City approves new Official Plan
Ottawa City Council approved a new Official Plan for Ottawa this week – the City’s most comprehensive planning document. It marks the first time that Ottawa has adopted a new Official Plan since 2003.
The new plan will guide growth and redevelopment in Ottawa for the next 25 years and is framed around five big policy changes:
- Growth – encouraging more growth through intensification and providing more affordable housing
- Mobility – promoting sustainable transportation and encouraging complete streets.
- Urban Design – ensuring intensification happens in ways that benefit the streets and communities involved
- Resiliency – bringing environment, climate and health considerations to the forefront of planning
- Economy – establishing a strong relationship between land use and economic development
The new Official Plan is designed to help Ottawa become a city of connected, green, inclusive and walkable communities, with greater density of housing, employment and services around rapid-transit hubs and along transit corridors.
In Time the city will have to close the Queensway to gas driven cars, make extensive additions to the LRT and to increase the number of electric bus routes. COP26 in Glasgow, that starts today, will show us that these measures and many others, will guarantee our children and grandchildren’s future. Our council will have to start planning on this. Maybe all cities in Canada will have to make extensive and radical changes to their transportation plans.