Dear Winnipeg

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If Growth Is Expensive, You’re Doing It Wrong

If Growth Is Expensive, You’re Doing It Wrong

Dear Winnipeg,

Did you know that currently sailing through the City’s development approval process is the rezoning of a property that will enable the construction of more housing close to existing commercial services, located within 220m of transit and accessible by multi-use biking and walking paths, that will create over 400 new units of desperately-needed housing?

And, according to at least one city councillor, it’s a good example of the type of development Winnipeg will be prioritizing going forward.

Unfortunately, if that’s the case, then our city will continue to dig itself deeper into its financial hole.

[Insert record scratch sound effect.]

Wait… whut?! How can that be, you ask? I mean, it ticks all the boxes:

  • Density: check!
  • Mixed use: check!
  • Close to transit: check!
  • Accessible by bike and foot: check!

Here’s the thing.

Building a city with checklists is a bad way to go about it. It presumes a city can be distilled down into a finite list of features. It can’t. Cities are complex human habitats, and any list of features we can come up with necessarily will leave out some critical aspect or another.

It’s why the process we use for development is as important, or perhaps even more important, than what we develop. I already wrote about this, oddly enough, almost exactly two years ago.

And in fact, this proposed development, and others like it that are supposedly the “future” of our city, use exactly the same development process and pattern as the suburban development we’ve been prioritizing since the 1940s. Not very futuristic after all…

How can I tell?

In a Free Press article from earlier this month, a professor of urban geography at the University of Winnipeg explained that this development will accelerate the need to expand key traffic routes that support the area and to address stretches of Route 90 already regarded as major bottlenecks.

“We have talked about the widening of Kenaston (Boulevard). The impetus for that is there is tremendous growth in the south… I know there is a huge debate about the widening and the cost but, unfortunately, the cost of growth is high.”

— Dr Jino Distasio, Urban Geography Professor, University of Winnipeg

And you know what? He’s 100% correct. Building this will create more pressure to widen Kenaston for up to five kilometers to the north of there.

When you add the quarter of a billion dollars that would cost, on top of the money we already spent over a decade ago to widen both Sterling Lyon (to 12 lanes!!) and Kenaston (also to 12 lanes!!), to extend water and sewer services, and to provide new traffic access and signals for the IKEA here (the first build of this development), then yes, the cost of growth is indeed insanely high.

And all for a measly estimated $6 million of annual tax revenue over the entire 197 acres of development for the “Seasons of Tuxedo”. As a reminder, the City is projected to collect $798 million in property taxes in 2025, for the entire city. A drop in the proverbial bucket some might say.

To be fair, that was the amount they estimated fifteen years ago would be collected in 2018. In 2025, the $484.7 million of commercial development and $353.2 million of residential development there will actually bring in just a hair over $6.1 million in property taxes.

Rejoice! That’s nearly 2% over projections, and only 7 years late! But remember that this development is now stated as one of the reasons we need to widen Kenaston, at a cost of a quarter of a billion dollars. It doesn’t even come close to covering that.

That’s the type of development they called “smart growth” back when they proposed it in 2009. And it’s apparently the template for the future of our city. When you look at the numbers, it’s not hard to see why our city is struggling financially.

But if it’s an immutable law that growth is expensive, and we just have to deal with it, then I gotta ask: why grow at all? If we can’t afford the cost of growth, why not just let the surrounding municipalities absorb the growth? Let them bankrupt themselves on it!

Well, it’s because that’s not an immutable law. If growth is expensive, then you’re doing it wrong.

Now, I already ran the numbers on the IKEA in that development, weirdly, almost exactly six years ago. [Note to self: look up whether January is National Unproductive Development Analysis Month.]

But, just for fun, let’s compare this entire Seasons of Tuxedo to the Exchange District downtown with the values today. [I’m a riot at parties.]

Seasons of Tuxedo
Total assessed value: $837,951,001
Land area: 8,627,733 sq ft
$97.12/sq ft

Exchange District
Total assessed value: $593,202,098
Land area: 1,885,108 sq ft
$314.68/sq ft

It’s easy to be impressed by Seasons of Tuxedo’s total assessed value. But when you consider that the Exchange District is bringing its value on less than 22% of the land area, and therefore much less infrastructure, it actually outperforms the “smart growth” development by a factor of more than three.

It’s also interesting to note that most buildings in the Exchange were built before 1912, while ALL buildings in Seasons were built after 2012. And despite over a century separating their construction, the old buildings in the Exchange still run productive circles around the new ones in Seasons.

Plus, when’s the last time you heard of a building project in the Exchange causing the need for a road widening five kilometers away? Never, that’s when.

When using the “urbanism checklist” of density, mixed-use and transportation options, these two neighbourhoods seem practically identical. But we only need to look at a map to recognize how different they actually are.

Here’s the Seasons of Tuxedo:

Dense, mixed-use Seasons of Tuxedo with buildings highlighted in green.

And here’s the Exchange District, at the same scale:

Dense, mixed-use Exchange District with buildings highlighted in green.

Visually, it’s not hard to understand why the Seasons of Tuxedo would require much, much more infrastructure (roads, pipes and the like), and cost a lot more to service (fire protection, garbage pickup and the like), than the Exchange District.

It’s that mismatch that is at the root of our city’s financial issues.

As you can see, whether a development is good for the city financially is about much more than factors like “density” or “mixed-use” or “easy access to transit”. We can’t afford the infrastructure we currently have, so any efforts at growing the tax base need to make better use of what we’ve already built, not cause further pressures to add more. It’s why there should be no confusion about allowing fourplexes in our existing neighbourhoods. That’s what’s going to keep the pools open and the roads free of potholes.

But as importantly, it’s not just about what types of buildings we build and where, it’s also about our policy decisions in other areas, like transportation, snow clearing and trees. Connecting the dots on all of these requires an understanding of our city’s finances.

Without that understanding, we find ourselves just ticking boxes. For example, here’s a view of the transit stop that ticks the “close to transit” box for the Seasons of Tuxedo:

Photo: Winnipeg Transit app

And here’s another transit stop in the area:

Photo: Winnipeg Transit app

And of course, my absolute favourite:

Photo: Winnipeg Transit app
Photo: Winnipeg Transit app

Sure, it’s right next to a multi-use bike bath (another box tick!). But really, would you like to wait for a bus right next to that truck travelling by at 80 km/h (50 mph)? Yeah, me neither. So much for encouraging transit use…

Yet, it ticks the necessary boxes.

But once we understand what the real financial goal for the city is, to have more tax value while using less infrastructure, it’s easy to see why this type of development will make things worse instead of better.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Love,

Elmwood Guy

P.S. You may have already heard, but I wrote a book! I’m preparing a proper blog post on it to tell you all about it, but for now, here’s the lowdown.

You’ll Pay for This!
How We Can Afford a Great City for Everyone, Forever
published by Great Plains Press

Releases May 20th, 2025 in Canada, and June 24th, 2025 in the US and the UK.

It’s available for pre-order now:
In Canada

Find it at IndieBookstores.caMcNally Robinson BooksellersChapters IndigoAmazon, or wherever you buy books.
In the US
Find it at Bookshop.orgBarnes & NobleAmazon or, again, wherever you buy books.
In the UK
Find it at Browns BooksAmazon.co.uk and wherever you buy books.

Support your local bookshop and library whenever you can!

And you can also reserve it from the Winnipeg Public Library!