The City of Ottawa’s Housing and Planning Committee has recommended that City Council approve a name change for the Ottawa Community Lands Development Corporation and that the new entity, Build Ottawa, have an amended mandate that is more focused on affordable housing. The move has some councillors asking whether the city could be missing out on badly needed revenue from municipal land.
The Ottawa Community Lands Development Corporation is a municipal services corporation that was created by city council in 2007. It’s mandate is “to enhance communities by improving and enhancing municipally owned land through the four pillars, which are financial, social, environmental and cultural sustainability.”
Dhaneshwar Neermul, the program manager for disposals and strategic development, said OCLDC has been successful in supporting the development of more than 2,000 residential units through the sale of surplus lands, with 25 per cent of those being affordable units. Neermul said the corporation has produced more than $100 million in gross revenues for the city and directed more than $6 million to the city’s affordable housing fund.
Neermul told the committee that Build Ottawa’s amendments will shift its focus, noting that the number one priority for the recently elected city council is housing affordability. He said the 2022 Council Governance Report gave direction to city council and OCLDC staff to update the corporation’s mandate and policies so they would adhere to the priority.
“The core focus of the corporation will be to advance the development of affordable housing units in consultation with the city’s housing branch, especially affordable rental homes,” he told the committee.
“This may be accomplished by requiring purchasers of city land to partner with non-profit housing providers, or include affordable units as part of any proposed development,” he said.
But some councillors said there are risks in the change to the mandate. Orléans West-Innes Coun. Laura Dudas, who has been a member of the corporation’s board in the past, said she was worried what would happen if a developer wanted to acquire a piece of land but wasn’t interested in using it for affordable housing. An OCLDC staff member said this kind of instance would be evaluated on a case by case basis and the organization would look to the board for direction on how to handle it.
Dudas said there could be a lot of good that comes from the transition to Build Ottawa, but there could also be some negative in that the City is forgoing revenue or maybe doesn’t end up getting affordable housing.
“This is a huge change for Build Ottawa,” she said. “To me, it doesn’t matter what the name is. I just want to make sure that if we’re setting the goals for building more affordable housing, [and if] we’re driving more community benefits, that there is an equal value in terms of revenue potentially lost.
“We need to see the revenue on both sides or we need to see it significantly weighted in terms of the community benefits. And I just want to make sure we’re aware of that going forward.”
During the meeting, Somerset Ward Coun. Ariel Troster put forward a motion that she worked on with staff called the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), which is an agreement aimed at achieving a broad range of socio-economic outcomes from infrastructure and building projects.
Troster’s CBA is intended to ensure Build Ottawa “incorporate[s] potential community benefits,” such as equitable hiring practices and funding for training. Build Ottawa must also include better accessibility when creating the evaluation criteria for when excess lands get discarded.
“I put this forward because land is the most valuable thing we own as a city, and as I mentioned before, it’s really incumbent on us to make sure that we get the maximum benefit for all of the communities that live in Ottawa,” said Troster.
Troster said the CBA is a road map and not a requirement.
“It just offers some more direction to staff when it comes to disposing of land, to consider some of these other elements to ensure that we’re really maximizing the value and making sure we don’t leave anyone behind.”
The committee approved the motion to send the The Ottawa Community Lands Development Corporation change to city council on Nov. 22.
