In my wrap up comments today at City Council, I likened Ottawa’s New Zoning By-law project to an action-adventure movie featuring a spaceship on a long, long journey back to Earth.
That journey started in 2019 with a kickoff meeting for the Official Plan, and today the ship entered the atmosphere and reached the surface. Along the way the vessel was pounded by asteroids and debris (including several unexpected rounds of provincial legislative changes) and was running low on fuel (planning staff working flat out over the last few months to wrap this up), with a few parts held together by duct tape (some last-minute amendments and fixes). And it took a large crew on the ship and in the control room (planners, residents, the building industry, and councillors) to bring it safely home.
We spent hours and hours in meetings, going through the technical regulations like angular planes and minimum setbacks with a fine-tooth comb. It’s important, though, to keep this centred on what this is really all about: Making sure people have a place to live as our city grows.
- Making sure people have more options to live in a place that suits their family and lifestyle.
- Making sure they can live close to where they work or go to school.
- Making sure they can live close to good transit.
- Making sure that they can live affordably.
The new by-law is not without flaws. It’s still very complex, even if it is far, far simpler and less cumbersome than what came before. I’m not totally happy with where we ended up with heights along suburban mainstreets (18 storeys as-of-right is better than 40, but still quite a jump for a community like Stittsville). The various transects (suburban, inner urban, etc.) have become more homogeneous than what the Official Plan set out to establish.
Most of these shortcomings are a product of the inevitable give-and-take that comes through extensive consultation. Zoning and planning will continue to evolve and a decade from now it will evolve again. I am glad that we landed the space ship without the acrimony that is too often a part of major zoning changes in other Canadian cities. Council was, for the most part, on the same page on this one – responding to Ottawa’s housing crisis.
There are still some procedural and legal steps to complete before the new by-law comes into effect, so we can’t fully say “mission accomplished”. Still, today’s approval by City Council is a significant policy milestone. A big thank you to City staff, residents, and industry representatives who played a role in this.
More to come…