Project Background

The Public Spaces Bylaw Review project was presented to the Community and Public Services Committee on September 9, 2022 when Administration presented its project plan to conduct a full scale review and revision of applicable bylaws that address behaviours and enforcement in transit and other public spaces. In order to address inconsistencies and unintended impacts, public space regulation needs to be reviewed holistically from a community safety and equity lens.

City Administration will review all of the public spaces bylaws to develop a comprehensive, new bylaw to replace the existing bylaws. The primary scope of the work involves the replacement of the City’s three primary public spaces bylaws:

• Public Places Bylaw (Bylaw 14614)
• Parkland Bylaw (Bylaw 2202)
• Conduct of Transit Passengers Bylaw (Bylaw 8353)

The key objectives of this project are to provide clear legal parameters that apply to all public places in the city with clear, effective and equitable application of bylaws and enforcement measures. The project aims to simplify, remove redundancies and mitigate inconsistencies so bylaw terms are easily understood by Edmontonians and consistently applied by the teams who work with them.