Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has announced a new action plan aimed at making Ottawa the most housing-friendly city in Canada.
The five-point plan, introduced on Friday, would look to speed up approvals for new projects, pause or reduce fees, reorient the city bureaucracy towards being more accommodating to development, encourage greater density in downtown and near transit, and make better use of public lands for affordable housing.
Some of the changes proposed include pausing community benefit charges for five years, deferring some building code fee increases, creating a 10-year housing roadmap for city-owned lands, waiving planning and building permit fees for non-profit projects, and reviewing the site plan control bylaw and secondary development plans, which create neighbourhood-level polices on housing development and design.
They are mostly cribbed from recommendations of the city’s Housing Innovation Task Force, which Sutcliffe created earlier this year and is made up of city staff and industry representatives.
“Families, seniors, and young people are struggling with rising housing costs,” Sutcliffe said in a statement.
“Housing has become too expensive for too many. With this plan, we’re moving from being part of the problem to being part of the solution. We are saying yes to housing.”
City council will consider the plan at its Oct. 8 meeting. If approved, 40 per cent of the plan’s recommendations will be implemented immediately, while another 40 per cent will come into effect before next fall’s election, including updates to secondary plans, streamlined approval processes, and programs to accelerate housing development.
