Edmonton may be heading to court with the Alberta government over infill.
Mayor Andrew Knack said Tuesday that Premier Danielle Smith’s order to scrap the city’s zoning bylaw puts every member of city council in a legal bind. He wants a judge to sort it out.
“I don’t think they’re following the law,” Knack told reporters.
Council will hold an emergency meeting on Friday, Oct. 16 to look at the legal, financial and practical fallout and decide what to do next. No court challenge has been filed yet.
What the province ordered
Last Thursday, Smith and Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams ordered Edmonton to roll back its 2024 infill zoning and bring back minimum parking rules.
The city has to go back to its pre-2024 rules on what kinds of homes can be built on a lot, how many and how tall. It also has to restore the parking minimums it dropped in 2020, when it became the first major Canadian city to get rid of them.
Council has three months, until about Jan. 8, 2027. After that comes an 18-month review of the city’s land use rules, with public consultation.
Knack’s argument: a vote with the answer already filled in
The order lays out how council has to get there. Councillors must hold a public hearing, listening to residents argue for and against the bylaw, and then vote to repeal it.
Knack says that’s where it falls apart.
Under Alberta’s Municipal Government Act, councillors have to go into a public hearing with an open mind. The point of a hearing is that what residents say could change how council votes.
But the province has already told them how to vote.
As Knack sees it, councillors lose either way. If they vote to repeal as ordered, they walked into the hearing with their minds made up. If they vote any other way, they’ve defied the provincial order.
He said that leaves every member of council in a conflict of interest.
That’s his reading. No court has ruled on it.
The province has the power. That’s the problem
Nobody disputes that the province can intervene.
Section 694 of the Municipal Government Act lets the province direct a city to change its land use bylaw. And since Oct. 31, 2024, when Smith’s government brought in the law formerly known as Bill 20, cabinet can require any municipality to amend or repeal any bylaw it considers contrary to provincial policy. Knack, then a city councillor, called that bill an assault on every municipal government in Alberta.
But both powers work the same way: the province gives the order, and council has to carry it out.
That’s the gap Knack is pointing at. The law expects council to do the repealing, and to do it through a hearing where councillors are supposed to be open to persuasion. If the province wants a fixed outcome, he argues, it should find a way to deliver that outcome itself, not make councillors stage a hearing whose result has already been decided.
“If they have a desired outcome, they should just do it,” he said, in effect. The province could, for example, pass its own legislation.
What “an open mind” means in law
The open-mind rule comes from a 1990 Supreme Court of Canada case, Old St. Boniface Residents Association v. Winnipeg.
The court set a fairly forgiving standard for city councillors. They’re politicians, and they’re allowed to have opinions, campaign on issues and say what they think before a hearing. What they can’t have is a mind that’s closed, one that no argument at the hearing could change.
That’s what makes Edmonton’s situation unusual. Councillors here aren’t being accused of having a strong opinion. Their vote is being set in advance by another level of government.
Whether that counts as a closed mind is exactly the question Knack wants a judge to answer.
$202 million in federal money is in the middle of this
The fight comes at an awkward time for Edmonton’s finances.
The city has a $202-million deal with Ottawa through the Housing Accelerator Fund, which pays cities to clear away barriers to home building. Zoning reform was part of that deal.
Edmonton has already received three of its four payments. To get the last one, it has to hit housing permit targets by November 2026, while this dispute plays out.
Neither the province nor Ottawa has said whether the rollback puts that final payment at risk. The money already paid out isn’t in question.
Still no order in writing
Five days after the announcement, Edmonton doesn’t have the directive on paper.
Knack said that’s unusual. Provincial directives normally arrive in writing. He said the city’s been told to expect written instructions within about three weeks, right around when its draft four-year budget is due.
Until then, city staff don’t know exactly what they’re supposed to produce. Knack called it an embarrassment.
It’s already costing money
Knack said the order is adding costs before anything changes on the ground.
The staff who’d handle the rollback are the same people finishing the budget, and he expects a lot of overtime to get both done by year-end.
Even with instructions in hand on day one, he said, three months is tight. The city has to give legal notice of the hearing, write a report the public can read, and hold the hearing itself.
And the budget is built partly on projected housing growth. Under the current bylaw, Edmonton saw a record number of housing starts. Roll those rules back and the growth and tax forecasts shift with them.
What it could mean for your street
None of this changes anything on the ground yet. Council still has to act.
What’s allowed now: In Edmonton’s Small Scale Residential Zone, which covers much of the city’s residential land, a typical interior lot can hold up to eight homes, generally in buildings up to three storeys.
What a rollback would mean: Going back to the old rules would make many multiplexes harder or impossible to build on lots that now allow them. Some projects that are approved automatically today could need special approval.
Parking: New projects would likely have to include on-site parking again. The city’s own estimate puts the cost of a single stall at $7,000 to $60,000, a cost that tends to show up in home prices and rent. Existing homes wouldn’t have to add any.
Projects already in the works: Still unclear. Nobody has said what happens to permits already issued or applications already in progress. That’s one of the questions the written directive needs to answer.
Smith’s side
Smith says she’s standing up for homeowners who feel their neighbourhoods are changing too fast.
On her Saturday radio show, she said she received 2,653 letters in a single week asking her to do something about infill. She blamed Ottawa for the rules in the first place, saying the federal government “bribed” Edmonton and Calgary councils into blanket rezoning through its housing fund.
Williams has said the province isn’t issuing an ultimatum, but starting a conversation.
Calgary’s mayor made the same complaint
Edmonton isn’t alone.
Calgary council already repealed its own blanket rezoning this spring. The province is now ordering it to keep that repeal in place. Mayor Jeromy Farkas voted for the repeal, and he still objected, saying Smith was ordering him how to vote. Smith’s chief of staff called him “a bit melodramatic.”
The two cities went in opposite directions on infill. Their mayors are now making the same argument: the province can set the rules, but it shouldn’t be dictating how councillors vote while still making them go through the motions.
What happens next
Friday, Oct. 16: Emergency council meeting on the legal, financial and practical impact, and next steps
Early November (expected): Written directive from the province, around the release of the draft four-year budget
November 2026: Deadline for Edmonton’s Housing Accelerator Fund permit targets
About Jan. 8, 2027: Deadline for council to hold the hearing and repeal the bylaw
After that: An 18-month review of Edmonton’s land use rules
If council wants to go to court, Friday is its first chance to say so.
Sources
Government of Alberta: Strengthening local elections and councils (Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act, 2024)
Municipal Government Act, Province of Alberta
Small Scale Residential Zone, City of Edmonton
Housing Accelerator Fund, City of Edmonton
Edmonton City Council meetings and agendas
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