Yellowknife’s new plan would turn Frame Lake area into 1,000 homes

The City of Yellowknife is bringing forward a new community plan that envisages building 1,000 new housing units by developing “greenfield” sites north and west of Frame Lake.

That development would occur over a quarter of a century, councillors will be told at a presentation on Wednesday this coming week.

The city’s draft community plan and its targets are included in briefing documents published online ahead of that meeting.

The city has not entirely abandoned its existing philosophy, which relies on intensification – otherwise known as infill – to build homes in gaps within built-up areas.

City Hall still expects to build another 1,000 units over the next 25 years through infill in Yellowknife’s downtown, across existing neighbourhoods and along the Old Airport Road corridor.

But turning the presently barely touched region north and west of Frame Lake into 1,000 units represents a marked departure from that approach.

Overall, the city says, 2,000 units are needed to meet the upper end of expectations for Yellowknife’s population growth. That figure has its foundation in a study carried out last year that estimated the city’s population could reach a maximum of 26,659 by 2051, with at least 1,804 new homes needed to sustain that.

“This plan focused on a high-growth scenario both optimistically and strategically,” the draft plan states, “to position the City to capitalize on future opportunities and to ensure it is prepared for the infrastructure, land use, and housing challenges that accompany the highest-growth trajectory.”

Critics of the infill approach have argued Yellowknife still needs new neighbourhoods and single-family homes to meet demand, alongside apartment complexes and other forms of housing.

The draft community plan appears to concur, forecasting that of the 2,000 new units, 600 will be “single detached dwellings.” At the other end of the spectrum, the city is planning for 335 of the units – 17 percent – to be affordable (definitions of which vary).

New housing between Frame Lake and Jackfish Lake will need to abide by “shoreline buffers to protect the integrity of the Frame Lake Trail,” the city’s presentation states.

The new neighbourhood will allow “a mix of different housing types including low to medium intensity residential and high intensity mixed use development,” the presentation continues, including “affordable and accessible housing, Indigenous-led and senior housing.”

Part of the area is currently governed by the Akaitcho Interim Land Withdrawal as land claim negotiations continue.

The city said any future development on that portion of land would be “coordinated through intergovernmental cooperation.”

The draft community plan makes a range of other alterations.

The plan that council will consider makes more allowance for temporary worker accommodation than is currently the case, focusing the provision of that housing in the Kam Lake area. The city says it’ll be necessary to support economic development and major projects.

There will be a new “highway commercial” area along the road past the Jackfish power station toward Old Airport Road, “to accommodate large-scale auto-oriented commercial services such as truck stops, service stations, highway restaurants, hotels and vehicle dealerships.”

Elsewhere, the city states that development of Tin Can Hill – once earmarked for a new university campus – will “be designed to minimize disturbance to the natural environment and recreational areas.”

The area around the Con Mine, which has been in remediation for the past two decades, is described in the city’s draft plan as a “mineral extraction” area where “mineral resources are protected and managed for long-term use by safeguarding extraction areas from incompatible development.”

Exploration firm Gold Terra is trying to reopen a gold mine on the former Con site. The existing Con trailer park, formerly home to mine workers and now a small neighbourhood, is included in the “mineral extraction” zone.

The area “will be protected from development that would preclude or hinder the establishment of new operations or access to the resource,” the city states in its presentation.

What happens next

The plan is not final.

The city says it has gone through plenty of engagement with residents already, including one report published last year and one earlier this year. But the engagement doesn’t appear to always support what’s in the draft.

For example, the second report states consultants heard “strong alignment amongst participants that the Frame Lake North area is unsuitable for residential development due to its significant ecological and community value.”

Respondents came to a “shared conclusion that any major development in this area would be unreasonable and unlikely to justify municipal investment in servicing or infrastructure expansion,” the report adds.

The report produced its own map incorporating the feedback of people consulted on the city’s proposals.

Residents who offered feedback appeared, from the map, to favour residential development on the remediated Con Mine site or between Range Lake and the airport runway. (It’s unclear whether Con’s remediation is intended to reach a standard whereby homes could be safely built there in the near future. In the past, experts have talked of the area more in industrial terms.)

The city acknowledges there are “major policy shifts and new directions” in its draft plan, which is being presented to council in two chunks: part one on Wednesday and a second part on April 22.

City Hall’s tentative schedule includes a mandatory public hearing on June 20, at which residents would be able to provide feedback.

The city hopes to submit the finalized plan to the territorial government in July.