Imagine being able to collect groceries, drop your kids off at school and access health care within a 15 minute walk or bike ride from your home? For many Kamloopsians living outside of the downtown or North Shore cores, day-to-day life likely requires getting into a vehicle and facing some traffic congestion. So you may be surprised to learn that a small group of vocal residents are concerned about an urban planning concept that promotes walkability called “15 minute cities.” Social media posts have circulated misinformation and even conspiracy theories about the concept, leading some residents to question its purpose and intent.
The Wren reached out to local organizations, the City of Kamloops and residents to explain the concept of 15 minute cities and how it applies to Kamloops.
There’s good, grassroots news in town! Your weekly dose of all things Kamloops (Tk’emlúps). Unsubscribe anytime.
Get The Wren’s latest stories
straight to your inbox
What is a 15 minute city?
“The concept was put forward as a way of increasing livability in cities,” Gisele Ruckert, a volunteer at Transition Kamloops Network Ruckert tells The Wren. “The intent is that people would be able to meet their daily needs within close proximity to where they live.”
The Transition Kamloops Network is a volunteer and nonprofit organization. It has the goal of building local resilience and self-sufficiency, while taking into consideration social capacity, economic strength and environmental resilience. Ruckert has become very familiar with the concept of 15 minute cities through her work with Transition Kamloops.
A 15 minute city in practice means applying mixed-use neighborhoods in urban planning. Importantly, it also includes access to active transportation links, Ruckert says.
“People have more freedom of movement and walkability,” she explains. “They can choose to drive somewhere or they can choose to walk because it’s within walking distance.”
Glen Cheetham is the climate and sustainability manager with the City of Kamloops. His responsibilities are to advance the city’s climate action commitments at a community and corporate scale, in addition to helping the municipality decarbonize and improve the efficiency of buildings and municipal services.
By also providing transit, cycling and walking networks, and having those in close proximity to neighborhoods, Cheetham explains the urban planning concept of a 15 minute city seeks to create communities that support the integration of daily needs and amenities in existing neighborhoods.
Is Kamloops a 15 minute city?
In 2007, climate regulations and legislation were introduced through the B.C. Climate Action Charter. All B.C. communities who voluntarily signed this document, including Kamloops, agreed to track their greenhouse gas emissions and lower them since some of the most effective climate responses can happen at the local level. Municipalities have influence over 60 per cent of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions through public infrastructure, according to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
Kamloops has also committed to adopt “complete compact communities.”
“Complete compact communities is really another name for a 15 minute city,” Cheetham says.“Kamloops in its various plans has identified neighbourhood centres, so if you look at the official community plan, it focuses on reducing sprawl and increasing the walkability and livability.”
This is done by encouraging higher density in certain areas, like more residential units and taller buildings that are closer to shopping centers.
When it comes to walkability, the City of Kamloops’ community planning manager Stephen Bently acknowledges Kamloops has a ways to go.
As the person in charge of overseeing development and maintenance for the city, his work mainly focuses on the Official Community Plan (OCP) which guides the patterns of development of the city.
“The city was planned out decades ago initially,” Bentley says. “It’s not going to be possible for everybody to live in a 15 minute city because the way the city is set out is pretty spread out.”
Kamloops’ latest OCP, known as KAMPLAN, was adopted by council in 2018 based on resident feedback and engagement. Kamloops’ 2021 Community Climate Action Plan (CCAP) includes goals and sub-goals related to walkability based on community hubs, like the Tranquille Market Corridor. City council has an obligation to ensure land use decisions are consistent with these goals.
The province also passed a bill last year requiring local governments to update their bylaws to allow higher density development in close proximity to transit exchanges.
Last June, the city updated KAMPLAN to support this bill in the three transit exchanges in the city. Next spring the city will be updating the OCP to accommodate these new initiatives.
The city is also building active transportation and walking networks so people are less reliant on cars, like the Kamloops North-South Bicycle Corridor.
“Kamloops is very car dependent,” Cheetham says. “Our emissions associated with personal vehicles are higher than the B.C. average. It’s simply a reflection of the footprint of our city. It’s fairly sprawled.”
Going a step further, Kamloops is aiming to become a 10 minute city. The CCAP includes this concept.
According to the CCAP, one goal is that by 2050, 90 per cent of residents will be able to access their daily needs and transit within a 10 minute walk or roll, whether that is by cycling, mobility scooter or car.
Cheetham clarified that the 10 minute city concept is not something the city is specifically measuring in terms of timing to get to amenities. It is the rough idea of how long it would take to get to different places within the city.
Transition Kamloops also supports the idea of Kamloops becoming a 10 minute city because it will mean increasing the urban housing density.
“Our infrastructure hasn’t yet caught up to the goal that we have. It’s a work in progress,” Ruckert says.
“We’re making progress. We changed some of the zoning requirements to support mixed use and multifamily developments within what used to be exclusively single-family home neighborhoods, which I think is a great way to increase affordability.”
