‘Plans can change’: How Saskatoon’s long range planning addresses growth

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Editor’s note: This is Part 1 in our contribution to Postmedia’s national series “How Canada Wins.” Over the next five weeks we’ll chronicle our community’s place in the country, the promise of greater prosperity, and the blueprint to get there. See the series intro here.

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Tyson McShane has been the long-range planning manager for the City of Saskatoon for four years.

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He’s been in long-range planning for about 10 years, but has worked for the city for almost 20.

He started his work in neighbourhood planning, doing community-based planning and speaking with residents to try and solve problems.

“If you saw a neighbourhood that had specific challenges, we’d want to go and work with them and try to build up the social infrastructure to help understand what the people in the neighbourhood need,” McShane said.

He said long range planning can mean a lot of things.

“The simple answer is we’re tasked with looking at the big picture of how the city grows, and that can lead to many other things.”

In his office, McShane has a report from 1999, Saskatoon’s Future Growth Study, which produced a long-range plan for urban growth, up to a population threshold of approximately 400,000.

He said this report is what guided how development happens in the city.

McShane said studies like the Future Growth Study or smaller ones will take place from time to time. They can influence the city’s community plan, which charts the long-term path and how the city considers new opportunities.

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“No matter how detailed and thoughtful a future growth study is, the world changes.”

The past five years have been a great example of how things can change, McShane said, adding that community desires or opportunities can change.

One example is the push for more work-from-home models, which McShane said brings up the question of whether we’re building a city to support that.

“We have to start thinking about what does that mean?”

He said working from home often means people spend more time within their neighbourhoods, creating needs for more amenities within those communities.

“We need something that is predictable,” he says. “Whether you’re moving here or buying your first house, or starting a business here, considering investing here … having an idea of what you’re buying into and what to expect is really important.”

He said forums like Saskatoon Speaks, a massive community engagement process in 2010 that spoke with 7,000 to 10,000 residents, was a means of finding out whether the city was getting it right or whether things have changed.

These types of engagements often lead to new community or strategic plans for the city, he said, adding that this was encompassed in the city’s community plan in 2020, where the resounding issue was better access to things.

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“That lead to our Bus Rapid Transit and our corridor planning process.”

He said the way Saskatoon previously expanded was low density, expensive and more car-oriented.

“What we heard through Saskatoon Speaks was, even if we could afford that, it wasn’t what the community wanted.”

McShane said planning for new neighbourhoods tends to have more density, and more amenities like shops and transit access.

A unique thing to Western Canada is Saskatoon’s sector planning, which has the city do large-scale planning for six to eight neighbourhoods.

He said this planning acts as a cheat sheet for developers in the area, and that Saskatoon has a long history of building the city around the concept of a neighbourhood.

McShane showed a document from a 1963 Planning Scheme, saying even back then people had that same desire to easily access amenities.

An alternative to Saskatoon’s sector planning can be seen in Regina, where they plan on a smaller scale, but still want many of the same things Saskatoon does.

“They typically allow developers to do smaller areas, so it’s not necessarily looking at that big, full neighbourhood. And that, to me, introduces some risk that you might have a neighbourhood that’s built that doesn’t achieve the full vision that we have.”

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He said many other cities follow that same path, and he sees drawbacks and benefits on both sides.

McShane said he attributes part of the city’s AAA credit rating to the deliberate and continuous development of Saskatoon.

“We found the mix that really works well for us in making investments and allowing development that still ends up meeting the needs of our community.”

Saskatoon is coming to the end of the 2022-25 strategic plan, and McShane said work is well underway on the new plan.

He pointed to the city’s growth monitoring report, which tracks where development happens and changes in population, and outlines servicing in new areas.

“One of the tasks we have in long-range planning is to monitor how things have changed.”

Within the past couple years, McShane said Saskatoon has seen the most new residents it has possibly ever had within a short time period.

The city has also seen an increase in secondary suites, which results from housing prices increasing, he said.

He said conversations around increasing populations, housing density and policies all wrap into the development of the new strategic planning process.

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McShane said he and his team have 100 years of work they could be doing, but this strategic plan helps prioritize what needs to be done.

There are always ways they can better develop Saskatoon, he said.

He pointed to Saskatoon Link, the city’s upcoming rapid transit bus system that received federal funding in the fall.

“One of the things we know from other places is when you invest in that hard infrastructure, then you start seeing development following that.”

He said once that infrastructure is in place, developers might see opportunities in areas whose needs might not be met.

McShane said the city is very open in how it is developing Saskatoon, and residents can have a say, but that there are things every city can improve on when it comes to getting that message to residents.

“There is actually thought put into this,” he said. “There is actually a long term plan, and I think a really important message is, those plans can change.”

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