Urban boundary plan faces opposition
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Urban+b...612/story.html
Lawyer for developers vows to take fight to municipal board
BY PATRICK DARE, THE OTTAWA CITIZENMAY 14, 2009 10:15 PM
OTTAWA — A lawyer who represents developers at Ottawa City Hall put councillors on notice Thursday that the city is in for a fight over changes in the official plan for the urban area, even if it makes no changes to the urban boundary.
Michael Polowin told councillors that the new official plan could be appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board even if no additions are made to the urban area, just because the possibility of expansions has been raised in a report requested by city council. The provincially appointed board has the power to overrule city decisions about planning and development.
“This will be decided at the OMB,” said Polowin afterward, in a brief interview with the Citizen.
The city is reviewing its official plan as it must every five years, and part of the process is deciding whether to open more land for construction on the outskirts of the city.
Land that gets designated for development typically increases dramatically in value, and the people who own property in the affected areas often fight hard to get their land approved.
City planners have proposed that the city expand its urban boundary to encompass 842 more hectares, but the city’s senior planning lawyer, Tim Marc, said earlier this week that council could avoid costly, lengthy appeals before the municipal board if it sticks with its current urban boundary, rather than allowing development in some areas, but not others. This is due to recent changes in provincial planning law that strengthened municipal authority.
Polowin, a lawyer specializing in development issues and an occasional Citizen columnist, told a joint meeting of city council’s planning and agricultural affairs committees that his clients’ land at Leitrim should be included within a revised urban boundary for Ottawa.
Polowin complained to councillors that planning staff have placed his clients’ Bank Street property both in and out of the revised urban area over that last three months, something he called “really strange.”
Lesley Paterson, the program manager for planning policy at the city who is leading the review, said the complicated point system used to rate the possible additions to the urban area has changed. She said the initial reports were drafts that the city wanted feedback on.
When people came forward with information, or an argument about how the evaluation should be changed, the city was willing to listen. She said the city’s planning work is an objective comparative analysis of potential urban areas picked by planners, not developers.
A combative Polowin refused to abide by a five-minute limit in his submissions to the joint committee and was permitted to go beyond the time limit.
Councillor Steve Desroches, who represents Gloucester-South Nepean, said there’s little interest in his ward among residents for adding that area, known as “Area 8A” in planning documents, to the urban area. But Desroches said he wasn’t interested in getting into an argument with Polowin, who has been highly critical of city council in his Citizen columns.
Polowin was one of about 60 people who have made submissions or are lobbying city councillors this week on changes to the urban boundary. Landowners and developers want inside the urban boundary. Many community groups and citizens want the city to hold the line and allow development in more central neighbourhoods.
The city’s planning experts, and a lot of environmental and community groups, say suburban communities have to grow with greater density — using less land than is commonly used for single-family houses — to make growth more financially and environmentally sustainable.
Councillors face a challenge May 26 when they will debate the official plan revisions at committee, and then have a final debate at full council.
Cumberland Councillor Rob Jellett, who chaired Thursday’s meeting, said he hopes councillors will agree to no expansion of the urban boundary or, at the very least, extremely limited expansion. He said the city can reopen the question in five years, but for now has an 18-year supply of land for single-family homes.
One developer, Ian Taggart, warned councillors Thursday that if the city doesn’t ensure a good supply of urban land for development, residents would lose the chance to own homes. Taggart, whose company wants to build a 4,500-unit subdivision east of the current Orléans urban boundary in a district called “Area 11,” said that a house downtown costs three times as much as one in the suburbs.
Jellett, who represents that area and opposes the Cardinal Village addition, said he has a lot of questions about how Area 11, which initially scored poorly on transportation, eventually managed to score reasonably well. The score changed because different traffic data were used and the assumption was made that drivers could use less busy roads. (Also, Paterson said, in some areas, such as Area 11, some natural spaces were deleted from the plan as the planners got a closer look at the land.)
But Jellett says he sees nothing but gridlock ahead if the 4,500 houses are built, bringing in 5,000 to 8,000 cars, almost all of them heading for heavily travelled roads such as Old Montreal Road, Trim Road and Highway 174.
The development proposal calls for expansion of the area’s roads, but Jellett says there’s no assurance any of those expansions will happen.
“I’m skeptical,” said Jellett. “The volume of traffic is going to be massive.”
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