The city is also working on property tax exemptions for new developments in certain areas, Bentley explains. On the North Shore and the downtown of Kamloops, for example, developers can get a 10 year property tax break to encourage density near amenities.
New legislation from the province requires local governments to amend their zoning bylaws to permit additional dwelling units on residential lots.
What are some of the concerns around the 15 minute concept?
In conversations with members of the community, Transition Kamloops heard opposition to the concept of 15 minute cities, mainly centering around concerns that it would limit where and what vehicles people can drive.
“I think it’s really hard for us to imagine why people wouldn’t want to live in a place where you have the choice of walking to the store or biking and having the greater freedom,” Ruckert says.
“Approximately 30 per cent of the Canadian population can’t drive or doesn’t drive and our urban design needs to serve all of us.”
That 30 per cent takes into account young people who cannot drive and people of all ages who have mobility challenges and might be unable to get a vehicle or drive.
Some residents push back against the idea of a 15 minute city, arguing Kamloops lacks the public transportation for the change. Others say they do not trust local politicians will implement these policies in a way that benefits them.
Marshall Krueger, a member of Kamloops Citizens for Change and resident of Kamloops for 36 years, has seen little improvement in the city’s public transportation.
“Since political interests are clearly not in improving public transportation despite decades of talk surrounding environmental issues, I believe that the concept of the 15 minute city is being used to further the interests of developers and other land interests with political allies instead of the ‘greater good; greenwashing it’s being sold under,” he writes to The Wren over Facebook.
Bentley agreed that transportation needs improvement. However, he explains there is limited funding available for transit from the province.
Cheetham has also heard responses similar to Krueger’s, including doubts about the planning of 10 minute cities.
“It’s been misconstrued that it’s a plan to somehow restrict people’s freedom of movement between neighbourhood centres,” Cheetham says. “The intent is to provide residents with more transportation choices to travel in our city, to have more freedom of choice. Not be so restricted to just using a car.”
Krueger also argues implementing 15 minute city urban planning deprives people of ownership of buildings or property, and reduces the idea of economic self-sufficiency.
“I’m certainly aware of the conspiracy theories, but I think that it comes from a place of lack of trust and suspicion of authority in general which is a growing trend across Canada,” Ruckert says.
“I think that the term [15 minute city] itself has become polarizing,” she adds. “I think the idea makes perfect sense.”
Where did concerns about 15 minute cities begin?
Local concerns about the 15 minute city concept echo misleading information spread online. Since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, misformation has circulated on social media alongside hashtags like #climatescam and #climatecult falsely suggesting 15 minute cities would amount to a resident “climate lockdown,” CNN reports.
Some posts suggest these policies are orchestrated by a network of global elites with ties to the United Nations or the World Economic Forum, conspiracies USA Today has also debunked.
In Canada, climate skeptic Jordan Peterson helped popularize these conspiracies by attacking 15 minute cities on X, formerly Twitter.
Peterson has presented his views with the right-wing organization Action4Canada, which has a history of promoting anti-LGBTQ2S+ and racist materials and campaigns.
Action4Canada has created and distributed campaign materials for citizens to oppose 15 minute cities with specific mention of Kamloops as a case study.
These online materials challenge climate science, alleging policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will “destroy the economy, isolate citizens and restrict mobility” and would amount to “full government control” of people’s lives.
As Reuters and other news outlets have reported, there is no evidence the concept would limit freedom of movement.
Kamloops’ 10 minute city goals do not aim to stop traffic or charge residents for traveling to certain areas. In Canada, freedom of mobility is a Charter-protected right.
What is the city doing right now to become a 15 minute city?
Representatives from the city say they are continuing to work on identifying priority areas to increase housing density and mixed uses, such as apartments above shops and restaurants, as well as improving access to transit to achieve the goal set for 2050.
Every year, city staff groups assigned as CCAP implementation leads summarize their progress to date on each action item. The 2023 report can be found on the city website.
Transition Kamloops is also working to engage residents on what they would like to see in their own neighbourhood to make it more livable, as well as advocating for better active transportation infrastructure or housing cooperatives.
Ruckert acknowledges there are challenges in Kamloops with a population of more than 108,00 people spread over 299 square kilometres.
“That is a very low density footprint as a whole and there are some areas that are already more dense, but transit certainly needs improvement to support users, especially in outlying areas,” Ruckert says. “There are people there who don’t want to or can’t afford to use a car on an ongoing basis.”
The idea of freedom of movement sans vehicles is something Cheetham echos.
“Walkable communities are more equitable communities,” he says. “They increase access to daily needs, and reduce inequities in the community by improving walkability.”
So do we. That’s why we spend more time, more money and place more care into reporting each story. Your financial contributions, big and small, make these stories possible. Will you become a monthly supporter today?
If you've read this far, you value in-depth community news
