Category: Official Plan 2021

The City of Ottawa released the first draft of its new Official Plan on November 20, 2020. After years of high level discussion papers, strategic policy directions, deferred growth management decisions, we would finally see what the City concretely intended to put in the new Official Plan. It wasn’t easy to discern however as the draft OP is a massive 264 page document, plus schedules and annexes. A deadline of

We don’t want any urban expansion, because climate change. In May 2019, we proposed a No Expansion scenario, with 63.5% of projected growth to be achieved through intensification, the balance by building out the remaining vacant greenfields already inside the urban area. The City concedes that: “This scenario represents the greatest extent to which growth management can contribute to achieving policy directions where most growth occurs through intensification, growth uses existing

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

Last December 13, students in Queen’s University Urban Planning Program presented the result of a project, Canada’s Resilient Capital: Ottawa in the Next Half Century.  The project was devised and executed in cooperation with the City, under the supervision of David Gordon. (The clients are identified as John Smit and Alain Miguelez.) Their Report (181 pp.) and Executive Summary (3 pp.) are now available from here: http://www.queensu.ca/geographyandplanning/surp/project-courses. Here are the