It鈥檚 good to have land.
Better still to be on the water, many a real estate enthusiast would tell you. Those properties keep their value (unless they鈥檙e reclaimed by the sea, of course).
Geographical Yellowknife has plenty of water to look at but as the numbers bear out, Yellowknife the city administration has precious little land.
That鈥檚 bad. Cities deal with places for people to live, to work and to play and the ways they have to get from one to the other. They deal with finding locations to learn and to be mended when we鈥檙e hurt, and the special and mundane things that improve our quality of life.
Cities need land for all of this. So it鈥檚 appropriate that the significant swathes of land within city limits, from squared off lot-like plots within the urban footprint to great expanses stymied only by the invisible box that forms the municipal boundary, are indicated in bright green in a map provided to city councillors last week. It鈥檚 11,400 acres in all, 59 per cent of the GNWT鈥檚 holdings within that magic box and it鈥檚 enviable.
It鈥檚 like Christmas in September, it is. That 59 per cent is a lot of acres and hectares, and it鈥檚 not even all of the territorial government鈥檚 holdings in Yellowknife. The GNWT owns three of every four square centimetres of land within the city鈥檚 boundary, much of it the 鈥渦nfettered, vacant鈥� type that planners beam for and developers fight over. The city itself only has the deeds for about a paltry 11 per cent of its own land mass.
It鈥檚 also a nice step in devolution, as Mayor Rebecca Alty pointed out. Any process of moving land from the federal realm down to the territory and through to the local level is to be encouraged. It is also sort of interim: reading a word like 鈥渄evolution鈥� immediately brings to mind closely connected terms like 鈥渞econciliation.鈥� So, it would make sense to expect a respectable portion of the land transfer to find its way under the auspices and control of the Yellowknifes Dene First Nation (YKDFN).
The transfer would exclude mine properties undergoing remediation (that鈥檚 good 鈥� the larger the order of government responsible for that liability, the better for everyone) and lands identified in the Akaitcho Treaty 8 land withdrawal process. The latter, according to Akaitcho Treaty 8 Tribal Corporation, includes 1,034 hectares of land within the city boundary.
We鈥檒l have to see what the final transfer of land looks like after the YKDFN is consulted: the GNWT has a Section 35 duty, and the city as a practice has been consulting the YKDFN on land-use issues since at least 2020, according to the city manager. But here鈥檚 hoping the process is a relatively smooth and straightforward one.
That would be a bit of a change. As Coun. Niels Konge described in a meeting last week, having to navigate the GNWT鈥檚 bureaucracy every time a parcel of land changes hands or someone wants to build something (or both) is a deal-killer, full stop.
鈥淚t鈥檚 no wonder developers just give up,鈥� Konge said. 鈥淭he process is so difficult and so time-consuming to get land. I鈥檓 pleased the GNWT has finally seen the light and is agreeing to do this.鈥�
A city with dominion over the land within its boundaries, not to mention one further along the path to reconciliation 鈥� what a new normal that would be.
