By By Hope Berk, Jordan Haworth and Sissi De Flaviis Viva, Capital Current, March 30, 2020
As the City of Ottawa embarks on a new official plan – the blueprint to guide future development in the nation’s capital – local groups are resisting a possible push to expand the urban boundary.
Urban boundaries safeguard green spaces and dictate where and how intensively developers can build. While Ottawa’s projected growth suggests expansion of developable areas might be necessary, opposition groups say the opposite is true.
(...)“Intensification is the very first step we need to take to ensure Ottawa develops in a green way,” said Liza Odokiienko, who is spearheading Ecology Ottawa’s Hold the Line campaign. The campaign aims to increase intensification, which includes reducing the supply of single-family homes with higher-density dwellings and increasing infrastructure in already developed areas.
Odokiienko explained that intensification has been adopted by many cities as the best approach to accommodate a population boom while addressing affordable housing needs. Increasing density in existing residential areas – essentially replacing many single-family homes with multi-unit dwellings — reduces the need to develop new land for housing and increases the person-to-building ratio of current communities.
https://capitalcurrent.ca/ottawa-groups-fight-plan-to-expand-urban-boundary/