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It’s fine but nothing to write home about.

River Crossing in West Rossdale is similar. The third city effort to create a land-use plan for West Rossdale looks much like the first two, except for the Indigenous park. That’s a valuable effort to right past wrongs by putting Indigenous culture back in the centre of the city. But beyond that, the plan calls for roads to get realigned, sewers upgraded and a series of low to mid-rise towers to fill in the vacant spaces.

After three tries, maybe that is the best plan. But what if the city stopped leading the effort itself, stopped playing developer, and let someone else take a turn?

I’m not the only one to ask this.

“We plan and plan, talk and talk. Then no one invests. … We need to stop over-planning and thinking we need to control everything,” said Coun. Michael Walters, who wants Edmonton to sell off its large suburban landholdings to get funds for the necessary upgrades.

Rossdale needs at least $70 million for roads, sewers and the park. At the densities proposed, property taxes could recoup the investment in 15 to 20 years, he says. He wants the city to partner with private developers and get it done.

That debate comes to city council this fall.

City of Edmonton, supplied

Council has tried several different approaches to redevelopment. With Station Pointe in Belvedere, it drew up a vision, prepared and zoned the land, then found almost no one was interested.

With Blatchford, it launched an international design competition. The community swooned at the green community with a giant toboggan hill, lakes for recreation, pneumatic garbage collection system and geothermal heating.