Ottawa Community Housing Annual General Meeting
This week during the City Council meeting Ottawa Community Housing presented our 2023 Annual Report. Many might ask, why does the OCHC Annual General Meeting take place during a council meeting?
The City of Ottawa is the sole shareholder of Ottawa Community Housing Corporation. Our report is our opportunity to share with our shareholder how Ottawa Community Housing is operating and maintaining its current portfolio of 15,000 units and how we are building more housing for the future. This past year we have built, or are in the process of building, over 900 new units.
I am proud to be the Chair of Ottawa Community Housing, Ottawa’s largest non-profit housing provider because I feel passionate about the role that OCH plays in our city’s quest for more affordable housing. I took on this post because I want to be part of the team that not only maintains its current stock of housing but also plans and builds more affordable housing, particularly for families. As a non-profit organization OCH builds only affordable housing but also partners with developers who are including affordable housing in their developments. To keep more properties affordable OCH recently purchased 311 townhouse units from Minto Corporation which will now make them non-profit housing.
Carlingwood Shopping Centre purchase
It was recently announced that the Carlingwood Shopping centre property was purchased by Streamliner Properties and Anthem Properties Group who have teamed up to acquire the Carlingwood Shopping centre in Bay Ward, which is home to the largest Canadian Tire location in the country. For more information on these companies here is a recent article from the Real Estate News Exchange.
The Carlingwood land parcel has already been zoned for development through the city’s Official Plan which was approved in 2022. At this time there have been no formal conversations with the city on next steps. Once a plan has been announced I will forward any new information through my newsletter when I receive it.
As we are all aware, housing prices and rents are becoming more and more unreachable to those trying to find a place to live and more accommodations are needed. Ottawa now has a population of one million people and is growing. There will be a need for all types of housing and there are two options of where to build them, we can further expand our already large city, or build housing in urban areas that currently do not have housing such as vacant or under-utilized properties, including parking lots. Ottawa’s Official Plan stated that 60% of Ottawa’s growth needs to be within the urban boundary. Intensification in urban areas mean the majority of new residents will be closer to existing amenities such as stores and services. When a city builds houses further out it requires building new roads and services which costs all taxpayers more money even if they do not use them. It should be noted that the majority of Ottawa Community Housing new developments are in urban areas on either previously vacant federal or municipal land or as a renewal of existing OCH properties.
I believe that all the new developments should have affordable housing. That is why I ask all developers to include this in their projects. Currently, the province does not support mandatory affordable housing with all new development projects, but I continue to ask for developers to include this in their projects in Bay Ward.
Intensification is far from being something that only our city council is supporting. All three levels of government are in favour of intensification. The federal government is demanding municipalities must build more affordable homes and have placed a condition on their Housing Accelerator Fund contributions that they want the city to allow 4 units on each property parcel. The provincial government is also telling municipalities, such as Ottawa, to build more homes in its urban boundaries and stated they want the city to allow 3 units on each property as well as allowing high rise buildings near transit or in transit-oriented areas. Any intensification development project that a city turns down can be overridden by the Ontario Land Tribunal. There’s agreement by all levels of government that we need to build homes as we grow in population.
There are two main reasons for building within the urban core. One, it is better for climate change to have more housing closer together rather than spread out requiring more infrastructure. Two, it means less cost to taxpayers since new infrastructure such as sewers, water and transit will need to be built from scratch. As a city it is better to continue to avoid using greenfield land, preserving existing greenfields is better for wildlife and for air quality.
Bay Ward will be seeing more development close to the upcoming Stage 2 transit stations at locations such as Lincoln Fields and Queensview Drive. There will also be Bus Rapid Transit along Carling Avenue. This will mean better transit service across the city. The area will continue to grow, something we can do smartly, with a focus on housing for all, and creating neighourhoods with easy access to amenities, greenspaces, and places to meet your neighbours and build community.
As always, I will keep the community informed about any upcoming projects and developments in Bay Ward.
