Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

Xue: Ottawa Council should reject sprawl, for the sake of the climate

By Nancy Xue, Ottawa Citizen, May 5, 2020

Ottawa Council will shape the city’s growth for decades to come when it votes on expanding its suburbs in the near future. City staff recently released a report that recommended adding up to 1,650 hectares to the urban boundary. This leads to a scenario where nearly half of new housing built by 2046 is on currently undeveloped land. However, if council was serious when it declared a climate emergency last year, it must reject the expansion and embrace a denser Ottawa, because urban sprawl is a catastrophe for the climate.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be a priority for city staff. Their report acknowledged council’s climate goals and desires to accommodate most growth through increased density, but still recommended expanding the suburbs. For context, their massive proposal is seven times larger than what council approved when it last considered the issue in 2009.

(...)The hopeful thing is people are starting to get it. Ecology Ottawa has a petition with more than 3,000 signatures calling on council to hold the urban boundary where it is. And fortunately, there are endless ways to accommodate growth without sprawl.

Environmentalists bicker as planet of the humans burns

By Derek Dunn, InsideOttawaValley, May 2, 2020 Over on the left side of our planet of the humans a debate as massive as it is misguided has erupted. Everyone from music legend Neil Young and Green Party of Canada MP Elizabeth May to green celebrity Al Gore and environmental activist Bill McKibben denounce the Michael Moore-backed documentary Planet of the Humans. The film pilfers Gore and McKibben for cashing-in on the green movement so it’s no surprise they give it two thumbs down.

The problem with the YouTube-available documentary released for free April 20, Earth Day, is twofold: too much time on tearing down clean energy and, related, too little on addressing the central difficulties humanity faces – namely overconsumption and overpopulation.

Ottawa has 80,000 more suburban houses in its future. Here's what that could look like

By Kate Porter, CBC News Ottawa, May 1, 2020

Rachelle Lecours relaxes in her sunny, tidy bungalow in Orléans, reflecting on how much the Ottawa suburb has spread over four decades.

"I sort of feel guilty for being part of this growth," Lecours said. As her family grew over the years, they moved from one new development to another, seeking new home features and upgrading their garage. It was a "bad habit," she now says.

Homes on the fringes of the city are as popular as ever. People line up when a builder releases a new block of housing to lay money on a unit.

(...)Coun. Jeff Leiper was shocked city staff would recommend adding so much land — the 1,281 hectares designated for new urban areas is bigger than his entire ward of Kitchissippi.

(...)"If we're going to be sustainable, if we are going to have 15-minute neighbourhoods, if we're going to have affordable public transit, if we're going to keep our taxes as low as possible, then we can't just give in to market demand for single-family homes," Leiper said. His ward in the core is the epicentre for new highrise towers and pricey infill developments.

(...)The city can't risk supplying insufficient space for the expected homes. The Ontario government requires Ottawa show it has enough.

Staff have even worked with a local architectural firm on a new kind of structure that might help meet the needs of Ottawa families while building a city that's more dense: the "613 flat."

That is, six-rooms and three bedrooms per unit in short buildings that blend in with their neighbours. It offers the elusive "missing middle" style of housing — neither a house, nor a highrise apartment.

The problem, staff write, is it takes time to create policies, and more time yet to get the building industry and housing market to shift to building a new kind of lifestyle, and at the right price people can afford.

Homebuilders want you to see what Ottawa proposes for intensification

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Sun, May 1, 2020

The advocacy group for Ottawa’s residential developers — skeptical that a city planning proposal won’t add enough land in an expanded urban boundary — is eager for the public to understand what increased intensification looks like in built-up neighbourhoods.

The Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association (GOHBA) had one of the city’s most prominent planning firms, Fotenn, rough the building masses in communities that, according to the firm, would be required to satisfy a city-suggested intensification target.

(...)Lobbying from outside agencies is ramping up. Ecology Ottawa has been urging supporters to email and call their councillors to oppose an expanded urban boundary and “car-centric development moving Ottawa further away from a sustainable future.” GOHBA, meanwhile, has been asking members to email their councillors to call for an intensification target of 50 per cent, with additional development land beyond what city staff propose, “so that we can provide housing affordability and choice now and in the future.”

Ottawa households sending more trash to dump than recycling programs

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Sun, April 30, 2020

Residents with curbside garbage collection have been diverting just under half of their household trash to recycling boxes and green bins as the city moves closer to developing a new solid-waste master plan that could force people to be more environmentally conscious.

The city released the 2019 waste data Thursday as it completes the first of three phases to develop the new plan, which will ultimately aim to protect the municipal landfill from reaching capacity and encourage more people to recycle. The Trail Road dump is currently projected to reach capacity in 2041.

Earth Day 50 is over, so how do we get to Earth Day 100?

By Jens Wieting, National Observer, May 1, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic is another reminder of how fragile our existence on planet Earth is. We still don’t know how many more will die or get sick, but experts expect a vaccination will become available some time next year and allow us to get the upper hand, at least on this virus.

