Whitehorse city council ponders raising downtown building height limit to 12 storeys - Action News
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Whitehorse city council ponders raising downtown building height limit to 12 storeys

Whitehorse city council has turned its eye to the sky to debate the maximum building height in the downtown core. The current height limit is 25 metres, and some councillors think it should be higher.

Current 25-metre height restriction encourages sprawl, says Coun. Ted Laking

A view of a city at night, with the moon and mountains in the background.
A view of downtown Whitehorse in winter. Coun. Ted Laking has proposed an increase to the maximum building height downtown, as a way to mitigate urban sprawl. Council is now considering a motion to increase the height limit to 40 metres, or 12 storeys, from the current 25-metre limit. (Paul Tukker/CBC)

Whitehorse developers could get the option to construct taller buildings as highas 40 metres, or 12 storeys.

City council has turned its eye to the sky to debate the maximum building height in the downtown core.

The limit, which it updated last year, is 25 metres. And that rulehas some lenience, withcouncil having the option to approve buildings up to 30 metres high in some instances.

At a city council meeting Monday night, Coun.Ted Laking pushed for the changeas a way to keep step with the Yukon's surging population.

If the citycontinues to grow at its current pace, he said, it will gain another 9,500 residents by 2033.

"If you crunch the numbers, we need a minimum of 415 homes in Whitehorse, per year, for the next decade," he said.

"We're struggling to keep up with this housing crisis as is."

He said building upwards could mitigate urban sprawl.

Whitehorse, which has a population of about 36,000, takes up an area of 414 sq. kilometres.

"Grand Prairie [Alta.], for example, has 64,000 people and only takes up 133 squarekilometres. Leduc in Alberta has 34,000 people and takes up just 42 squarekilometres. With our large area comes lots of roads.. with that comes costs of maintenance, snow removal, and costs that contribute to our property taxes increasing every year," he said.

"The more we push all our housing developing outside the downtown and into the forests, it's going to increase the cost of living in our community."

A man standing on a hill overlooking a lake
Laking says if Whitehorse continues to grow at its current pace, it will gain another 9,500 residents by 2033. (Submitted by Ted Laking)

The majority of councillors backed his line of reasoning.

Coun.MellisaMurray felt Laking's initialsuggestion an increase to 35 metres might not be "enough." She proposed 40 metres as the new maximum,and most councillors endorsed that plan.

However, some were against the changealtogether raisingthe possibility ofparking pressures, limited emergency access, and public opposition.

Mayor Laura Cabott noted it's only been about ten months since council last tweaked the rules on building heights.

She cited some of the feedback submitted by residents at that time. Some opposed taller buildings becausethey would cast too much shade in the downtown. Other residents said they didn't want "wind tunnels" or "condo skyscrapers" in the city centre, while another said they didn't want the downtown turned "into a Toronto" with unsightly tall buildings.

A map of Whitehorse, with coloured zones.
A map in the city's Whitehorse 2040 Official Community Plan shows the current rules for building heights in the downtown. In the red area, the limit is currently 25 meters. Some city councillors would like to see that raised to 40 metres. (City of Whitehorse)

Coun.Dan Boyd told his peers "there's a lot of consequence to these types of decisions."

He said allowing taller buildings could help with housing, butcould also mean more commercial development downtown.

"And commercial would see a lot of traffic pulsating in and out of downtown every day in order to support that commercial. So I don't know it would necessarily achieve the results," Boyd said.

"If it is housing that we're concerned about, I would think that we might want to focus it a bit more."

Those notions were rebutted by Coun.Kirk Cameron, who described the proposed change as an "opportunity".

He also dismissed concerns about shade and wind tunnels downtown. He said Whitehorse now sees an "unbelievable" amount of wind, more than it did even a decade ago.

"The whole climate, whole way in which the city deals with things like wind, ice, snow, all of those environmental factors we're having to work at thatliterally daily. That's not going to go away whether we build taller buildings or not," he said.

"Let's open the door, let's move forward, Let's have vision for future councils to give opportunities to the investment community, to build a different kind of city that's more environmentally and climate sensitive."

Laking's motion with the 40-metre amendment will be further debated by council in the coming weeks.

Corrections

  • An earlier version of this story said the population of Whitehorse is about 42,000. In fact, latest estimates put the city's population at around 36,000.
    Feb 14, 2024 10:35 AM CT