The Planning and Housing Committee met this past week and approved a new schedule of development charges and a new development charges by-law, to help ensure essential infrastructure and services keep pace with growth in Ottawa.
Development charges are one-time fees levied by municipalities on new residential and non-residential developments. They are used to fund infrastructure that is essential for the growth of a city, such as water supply systems, wastewater systems, stormwater management, public transit, roads, parks, recreation facilities, libraries and paramedic services.
The City’s current development charges by-law is set to expire on May 22. To ensure the City can continue to collect fees, Council will need to enact a new by-law before that date. This will ensure that those benefitting from new growth within Ottawa are the ones paying for the associated initial capital costs needed to service it. The development charge costs would still represent about five to seven per cent of the cost of new homes in Ottawa.
The new by-law reflects revised development charge rates, based on two background studies approved today: the primary development charges background study as well as a study of individual stormwater management ponds and drainage systems. The Development Charges Act requires the City to update these studies before it can update its by-law.
The Committee also approved a zoning amendment to facilitate a development of about 100 three-and-a-half storey homes on Old Second Line Road in Kanata. The amendment would retain a residential zoning and is mainly needed to allow stacked dwellings as a permitted use at this location. A small height increase of one metre was also approved along with some revised setbacks to encourage more outdoor amenity space within the development.
If Council approves, the land-use permissions that the Committee recommended today will help put applicants in a position to build 100 new dwellings in Ottawa. To help address the housing challenge, Council committed to providing home builders enough opportunities to build 151,000 quality market homes by 2031. Visit ottawa.ca/residentialdwellings for a graphic showing quarterly progress towards Ottawa’s housing pledge targets.
Recommendations from today’s meeting will rise to Council on Wednesday, May 15.
