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

Whitehorse developers could get the option to construct taller buildings — as high as 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 rule has some lenience, with council 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 change as a way to keep step with the Yukon's surging population. 

If the city continues 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 square kilometres. Leduc in Alberta has 34,000 people and takes up just 42 square kilometres. 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."

The majority of councillors backed his line of reasoning.  

Coun. Mellisa Murray felt Laking's initial suggestion — 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 change altogether — raising the possibility of parking 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 because they 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.    

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, but could 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 that literally 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.