Unfortunately, there is no equivalent to a vaccine for restoring a livable climate and the web of life as we know it. For those who follow the news about global heating and the extinction crisis, the pandemic has added another level of despair about where the world is heading.

Mixed with concern about the new threat, however, is a sense of possibility. That’s because we’ve seen previously unimaginable global action by governments and individuals to flatten the curve of the pandemic. A safe future, however, calls for governments taking action on more than one crisis at a time. It’s clear we need to act with the same determination, based on science, to address the climate and extinction crisis.

City's waste diversion rate stagnates as long-term plan launched Social Sharing

By Joanne Chianello, CBC News Ottawa, April 30, 2020

More than a decade after the green bin was introduced in Ottawa — and even longer since paper and plastic recycling became a reality  — the city's residents still divert less than half the waste they produce from the landfill.

The city's curbside waste diversion rate in 2019 was 49 per cent, only marginally better than past years, according to an update provided during a virtual technical briefing Thursday morning that laid out the city's long-term plan to deal with solid waste.

With the rate in multi-unit residences even worse, only 43 per cent of waste ended up being kept out of the landfill overall, city statistics show.

That makes Ottawa one of the poorest performers among many Canadian municipalities when it comes to diversion, faring worse than Halifax, Vancouver, Guelph and even Toronto.

Why the urban boundary firestorm will end with council's most consequential decision of the term

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen, April 30, 2020

At city hall, there are few political firestorms as hot as those about where more homes should be built for a growing population, especially when staff recommend expanding the suburbs.

This is the kind of controversy that touches on several sensitive municipal topics like property taxes, transportation and affordable housing.

Council’s political fissure will swell, perhaps like never again this term, over a proposal by the planning department to add between 1,350 and 1,650 hectares of allowable development land inside the “urban boundary.”

A joint planning and agriculture and rural affairs committee will consider the guidance from the planning department on May 11 before sending a recommendation to council.

To anyone disengaged from the municipal government, the urban boundary fight might be dismissed as another clash between tree-hugging daydreamers and money-grubbing landowners.

Ottawa citizen transit commissioners to hold ‘informal’ chat to replace cancelled city meetings

By Angela Mazur, Global News Ottawa, April 30, 2020

An Ottawa citizen transit commissioner has set up a video chat meant to replace public transit meetings that have been cancelled for three months during the coronavirus pandemic.

Sarah Wright-Gilbert, who has been vocal in her criticism of Ottawa’s troubled new LRT system, created an online video chat event set to take place the night of May 13, after the May transit committee meeting was cancelled by the chair, Coun. Allan Hubley.

(,,,)The event is not sponsored by the city of Ottawa and is set to be an “informal” meeting where residents can ask questions about transit.

Wright-Gilbert said she’s slightly nervous at how the meeting will go, but she believes the demand is there.

“People have been asking for it,” she said.

Hubley has yet to respond to a request for further comment.

Transit meeting cancelled for third time in a row

By Dani-elle Dubé, 1310 News, April 29, 2020

Plans for a transit commission meeting have been nixed for a third straight month.

The plan, according two councillor Riley Brockington and citizen transit commissioner Sarah Wright Gilbert was to hold a virtual meeting on May 20. Since the last two meetings have been cancelled. Wright Gilbert tells 1310 the City shouldn’t cancel a third because there are too many issues to discuss.

Even though Ridership is down, Wright Gilbert says it’s important to have transparent discussions.

Ottawa's Healthy Transportation Coalition calling for review of park, public space restrictions

By Mike Vlasveld, 1310 News, April 30, 2020

The board of directors of Ottawa's Healthy Transportation Coalition is asking that the city and the National Capital Commission (NCC) stop limiting access to greenspaces within parks.

The coalition issued an open letter to Ottawa City Council, the Board of Health, and the NCC, Thursday.

Instead, the Coalition is demanding that more public spaces be opened, so that all residents can safely enjoy time outside, at safe physical distance from others, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Penalizing people who are using parks in ways that are no risk to others undermines civil liberties while harming the physical and mental health of our community," said Trevor Hache, board member and co-founder, Healthy Transportation Coalition.

Ottawa Farmers' Market vendors unite to sell produce through new website

By Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen, April 30, 2020

Sixteen vendors from the Ottawa Farmers’ Market are selling their produce and products through a new website that allows customers to place orders for pickup or delivery.

At the website farmscore.ca, the vendors include: Roots Down Organic Farm, Burrell Farm, Bushgarden Farm, Backyard Edibles, Castor River Farm, La Bergerie des Sables, Buzzz Honey Products, Blue Shoes Honey, Maple Country, bakery House of Pain, smokehouse Le Petit Brûlé, Milkhouse Farm + Dairy, Kricklewood Farm,  Hall’s Apple Market,  Raon Kitchen and Dominion City Brewing Co.