On September 24, City staff briefed the FCA-GOHBA (Federation of Citizens’ Associations, of which the Greenspace Alliance is a member, and the Greater Ottawa Home Builders Association) stakeholders group  on policy directions expected in the draft Official Plan that will be released in late November 2020.

In an extensive presentation, senior planning staff gave the attendees a first look at the proposed structure of the new Official Plan. New concepts and terminology are being introduced, the most innovative of which may be something called the “transect”.  In early versions of discussion papers last year, this was called context. In a nutshell, it is a way of distinguishing between broad categories of urbanization across the City so that OP policies can be better adapted to context.