Official Plan 2021
New Peoples Official Plan workshop
The workshop on February 22 was well attended, attracting 125 participants from across the City. It was a generally more inclusive gathering than our previous events, with significantly more indigenous, women’s and mobility impaired voices thanks to the co-sponsorship of the event by the City-wide All Women’s Initiative and the Healthy Transportation Coalition. Also attending was Keith Egli, in his role as Chair of the Ottawa Board of Health. The presentations and a report on the meeting can be found here .
The main outcomes of the meeting include additional support for the Hold the Line petition, plan for participants to organize face to face meetings with councilors, a plan for engagement of CAs to communicate their objection to urban expansion to their local councilors and energized participants who plan to mount their own initiatives in support of POP objectives of no urban expansion coupled with denser, inclusive, healthy, green and connected neighbourhoods.
Official Plan 2021
Councillor meetings
A number of in person councillor meetings occurred prior to the Covid emergency. Paul and Roland Dorsay of the FCA met with Jeff Leiper for a detailed technical briefing on March 9, Paul met with staff in Shawn Menard’s office for the same purpose on March 10, and, accompanied by Ecology Ottawa staff and local constituents, with Keith Egli on March 11. The first two are considered supporters of our position while the latter is an undecided in our estimation. As such, this meeting provided valuable insight on the issues that cause the undecided councillors to resist our appeal as did a detailed letter received from Scott Moffatt by one of our workshop participants as a result of her outreach to him. Other workshop participants reported on subsequent meetings or encounters with Councillors Fleury, Kavanagh and McKenney, confirming our assessment that these are likely supportive of our position while a meeting with Councillor Cloutier, who we believe is a likely supporter of urban expansion, was put off as a result of the Covid emergency.
Official Plan 2021
Joint meeting of ARAC and Planning Committee postponed
The Joint meeting of ARAC and Planning Committee which was to occur on March 30 was postponed until May 4. This decision was taken prior to the Covid emergency and we believe it reflected the City’s need to take on board the impact of the PPS 2020, which was released on February 29. The main change in the PPS 2020 that affects the urban boundary issue is the requirement for the City to “maintain at all times the ability to accommodate residential growth for a minimum of 15 years.” Previously, this was 10 years. This constraint has in the past been used as justification for expanding the urban on its own merits, beyond the requirement to supply housing for projected population growth. Even if there is sufficient housing planned to fully accommodate the projected growth over the 25 year period of the plan, there is the additional requirement to ensure that by, for example, year 24, the City has the ability to accommodate 15 years of residential growth. There must always be 15 years in the bank.
In the past the City demonstrated that it met this requirement by maintaining a large inventory of vacant greenfield lands in the outer suburbs. By boosting the requirement to 15 years, the existing greenfield inventory will no longer be sufficient. This could be used by the City, lobbied by landowners, to expand the urban boundary even more than they had previously planned. The PPS allows, however, in fact insists, that the 15 year requirement be met “through residential intensification and redevelopment” and, only if necessary, greenfield lands. Counting on intensification as part this required minimum supply will require the development of new methods and analysis to quantify intensification in years of supply. We will be preparing a paper putting forward a basic approach for doing so and, using the City’s own numbers, demonstrate that it can maintain a 15 year supply of residential growth while also maintaining the current urban boundary. (The Joint meeting of ARAC and Planning Committee was subsequently pushed back to May 11.)
Official Plan 2021
Advertising and social media in support of urban expansion
Members and contacts have reported a number of instances of advertising in newspapers and on social media by builders associations and allied parties in support of expanding the urban boundary. These have used inflammatory and inaccurate language to promote urban expansion. We, collectively with POP members, have responded to these on social media and through a number of published op-eds and letters. We will need to remain vigilant and respond to further messages in this campaign in addition to launching our own.
