Last week’s debate on a volunteer contribution of $300,000 toward traffic calming and affordable housing in Capital Ward was a low point of this term’s council. Given the void of formal policies a councillor negotiated, for his community, funds for traffic calming and affordable housing. Are these terrible things to ask for?
I have not met a councillor yet who doesn’t want to get the most they can for their residents. In general, councillors look for opportunities to bring balance by creating or preserving liveable neighbourhoods as they evolve with intensification. Traffic calming measures are necessary to address the impact of more people (with more cars) living in a more intensified area. Affordable housing is needed to keep neighbourhoods open to all therefore creating a healthy blend of residents.
The City of Ottawa put forward a record $30 million towards affordable housing for 2024 which comes from our tax base. Shouldn’t large developers be part of the solution as we look for opportunities for more affordable housing across our city? The process of getting constructive measures into a community should not be something that needs to be negotiated by each individual councillor.
The Katasa voluntary donation (which has since been rescinded) was positive for the community but because it was a one-off deal it was vulnerable to criticism despite being vetted by our city’s legal team. Given the restrictions put on municipalities by the province by Bill 23 cities don’t have a mechanism to ask for provincially approved contributions from developers to improve the neighbourhoods that new developments are entering. I think we have all missed the point of why this was situation evolved. The alternative financial source to fund these measures is property taxes which are already spoken for with our standard commitments that are already stretched to the limit. A majority of Council voted down a situation where a developer negotiated with the councillor contributions for his ward yet there are no alternative processes for finding balance from the effects of new development in specific communities.
George Brown, a former Ottawa city councillor and lawyer, pointed out in a recent Ottawa Citizen article written by Blair Crawford, that “Ottawa is so far behind on this” (that is, developing our own Community Benefit agreement policy such as Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary have in place). It should be noted that George Brown negotiated the Herongate agreement which, although was not defined a community benefit agreement, gave many benefits to the community including green space and keeping affordable housing for tenants. Given the restrictions put upon municipalities by the provincial government on development charges we need replacements policies to bring more affordable housing into our city as well as funds for traffic calming to keep our growing communities liveable. Let’s move forward with strong actions to help effectively grow our city.
