View of Parliament Hill and the city of Ottawa from a helicopter. Photo by Tony Caldwell/Postmedia

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The City of Ottawa’s new official plan has been approved by the provincial housing minister — with some major changes being mandated.

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These include further expansion of Ottawa’s urban boundaries to the east, west and south of the city. higher height provisions for buildings along short corridors; and the repeal of policies intended to protect existing rental housing. Sign up to receive daily news headlines from the Ottawa Citizen, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. By clicking the subscribe button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300

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A city’s urban limits define the area in which urban development is allowed—with major roads, transit, and sewer and water lines—and its expansion is a high-stakes decision for developers and landowners. The new official plan will guide the city’s development until 2046. It was approved by city council on a 21-2 vote more than a year ago and submitted to the province for final sign-off shortly after. A total of 30 changes were made to the plan before Housing and Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark approved it on Friday, with the decision noting that measures were taken “to address issues related to the protection of provincial highways, wetlands protection, monitoring affordable housing and increasing housing supply”.

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A 175-hectare parcel in the Kanata North-South March area that was replaced by councilors’ staff-proposed urban boundary expansion in 2021 to make room for the controversial Tewin community has been added back. Tewin is staying, despite some speculation that he will be rejected by the province. The other new expansion acreage is in the Stittsville (31ha), Riverside South (106ha), Findlay Creek (200ha) and North Orleans (37ha) areas. In a statement released Friday, the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association (GOHBA) said the move to expand city limits by an additional 550 hectares and extend height permits along small corridors were “necessary and welcome moves to increasing Ottawa’s housing supply. ”

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A 2020 council decision to extend the urban boundary by 1,281 hectares of residential land was controversial, so this provincial choice to push it even further is likely to attract significant criticism from those concerned about the economic and environmental costs of sprawl. However, there is no official route for reviewers to do anything about it. Under provincial law, the minister’s decision on the official plan is final and non-appealable, and is now in effect as amended. GOHBA president David Renfro called the city of Ottawa’s projected population growth of 400,000 people over the 25-year timeline of the new official plan “unrealistically low.” Between the closing of the gap between the city’s and the province’s population projections to 2046 and a new housing target the province announced for Ottawa (and 28 other municipalities) last week, the additional urban boundary expansion was a “natural outcome Renfroe said.

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As for the more generous height allowances along the so-called “minor corridors,” the amended official plan allows up to nine stories in the downtown core and six in the inner and outer urban areas within the Greenbelt. Among the other changes written into the plan by Clark is the deletion of an entire section devoted to setting conditions for the destruction of rental housing, including room for the city to adopt a framework requiring the replacement of such housing when it is demolished. has thought and Toronto had it in place for years. The province is currently consulting on options to “standardize and clarify” municipal powers to regulate demolition and rental conversion, “to provide consistency and streamline the construction and revitalization of new housing supply.” It’s part of a larger package of controversial legislative and regulatory changes unveiled by the provincial government last week to address what Clark described as a “housing supply crisis” in Ontario.

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