Proposed changes to Ottawa’s blueprint for the future are giving residents and developers the chance to have their say on how Ottawa will look 20 years in the future.
The public meeting, which started March 31 and was co-hosted by the agriculture and rural affairs committee and the planning and environment committee, saw scores of concerned individuals, community groups and developers descend on City Hall.
They came to voice their concerns about the terms of the City’s Official Plan, or ask for special allowances.
A major concern for many who attended was the debate over what intensification means. The plan calls for at least 36 per cent of all new developments to be built within the established urban area. Although this intensification target is slated to rise to 40 per cent starting in 2012, a University of Ottawa professor says it’s almost an arbitrary number.
“Intensification doesn’t tell you anything,” says Matthew Paterson, who also volunteers with Ecology Ottawa.
He questions how it would actually work, and whether nothing would be built until that 40 per cent quota has been reached.
He says intensification targets are the wrong way to spur development. For example, the city could fill the Experimental Farm with five-acre lots, and that would be considered intensification. Yet, this wouldn’t do anything to build a denser city, says Paterson.
Density targets, he says, are what is needed. But these should be in the form of row houses and not apartment buildings.
The row houses Paterson suggests give Westboro Beach its character.
Don Stewart is the vice president of the Westboro Beach Community Association. He came to speak about the need to protect neighbourhood character in the face of a changing Official Plan.
He says “neighbourhoods make Ottawa a great place to live,” and it’s necessary to make sure that the plan helps neighbourhoods in transition experience positive change. He notes in the past he has seen site planners overrule the local neighbourhood bylaws.
Another concern is the financial ramifications for downtown dwellers of expanding the urban boundary beyond its current limits.
At the moment, residents who live within the Greenbelt pay $1,000 more in taxes than they receive in services. This in effect means residents who live outside the Greenbelt are subsidized by those who live within it, says Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes.
Holmes says this disparity demonstrates why it’s necessary to focus on development within the Greenbelt. She says the aim of the Official Plan is to attempt to make the city more efficient.
She says building inside the Greenbelt is the most efficient way to provide services, which would allow for a better use of land in the outlying areas. She says she was interested by Ecology Ottawa’s submission to the meeting that referred to Paris, France as having considerably more density than Ottawa without having any buildings taller than eight storeys.
Shawn Menard, president of the Centretown Citizens’ Community Association, says the CCCA believes the density targets the City has established in Centretown are a good fit for the neighbourhood.
He also says the $1,000 service deficit is a key reason why he believes the proposed urban boundary expansion is a bad idea.
City staff will take all the submissions presented at the meeting and examine them to see how they could be incorporated into the Official Plan. The results will be presented to the joint committee on May 11.