City Council Highlights

Below are some of the highlights from the July 2024 Council and Committee meetings. The full reports can be found at saskatoon.ca/meeting.

Removal of Minimum Parking Requirements

Council voted unanimously to remove Minimum Parking Requirements for all zoning districts across the city. Requirements to provide accessible, visitor, loading, passenger drop off, and bicycle parking will remain. Removing parking minimums will not eliminate parking on new developments, but will allow individual developers, businesses, and homeowners to determine their own parking needs without requiring a set number of stalls based on building size. 

Saskatoon will join a growing number of Canadian cities who have removed or reduced their parking minimums including Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, London, Kingston, Toronto, Laval, and St. John’s. 

A few years ago, this seemed like a hill too high to climb for the City in such a short time. However, we’ve had members of the community bring this forward and challenge us to be bold. We’re facing a housing crisis and one of the things we need is to lower the costs of building housing and streamlining processes. The calculations of parking minimums provided extra red tape. 

This will provide the opportunity to have less wasted space, encourage more infill, lower costs to build, and provide housing. It is part of being a more efficient city overall.

Bus Rapid Transit Brand – Link

Council approved the name ‘Link’ for the Bus Rapid Transit system. Link embodies the concepts of connection, speed, network, and is easy to understand. This brand will use the same colour scheme as Saskatoon Transit’s overall brand. The name selection process considered over 150 names and was narrowed down through a series of stakeholder engagements. 

Link will be used for branding and marketing of the BRT project at transit stations and advertisements. The BRT project has now been recently fully funded with construction beginning this year and is expected to be fully operational in 2027. 

As ridership continues to increase, it is important that we have a system that meets the needs and expectations of users. With Link, we will modernize and enhance our public transit system to move residents and visitors more efficiently and sustainably.

Rezoning – Caswell Bus Barns

Rezoning of the Caswell Hill bus barns was approved by City Council. At 321 Ave C North, it is a 3-storey, 30-unit residential building fronting Avenue D North, containing 30 dwelling units with a mix of studio, 1-bedroom, and 2-bedroom units. There are also 11 commercial spaces proposed, including a restaurant and community centre.

It is worth celebrating the re-development of the old bus barns. Our transit fleet outgrew what we had there and needed a new location. I know everyone hoped we would have it redeveloped sooner, but with Covid impacts, and the complexity of the site, it has taken more time. Through creativity and collaboration, the proposed project is an urban development that will help bring a great sense of vibrancy to the area. Using an older heritage site like this and turning it into a modern mix of residential and commercial will showcase what repurposing and modernizing can look like in Saskatoon.

And More…

Changes to approval processes were made for commercial operators looking to use remotely-piloted aircraft (drones) in Saskatoon. The changes will reduce the number of applications that corporations need to make which will also reduce staff time spent reviewing the applications. Federal and Provincial requirements will still be followed to ensure commercial operators respect peoples’ individual privacy. 

Two applications to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities – Adaptation in Action Program were approved. If successful, a Spray Pad Adaptation program would be expanded to help conserve 24% of water by using lower flow nozzles as well as make improvements for extreme heat events. The other proposal would see a North Burial Design Project at Woodlawn Cemetery focusing on Green Burials.