A Building Season The recent growth in Edmonton has certainly put a lot of urgency on efforts to build our city's structure to keep up. It means more demand for affordable housing and much more maintenance and building is needed to address the increased traffic on our roads. This month, I wanted to give you a little information on what is happening in two key areas.

Building capacity - affordable housing:

While we've all heard about some short-term breathing room in the housing industry, the long-term projections continue to be very strong, and it's important that we act now to catch up on this important issue. To increase the supply of affordable housing in Edmonton, the city is making $8.5 million available to help homeowners either create or upgrade secondary suites in their homes. Homeowners can apply to receive $8,500 for a new suite in a new home, or up to $24,000 to either create a new suite or upgrade an existing suite in an existing home.

This initiative is just one part of our Cornerstones Plan which is using money from the Alberta government and the City of Edmonton to create 2,500 affordable housing units by 2010. To find out more, please contact the Housing Branch at 780.496.6029 or go to www.edmonton.ca/secondarysuites



Building access - major roadway improvements underway:

Spring and summer are always construction season in Edmonton - we simply have to move to get as much done as we can while the weather works with us. Road crews are hard at work throughout the city building capacity on our major roadways. Try to plan your route around some of the major projects which include:

Whitemud Drive from 53 Avenue to 170 Street 23 Avenue interchange and the twinning of 23 Avenue and 119 Street rehabilitation of the Millcreek bridge underpass on St. Albert Trail at Yellowhead Trail redevelopment of Fort Road reconstruction of the Parkdale, Parkview and Crestwood neighbourhoods twinning of Ellerslie Road ongoing construction of the south LRT along 111 Streets, south of Century Park and right up to Neil Crawford Centre.

While everyone gets frustrated with the impact this much work can have on traffic, I know everyone is pleased to see how much progress we are making in transforming our growing City. Please know we do appreciate your patience while we work. If you want to know more about these or any other projects, or have questions about any other issues, I can be reached at stephen.mandel@edmonton.ca or 496-8100.