At the last minute, City staff called a meeting to present and discuss the new population projections:
(Message from the Federation of Citizens’ Associations, September 13, 2007:)
“A last-minute announcement has been received of an event entitled “The Future of Ottawa’s Growth – 2006-2031 Population Projections / La croissance future d’Ottawa – Projections démographiques 2006-2031”. This event, to be held Monday September 17 from 6pm to 9pm at Festival Room at City Hall, appears to be the public release of city population projections in the context of revision of the Official Plan. The spoken presentation (presumably written material is available throughout) is to occur at 7pm. To attend the event you are to register by e-mail to adrc@ottawa.ca by Friday Sept. 14 (i.e. instantly!!) No information about this event has been found on the city website”.
Later, this was found on the City’s web site:
“Growth Projections for Ottawa, 2006-2031: Prospects for Population, Housing and Jobs — Draft report for public consultation
Projections of Ottawa’s long-term future growth are fundamental to the City’s planning of land use, infrastructure and long range municipal finances. Council adopted the current projections for 2021 in November 2001 as the basis for the 2003 Official Plan (OP). Population growth in Ottawa has been lower than the 2001 projection. With the launch of a review of the Official Plan, revised projections are now warranted. As part of this work, it is proposed that the projections be extended from 2021 to 2031 – hence we are looking at projections for the next 25 years.
Draft projections will be presented for public review and comment in mid-September. A public information meeting is scheduled for the evening of September 17, from 6 to 9 p.m. (presentation at 7) in the Festival Boardroom at City Hall”.
Amy Kempster reported later:
” … I was there. It was well attended about 20 people including a member of the business advisory Committee, Bob Brocklebank of FCA, Alayne McGregor etc. (It was well advertised as I saw several ads in the Citizen.)
There were a fair number of questions asked particularly about the fact of the fairly large discrepancy of the 2006 figure from that of the Census (Ian Cross said that there was evidence of a Census undercount particularly in areas with large numbers of apartments); and the discrepancy of the new base figure from that for 2007 in the previous projections of population (the previous projection was an econometric one, this is a more standard demographic one. I have the document in printed form if anyone wants to borrow it.”
About the discrepancy with the 2006 Census figure, Amy later commented:
“… In the first place the census does not count non-residents (diplomats and staff). In Ottawa that could amount to a significant number but I do not know how many. The city used occupied dwellings counts for their estimate. I do not know how many persons they estimated in the dwellings but they may not have taken account of pied-a-terres or company apartments, which are not technically vacant.
The fact that the estimates differed most for areas where traditionally there have been census undercounts, and that other cities felt also that there were problems in those areas suggest that there may be some merit in the city position. I forget the exact change in methods that took place in the 2006 Census but I remember feeling at the time that it might increase the undercount.
The projection methods are the standard methods used and seem reasonable”.
~~~~~
The proposed population projections came to Planning and Environment Committee on 13 November 2007. The staff report is at
http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/pec/2007/11-13/ACS2007-PTE-POL-0068.htm
A Comment from a Citizen & Council’s Decision
Alliance member David McNicoll wrote to the GA list on November 7:
Hi Greenspace Alliance:
Here’s a copy of the letter I submitted to the Members of Ottawa Council regarding their review of our Land-use Plan (Official Plan) which is
starting up. (…)
Cheers,
David McNicoll
Mayor Larry OBrien and Councillors
City of Ottawa. 110 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, ON K1P 1J1
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Dear Members of Ottawa City Council and interested citizens:
Re: Ottawa Human Population Projection (context: Review of Ottawa’s Land-use Plan)
As required under the Planning Act of Ontario, Ottawa City Council, a legal entity, has started its 5-year review of its comprehensive land-use plan (Official Plan). A key driver in this complicated matter, as perceived and contoured by the Council’s Planning Department, is the setting of the projection of human population into the future. Thus, as I appreciate the matter, this projection will soon rise through two Standing Committees (PEC, ARAC) to Council.
Unfortunately, the governments of Canada and Ontario (which includes Ottawa City Council, a body with no direct legal opposition and no constitutional standing) move through time with no comprehensive indicators of reality. As such this assertion (no reality) must apply to the members of the judicial system including the Ontario Municipal
Board. While this dysfunctional situation of ignorance is the will of these instruments of power it is not the will of this citizen.
Naturally, this assertion covers the real land covered by the legal fiction of Ottawa (covering roughly 279,000 hectares of the surface of planet Earth). Thus, put another way, the members of the governments of Canada and Ontario including the Members of Ottawa City Council demonstrate no ongoing, public knowledge of the existence of the life process as such on this planet. Why would any citizen support this unspoken global ignorance in the year 2007?
Nevertheless, despite this implicit gloomy prognosis, I have included my still unanswered comments regarding Ottawa’s so-called Greenspace Master Plan that I submitted to Committee Thursday, June 22, 2006. My document gives references which can act as a partial portal to adequate science which might allow us as a global, human society to approach an understanding of the global ecological goods and services which currently permits life on Earth currently including us.
I have also included a copy of an open letter that I wrote on the subject of setting the human population when this matter last went through Ottawa City Council on October 10, 2001 and part of a submission to the City Clerk, dated Monday, December 3, 2001. The situation was dysfunctional then and it still is. Simply stated, there is no ongoing
truthful reality in Ontario manifest in Ottawa via Ottawa City Council.
Since, in short, I have been bearing testimony to this dysfunction in Ottawa for 20 years, if any Member of the current Ottawa City Council wishes, he or she can draw information from my four previous appeal attempts to the Ontario Municipal Board, all if which were opposed by the Council in question (through a Motion) and accepted by the Board.
A brief reading of the current staff document has not changed my general view and it shows no fundamental shift in thinking. Leaving aside the actual range of projections, the methodology remains the same. The rate-determining reduction of global reality to the supply of land to construct new public infrastructure to support private households and building sites ignores our actual existence. Supply management of human population to fuel mortgage creation while destroying 500 hectares of land each year is not comprehensive land-use.
Yes our global existence (humans are not self-sustaining) is a complicated matter and yes progress might lie in improving the accountability of Ontario.
Yours truly,
David McNicoll
455 Sunnyside Avenue
Ottawa, ON K1S 0S8
The Committee approved the recommendation that Council accept a projection of 1,136,000 people, 496,000 households and 703,000 jobs by 2031. The Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee did likewise on November 22 and Council endorsed it on November 28.