Official Plan 2021
Official Plan update
Paul gave an update on the workshop held on November 15 and 16 on Climate Solutions and Ottawa’s new Official plan. Some 100 people gathered for a day and a half at Bayview Yards in Ottawa to discuss the climate crisis face to face and define priority actions that must be included in the new Official Plan. The organization of the workshop was led by Daniel Buckles and Paul Johanis of the Greenspace Alliance, with significant support from Ecology Ottawa, The Energy Mix and a group of Youth Climate Ambassadors. It built on the People’s Official Plan for Ottawa’s Climate Emergency, initiated by Daniel and Paul in April, and supported strongly by Ecology Ottawa, the Federation of Citizens’ Associations, Community Associations for Environmental Sustainability (CAFES), Bike Ottawa, the Healthy Transportation Coalition, OREC, Just Food and others.
Dianne Saxe, former Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, provided a recorded opening address. Her comments covered urban expansion, smart intensification, rural development, canopy cover and access to greenspace. She also provided for distribution her presentation at the recent conference of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute.
To broaden our outreach leading up to the workshop, the Youth Climate Ambassadors under the mentorship of the GA went out to meet with community associations and other groups to seek their input on the climate action we were recommending and assess how it matched their needs and realities, They met with groups in the rural area (West Carleton), the suburban area (Kanata North and Riverside South), the inner urban area (Kitchissippi) and the downtown core (Vanier), in addition to multi group meetings with a broad cross-section of community associations through events organized by the Federation of Citizens’ Associations. They compiled the results of their interviews with all of these in a report, which they delivered in a presentation to 100+ attendees of the Workshop on Climate and the Official Plan.
The outputs of the workshop include a declaration, an Executive summary, a graphic summary and full report to be published at a later date. The results of the workshop are to be communicated to City staff and elected officials ahead of the Joint Meeting of the Planning and Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committees on December 9 and the full Council meeting of December 11, at which the strategic directions for the new Official Plan will be finalized.
