pipes, wires, and other core infrastructure for the community.
In 2016, when residents were originally expected to move in at the earliest, the city acknowledged that the project was facing delays; in-part due to uncertainty surrounding the type of district energy sharing system that would be implemented.
That year, council voted to delay the project by a year to resolve questions surrounding the energy sharing system, and to lobby the provincial and federal governments for funding. In 2019, the first plots of land in phase one were sold to four developers, with the first developer breaking ground in September, 2019. Energy Centre One, the first phase of the district energy sharing system, went online in November, 2019.
The first residents moved into Blatchford in November 2020.
Layout
![Row Housing Blatchford Edmonton](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Row_Housing_Blatchford_Edmonton.jpg)
Residential development is earmarked for Blatchford West (which includes phase one of the development), and Blatchford East. Commercial development will be concentrated in Blatchford Market, there will be a large central park called Blatchford Park, and a civic plaza will be constructed around Energy Centre One. Two LRT stops in Blatchford will open in 2024-2025, as part of the extension of the
Metro Line
The Metro Line is a light rail transit line on the Edmonton LRT system. The line operates from northwest Edmonton to south Edmonton, and was scheduled to have begun operation by spring 2014 but instead opened on September 6, 2015, at a reduced ...
: One stop will be between the community's town centre and the
Northern Alberta Institute of Technology
The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) is a applied sciences institute in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. NAIT provides careers programs in applied research, technical training, applied education, and learning designed to meet the dema ...
, and the other stop will be located in northeast Blatchford.
Sustainability features
![Energy Centre One](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Energy_Centre_One.jpg)
Blatchford features a district energy sharing system, which provides renewable
heating
A central heating system provides warmth to a number of spaces within a building from one main source of heat. It is a component of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (short: HVAC) systems, which can both cool and warm interior spaces.
...
and
cooling
Cooling is removal of heat, usually resulting in a lower temperature and/or phase change. Temperature lowering achieved by any other means may also be called cooling.ASHRAE Terminology, https://www.ashrae.org/technical-resources/free-resources/as ...
to all buildings in the community.
Phase one of the system, Energy Centre One, was constructed at a cost of $19.4 million.
It went online in November 2019, and utilizes a geo-exchange field.
The next phase will utilize sewer heat exchange using existing sewage infrastructure.
Edmonton predicts that completing the next stages of the utility will require an investment of $93 million over a period of 10-15 years, and it will cost $660 million over a period of 50 years.
In total, it is expected to reduce energy consumption in Blatchford by 15-20%.
Blatchford requires its builders to follow "green building codes", which it claims will make its homes up to 37% more energy efficient than what is required in provincial building codes.
The community incorporates natural storm water retention methods, such as storm ponds and
rain gardens
Rain gardens, also called bioretention facilities, are one of a variety of practices designed to increase rain runoff reabsorption by the soil. They can also be used to treat polluted stormwater runoff. Rain gardens are designed landscape sites t ...
, to take pressure off of its drainage infrastructure and improve water quality.
Blatchford will also include urban agriculture such as
community gardens
A community garden is a piece of land gardened or cultivated by a group of people individually or collectively. Normally in community gardens, the land is divided into individual plots. Each individual gardener is responsible for their own plo ...
and fruit tree orchards, and naturalized landscapes, including wetlands and
bioswales
Bioswales are channels designed to concentrate and convey stormwater runoff while removing debris and pollution. Bioswales can also be beneficial in recharging groundwater.
Bioswales are typically vegetated, mulched, or xeriscaped. They consi ...
.
Criticisms
Blatchford faced opposition even before it was approved; a group called "Envision Edmonton" organized numerous initiatives to lobby against the City Centre Airport's closure.
Envision Edmonton, and other critics of the proposal, circulated a petition which garnered over 70,000 signatures, organized protests, and supported pro-airport candidates in Edmonton's 2010 municipal election.
The petition, which would have forced a municipal plebiscite on the fate of the airport, was found to fall below the requirements because less than 10% of Edmontonians signed it, and it was not filed within 60 days of city council's decision to close the airport.
The petition contained approximately 100,000 signatures when it was filed, but city staff determined that almost 30,000 of them did not belong to eligible electors.
Perkins + Will, the firm which created the original design for Blatchford, criticized the city for scaling back sustainable features when the project was approved in 2014.
They argued that the plan was made inferior by removing features such as geothermal energy and pneumatic waste collection, and that it fell short of its original goals.
They further criticized the city for forcing them to defend their work at such a late stage of the planning phase.
Blatchford has faced criticisms from local developers who fear that the local condo market cannot support such a major development.
Councillor Tim Cartmell echoed these concerns at a 2019 council meeting, arguing that low demand at Blatchford meant that the community could not support an expensive district energy sharing system.
Surrounding neighbourhoods
References
External links
*
{{Edmonton neighbourhoods
Neighbourhoods in Edmonton