City Hall showdown looms over sprawl
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Fight over boundary down to ‘white-hats-versus-black-hats’
BY NECO COCKBURN, THE OTTAWA CITIZENFEBRUARY 21, 2010 10:02 PMCOMMENTS (2)
OTTAWA — An old-fashioned showdown is looming at City Hall between councillors who want to expand the city’s suburban boundary and potentially allow new subdivisions farther from Ottawa’s core and those who want to rein in the line to prevent urban sprawl.
College Councillor Rick Chiarelli, backed by Mayor Larry O’Brien, will have council reopen discussion on the issue next week. Chiarelli said he had hoped to spark “intelligent debate” between councillors, but that’s not happening, since “there seems to be no moderation on either side.”
It has come down to a “white-hats-versus-black-hats gunfight,” Chiarelli said.
It will be the second time in seven months that council will consider the boundary, which is a line on city zoning maps outside which no major development is supposed to happen.
Land inside the boundary can be developed and instantly becomes more valuable than land that’s not, but people opposed to expansion say moving subdivisions farther away from the core creates more demand for expensive city services and can damage the environment by consuming land and increasingtraffic.
The city has conducted several studies showing this, and minimizing sprawl is official policy.
In June, at the end of a year-long review of the city’s official plan, which governs what can be built and where and which has to be re-examined every five years, council decided not to follow a staff recommendation to expand the boundary by 842 hectares.
Instead, councillors voted 12-11 to expand the boundary by 222 hectares, mostly between Kanata and Stittsville, to fill in gaps between areas where development has been approved; before that, they voted
13-10 against a straight freeze on the boundary. Because the compromise passed, the idea of an 842-hectare expansion didn’t come to a vote.
Landowners and builders wanted more than 2,000 hectares to be approved and have launched appeals to the Ontario Municipal Board, which can overrule city planning decisions.
Chiarelli wants councillors to hear the expected costs and the city’s chances of successfully defending its decision. He expects the city might have a weak case before the board, since councillors voted for a limited expansion in defiance of their own staff’s advice. Trying to defend council’s decision could be expensive and pointless if the city’s going to lose, he said. Chiarelli’s motion says council should adopt the staff recommendation to expand the boundary by 842 hectares.
There are 29 appeals before the board dealing with the official plan and the city has set aside $500,000 for “specialized legal advice.”
Councillors expect a legal opinion on the matter, but several of those opposed to expansion appear doubtful their minds will change.
“I fundamentally believe that on the merits of the argument, the decision that city council has made is right, supportable, defendable,” said Alta Vista Councillor Peter Hume, who proposed the 222-hectare expansion.
Hume, chairman of city council’s planning and environment committee, said some official plan cases before the OMB deal with more than just the boundary and will still require the city’s attendance even if council takes a new vote.
Some councillors expect part of Wednesday’s discussions to involve procedural wrangling over whether council can revisit the issue at all. Ordinarily, revisiting an earlier decision requires several councillors to have changed their minds, or for significant new information to have become known. The question will be whether the details on the legal costs of the OMB fights will qualify.
Based on the narrow decision in June, things could get particularly interesting if councillors are asked to vote on Wednesday. (Due to a heavy schedule, part of the council meeting could take place on Thursday or Friday.)
In June, O’Brien was away due to his criminal trial, and he says he’d have voted against the 222-hectare compromise. Somerset Councillor Diane Holmes, who has advocated freezing the boundary and voted for the compromise as a fallback position in June, is expected to miss at least Wednesday’s meeting.
That could shift the balance of power from those who would not approve further expansion to those who would.
Depending on the outcome, some councillors could still call for the issue to be considered yet again when council meets in March.
Just like last time the issue was debated, community groups opposed to expansion plan to rally outside city hall at noon on Wednesday.
Bay Councillor Alex Cullen, who is opposed to further expansion, expects “high political drama” at the meeting.
“We are talking about the future of the city for the next 20 years. We’re also talking about millions of dollars of land value riding on this decision,” he said.
Councillors on either side of the issue don’t appear to be wavering.
“The right decision was made to begin with and I don’t know that there’s any relevant new information that would cause us to change our minds,” said Rideau-Rockcliffe Councillor Jacques Legendre, who voted to limit expansion.
Rideau-Goulbourn Councillor Glenn Brooks, who also voted to rein in expansion, said he has not changed his mind.
But on the other side, Osgoode Councillor Doug Thompson said it would be good long-range planning to expand the boundary to what staff had recommended. He voted against the compromise last time.
So did Kanata North Councillor Marianne Wilkinson, whose ward contains land that would have been added to the urban boundary under the staff recommendation. She said she doesn’t want to shut the door on new development for people who want certain types of housing.
“I’m not going to go and say that in the future, nobody can have a single-family house.”
ncockburn@thecitizen.canwest.com
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