Edmonton’s mayor says the city needs to do more to clamp down on infill builders who are consistently breaking the rules.
“If they’re not following the rules, we need to throw everything at them to ensure that they are, because that’s what Edmontonians expect of us,” Andrew Knack told reporters Tuesday.
The city’s urban planning committee moved Tuesday to give the city’s new Construction Accountability Program more teeth, and to have city administration report back in a year.
The initiative has been in the works for a couple years, but the original idea of refusing permits for developers with bad track records didn’t pan out.
In a report presented to the committee, city staff wrote that under provincial legislation, the city lacks the authority to refuse a permit based on a builder’s history.
Instead, the program will implement a number of measures including:
Tracking builders who repeatedly fail to meet standards, and flagging them as needing “high oversight.”
Requiring those with high oversight status to create a detailed plan for safe project execution as a condition of their permit.
Requiring those with high oversight status to take a mandatory training course, providing the opportunity to return to regular status.
Introducing unprompted inspector visits during high-risk phases of construction.
Charging greater fees for repeated non-compliance.
The city’s infill compliance dashboard shows a spike in complaints last year. In 2025, there were 514 complaints submitted, compared to 196 in the previous year. City staff said that increase is in line with the increased volume of infill going up in Edmonton.
The new measures will be brought in throughout the end of 2026 and in early 2027. The established team is 5.5 full-time equivalent staff members, funded by program fees.
But some councillors told administration they don’t think the changes go far enough.
Coun. Michael Janz asked if the city could have a staff member monitor construction sites for high-risk builders, and charge them the associated cost.
“I feel like we can continue pushing that boundary a little more,” he said.
Knack said he believes most builders are responsible and compliant. But for the small number that are frequent offenders, he thinks city staff should explore every tool at their disposal.
He said he’s willing to risk having some builders push back and potentially take the city to court for hefty fines.
“I am willing to give you that permission as the administration to take that chance,” Knack said.
“They don’t deserve any type of kindness because they’re not showing that kindness to their neighbours.”
Developer advocacy group BILD Edmonton Metro wrote a letter in support of the accountability program, but cautioned against penalizing the majority of builders who follow the rules.
The letter says fees should be restricted to builders who are frequent offenders. It also calls for clear and transparent metrics so builders can understand how their compliance performance is measured.
“What are we going to be judged by, I think, will be really critical to understanding who’s meeting this, who’s not [and] where do we need to improve?” Brian Watters, the chair of the group’s builder technical committee, said in an interview.
“If you’re going to hold people to a standard with real cost outcomes and real impacts, [it] has to be very black and white.”
Watters said he believes there’s also an opportunity to come at compliance from another angle.
“If you want to really change people’s behaviour and approach to things, you can’t just look on the enforcement side. You also have to look at the incentive side.”