St. Albert Minute: Issue 129

St. Albert Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of St. Albert politics

📅 This Week In St. Albert: 📅

• City Council meets tomorrow at 9:30 am, and at 10:30 am it holds a public hearing on changes to the Land Use Bylaw that would allow narrower lots and smaller homes throughout St. Albert's established neighbourhoods. The amendments would cut the minimum lot width for a single detached dwelling from 9.82 meters to 8 meters where the home has a single-wide front driveway, drop the semi-detached minimum from 8 meters to 7.35 meters, and lower the minimum home size from 75 square meters to 65 square meters. Along St. Albert Trail, apartment buildings would become a permitted rather than a discretionary use, the height limit would rise from 22 meters to 25 meters, and a new mixed-use transit district would allow buildings up to 50 meters. The changes are tied to the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, which Council approved in May 2025 at $11,813,100, and Administration warns that $5.9 million in remaining federal money is at risk, along with possible clawbacks of money already paid, if the amendments are not dealt with by the end of September. The City's own engagement survey drew 585 responses, of which 61% opposed allowing a wider range of housing types in existing neighbourhoods and 33% expressed some level of support. Four residents and industry representatives are registered to speak, and Council can give the changes all three readings tomorrow if every member present agrees.
  
  
• Council will also decide tomorrow whether to double how often the City surveys residents about its services. The Standing Committee of the Whole passed a motion at its September 8th meeting recommending that the Community Satisfaction Survey move from once every four years to once every two years, beginning in 2027. The item reaches Council on the consent agenda, which means it passes without debate unless a Councillor asks for it to be pulled.
  
  
• The City of St. Albert has signed a 2.5 year extension of its ground ambulance contract with the Province's Emergency Health Services, holding funding at current rates through 2029 and removing the 1.2% municipal property tax increase that had been planned for 2027. The original contract was due to expire on September 30th. The extension follows the provincial government's decision in June to pause a plan that would have reduced funding for seven municipalities running integrated fire and ambulance services, a plan that in May had left St. Albert choosing between covering the shortfall through taxes and moving to a different service model. Council voted to keep the integrated service, as did Strathcona County and Red Deer, while Lethbridge, Spruce Grove, and Leduc voted to transition out. Ernst & Young is now carrying out a third-party review of the City's emergency medical services on behalf of Emergency Health Services, and Minister Adriana LaGrange has written to Mayor Scott Olivieri saying she still intends to move to a funding benchmark in 2028-29. St. Albert Firefighters Local 2130 president Greg Harvey says the funding model needs to reflect the real cost of delivering the service, and points to a City report showing that 37% of the 6,037 calls St. Albert ambulances attended in 2025 were to communities outside the city.
  
  
• Two St. Albert Public Schools trustees have resigned over what they describe as the board's failure to open its meetings to the public. Stanley Haroun, a trustee since 2017, and Natalie Joly, elected in October 2025, announced their resignations shortly after the start of the board's September 9th meeting. Both had repeatedly brought motions to put video recordings of board meetings online and to open committee meetings, and the board defeated them. Haroun criticized the board for holding a single public meeting each month alongside many private ones, and said trustees had also voted down his efforts to give them a more direct role in preparing the district's budget. Joly said she often could not get background information for agenda items discussed in those private meetings. Board chair John Allen says he was not informed in advance, describes the situation as unprecedented, and will ask Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides for advice, while Haroun says the resignations will likely lead to a by-election.
  
  
• Two St. Albert schools have won energy education grants from Inside Education, a non-profit whose president is St. Albert Councillor Neil Korotash. Sir Alexander Mackenzie Elementary received $4,626 to buy miniature solar panels and wind turbines, which students in Grades 4 to 6 will use from February to test how turbine design and light intensity affect power production. Bertha Kennedy Catholic received $4,000 for coding robots and small solar panels, which Grade 3 and Grade 5 students will program from December to drive through a model of St. Albert using as little energy as possible. The two schools were among 19 recipients of grants worth up to $5,000 each, handed out at a conference in Calgary on August 24th and 25th. Korotash, who teaches at St. Albert Catholic High, said the grants help teachers find more interesting ways to teach students about energy.

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