Official Plan 2021

Official Plan update

Paul gave an update on what has been a very busy summer of organizing and animating a broad coalition of environmental and other organizations to ensure that effective climate action is taken in the City’s new Official Plan. This culminated in a very effective, coordinated set of interventions and submissions to the Joint Meeting of the Planning and Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committees on August 22, at which the draft strategic directions were approved for public consultation over the period of September to December 2019. A full accounting of these activities and resulting notes and papers can be found here.

On July 22, Erwin circulated a draft op-ed on the City’s stated intention to consolidate all extant secondary plans, underlining the immense technical difficulties, but in particular the lack of public consultation that would be needed to avoid further erosion of the public’s trust in the value and adherence to these plans. The op-ed was published in the August 12 edition of the Ottawa Citizen and made quite a splash, being cited by the City’s lead planner on the Official Plan at a workshop the day following its publication.

Tree Protection By-Law

Paul and Daniel attended a City meeting on May 29 on approaches to infill and trees in the Tree Conservation By-law. This was a joint stakeholder meeting, with representatives from developers and the community in attendance. We sent this joint response (CAFES, Ecology Ottawa, FCA, GA) to the City on June 3. This was followed by a formal stakeholder meeting on June 24, at which time a discussion paper containing proposed directions for all aspects of the new By-law was tabled. A ten minute discussion for each proposal ensued. City staff took note of comments at the meeting and indicated that written submissions would be accepted until September 9. A joint submission, by way of a public petition with 376 signatures, was sent to the City on August 29. There will be a final push for signatures in September, including during national tree week, and the petition will be formally delivered to Mayor and Council at that time.

Official Plan 2013 (OPA 150 a.o.)

OPA150/180 Appeals

The last remaining set of appeals of OPA 150/180, dealing with Urban Expansion, were to be heard over a two week period starting on August 12. We are a recognized party in this appeal process. We retained the services of an expert witness and he prepared a first draft of his witness statement. However, the appellants requested that the hearings be suspended pending the outcome of the new Official Plan process that has now been launched. This was in effect the rationale in the motion for dismissal that we served, then withdrew, earlier on. So we can stand down for a while as the target date for approval of the new OP is the first quarter of 2021.

Erwin noted three new policy processes in which we might take action: the Minister’s latest letter to Conservation Authorities asking them to discontinue their “non-core” activities; the Small Modular Reactor application being made to Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, deadline September 14; and the review of the Provincial Policy Statement, deadline October 21.