Alley Renewal

About Alley Renewal

On May 9, 2017 City Council unanimously voted in favour of an alley renewal strategy. The approved strategy will require approximately $20 million (in 2016 dollars) annually for the next 25 years. Planning, design and location prioritization will occur 2017 - 2018, with rehabilitation of alleys to begin in 2019.

City Council’s approval of the alley strategy also came with a motion asking Administration to report back on options to accelerate the elimination of condition index grade F (alleys rated to be in very poor condition). These options will be reported in the second quarter of 2018.

Until the implementation of the alley renewal strategy, alley maintenance, which includes pothole and patch repairs will continue to be available. You may submit an alley maintenance service request online or by calling 311.

The alley renewal local improvement process will continue to be available as described in method 2 below.

Currently, a complete alley resurfacing or reconstruction may occur in one of two ways.

Method 1

Some paved alleys are reconstructed/resurfaced as part of utility (ATCO, EPCOR, Drainage) work restoration. In these situations, the utility pays for the restoration.

Method 2

An alley reconstruction local improvement is petitioned for by benefiting property owners.

To begin the local improvement process:

• Collect a majority (greater than 50% + 1) of the benefitting property owners' signatures on an “Expression of Interest” to request the City to initiate the alley reconstruction project
• The Expression of Interest identifies the location of the improvement, alley local improvement rates for that year and the benefitting properties
• 100% of the total costs to reconstruct are paid by the property owners.