By Mike Johnson and Linda Murphy, Ottawa Citizen Letters to the Editor, October 30, 2021
Two interesting letters to the editor, the first about the Gramercy Westboro development and the second about tree planting efforts in Carlingwood
By Joanne Laucius, Ottawa Citizen, October 26, 2021
“I think there is angst about climate change. It’s so complicated. But people love their trees,” said Joan Freeman, a retired environmental management consultant and a board member with Community Associations for Environmental Sustainability.
On Wednesday, city council will contemplate the final form of its new official plan, the first since 2003, as Ottawa faces expanding to 1.4 million people over the next 25 years.
The city has acknowledged that greenspace cools the air, reduces stress, helps reduce chronic diseases and promotes mental health and exercise.
By Kate Porter, CBC News Ottawa, October 27, 2021
If you haven't gone through the maps in the City of Ottawa's draft new official plan, looking at areas shaded in purple and roads in thick and thin lines, perhaps you should.
They'll give you a glimpse of areas expected to be redeveloped in the future, so you'll be less surprised when several multi-storey buildings you never imagined in your neighbourhood get building permits.
The official plan being voted on at today's city council meeting will set out how Ottawa grows for the next 25 years. It's not an update — this city-building document has been written from scratch for the first time in a generation, and it aims to aggressively build up existing areas, especially those closer to downtown, to keep from spreading farther out.
By Janet Mark Wallace, Op-Ed, Ottawa Citizen
Many residents of North America regard free parking as something of a human right. Plans to charge for parking are often met with accusations of government cash grabs or corporate greed.
In his magnum opus, The High Cost of Free Parking, UCLA professor of urban planning Donald Shoup makes a 700-page case that there is in fact no such thing as free parking. The proper question to ask, is “Who is paying for the parking?”
By Taylor Blewett, Ottawa Citizen, October 13, 2021
...Council voted 19-4 Wednesday in favour of the master plan, with councillors Jeff Leiper, Shawn Menard, Rawlson King and Catherine McKenney opposing.
“I think as a city we need to be asking for better in this case,” Menard said, sharing his belief that the plan falls short when it comes to LRT integration and parking plans and that there are better alternative concepts for the site’s footprint that would reduce the loss of trees and green space and improve the transit experience.
By Jason Burggraaf, Ottawa Citizen Op-Ed
...
The Official Plan’s most important job is to lay out where new homes can go — whether inside or outside the Greenbelt, whether in existing neighbourhoods or in new communities — and how densely those homes can and should be built.
We — the city, home builders, fellow citizens — all have an obligation to ensure that enough homes get built so that future residents of Ottawa have housing they can afford, and that they have choices in the type of home they can live in and where that home is located within the city.
By Kate Porter, CBC News Ottawa, October 6, 2021
Rural residents who live smack in the middle of what's slated to become Ottawa's next suburb remain perplexed as to why their area was pegged for urban development, and don't see how thousands of new homes can be built on the soil around them.
City staff have now identified the area that will form the suburb to be called Tewin after they met monthly with the Algonquins of Ontario — a treaty-negotiating body that includes Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation — and their partner Taggart Investments.
By Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen, October 1, 2021
There’s an application with the planning department for a 26-storey highrise at the corner of Bronson and Carling, an intersection so busy it constantly roars, day and night, with a grinding, motorized anger.
The tower is high enough (82 metres) that a study indicates, on fall afternoons, a good part of the playing field at Glebe Collegiate would be in shadow. And it’s across the street.
...“We’re opposed to bad development. This site is ripe for development. It ought to be developed, but this high-rise is egregiously out of place.”
By Kate Porter, CBC News Ottawa
Infill development is known to be much cheaper for cities than adding new subdivisions and City of Ottawa staff have shared estimates for how much the municipality saves — and spends — depending on where development happens.
Hemson found it now costs the City of Ottawa $465 per person each year to serve new low-density homes built on undeveloped land, over and above what it receives from property taxes and water bills. That's up $56 from eight years ago.
On the other hand, high-density infill development, such as apartment buildings, pays for itself and leaves the city with an extra $606 per capita each year, a financial benefit that has grown by $151.
By Leslie McKay, StittsvilleCentral, September 27, 2021
...More than a decade ago, City Council directed staff to develop a Wildlife Strategy that “would facilitate and foster a more harmonious relationship with all wildlife. Council’s direction was motivated not only by general concerns for biodiversity and harmony with nature but by specific issues and complaints arising from the City’s policies and procedures for dealing humanely with individual animals or populations of animals.”
Yet, with respect to beavers, City staff continue to completely ignore that Council direction.
By Toon Dreesen, Ottawa Citizen, September 27, 2021
We are a growing city. Our population is projected to grow 40 per cent over the coming decades. Ottawa’s new Official Plan attempts to address how to accommodate that growth in a sustainable way. But we’re challenged when investment decisions at the budget table are in stark contrast to the objectives we set.
Since declaring a climate emergency in 2019, the city has earmarked less than one per cent of the annual investment needed to address climate action. Based on Ecology Ottawa’s research, the 2021 budget allocated $140 million for repair and new roads, with less than $3 million set aside for climate action.
By Chris Hatch, National Observer, September 24, 2021
In fact, it was a high-water mark for climate in a federal election. For the first time, all the major parties put forward real programs to tackle climate change.