The local homebuilders association says the city is on a fast track to stunting its own downtown growth with a “communist solution” to infill housing regulations.
John Herbert, head of the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association, says the city is working on a new set of bylaws that would suffocate architectural progress.
“They’re simply going to freeze these neighbourhoods in time,” he says. “This is really extreme control and regulation.”
The debate over infill housing zoning bylaws has been kicking around for almost three years now. After a first round of public consultations that Herbert says the city “arbitrarily” halted, the city released an initial set of bylaws addressing the issue in 2012.
Herbert says his group, which represents those who build and design infill projects, appealed those flawed laws to the Ontario Municipal Board. It decided to send the city back to the drawing board.
But now, he says, “it’s a mess.” Despite teaming up with Ottawa’s community associations – which rarely happens – to meet with zoning officials during the summer, Herbert says the city isn’t listening.
The planning department is working on bylaws that would apply to all houses in the downtown core – not just infill housing projects – which Herbert says makes “a mountain out of a molehill.”
Anyone adding onto or renovating their home would “have to meet a rather bizarre set of design control guidelines,” he says.
But Alain Miguelez, Ottawa’s program manager for zoning, intensification, and neighbourhoods, says the city isn’t trying to stifle beauty. Rather, he says it’s trying to make sure new structures fit with the visual feel of the surrounding area.
“There’s a difference between architecture and character,” he says. “You can have very modern architecture that stays in character with an old area.”
“We’ve heard loud and clear from the neighbourhoods, including Centretown, that we don’t mind infill, we just want it to look good and fit well,” he says.
One way he says he hopes his department can prevent out-of-place buildings from popping up in mature neighbourhoods is by axing the need to provide parking with every new home.
He says that in some cases, twisting homes “into a pretzel to put a garage in” has resulted in the “destruction” and “attack of neighbourhoods.” The yards are engulfed by a garage and paved driveway, killing any greenery that might have existed on the lot before construction.
“In downtown Ottawa, 53 per cent of households don’t have a car. Why would we require the building to look like it’s only catering to the car when it should be catering to the people?” he says. “That’s where we’re going.”
He says the city’s challenge is “getting some people to understand that the world doesn’t revolve around parking.”
However, Herbert says the city should be tackling infill problems from an individual application basis, not a sweeping act.
As for the unpopular infill projects that have already been built, Miguelez says there’s no going back. But he says unsightly parking configurations could be renovated and changed if the city adopts the new regulations.
“We are very determined to get the small-scale infill right, as much as the big projects,” he says.
Caroline Andrew, a political science expert at the University of Ottawa who specializes in urban affairs, says zoning for infill projects is a “huge issue” that still needs “much more general public discussion.”
She says the city should be encouraging more public debate. “That really gets down to the basic of what kind of city we want.”
In any case, Miguelez’s office has been busy. He says that from 2007 to 2012, his staff issued permits for 1,612 infill units in Ottawa’s five central wards.
And his team is “thrilled” about the upward trend, he says, because it means the city is pulling more families toward the core.
“There’s no question that if you’ve got 1,600 in five years, obviously there’s a demand for them,” he says.
Miguelez says the planning department will be presenting the new bylaws to the city’s planning committee on Nov. 26.