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Redeveloping the North Edge, or Columbia Boulevard, was part of former mayor Stephen Mandel’s election promises in 2004. The plan was approved during his term and some projects have been constructed. But movement has been slow and only a short section of the planned upgrades to 105 Avenue have been realized.

The rest is so potholed, traffic engineers had to re-route the planned downtown bike grid to the 104 Avenue sidewalk instead of running it on 105 Avenue, where they said it would make most sense.

Photo by Google Street View

Christenson said the problem is how city officials decided to fund the sewer upgrades and streetscape improvements.

For the Railtown development — a strip of mid-rise condos along the former rail line running north-south near 110 Street — the city created a tax tool in the late 1990s similar to the local improvement levies residents pay to upgrade their sidewalks. The city built the park and upgraded other infrastructure before construction, then charged the costs back to new residents on their taxes over the next 10 to 25 years.

In some ways, Railtown was simpler because one major landowner was involved. North Edge has more players, but Christenson still hopes the city will find a creative solution.

So far, for North Edge, the city created a development levy that added up to $10,000 to the upfront cost of each condo unit with no timeline to see the benefit, said Christenson, who has since sold most of the land he hoped to build on in that area.

The North Edge concept was to create a bike-friendly and pedestrian-friendly greenway all along 105 Avenue from 119 Street to 97 Street, tying together the bike paths along the old rail tracks through Westmount and up the north leg of the Capital LRT line.