Mayoral debate shows wide gulf over urban sprawl

Mayoral debate shows wide gulf over urban sprawl

Housing and development debate also sees tense exchange over planning approvals

Ottawa mayoral hopefuls are taking different positions on how far the city should sprawl to make space for hundreds of thousands more residents expected in the coming decades.

At a housing and development debate on Thursday, four leading candidates faced questions about the urban boundary that limits suburban development.

Neil Saravanamuttoo said he wouldn't support moving the line outward at all. He said it's just too expensive to lay out all the pipes and roads needed to turn distant rural lands into new neighbourhoods.

"We as a city cannot afford urban expansion anymore," he said. "We cannot afford the infrastructure. So why are we creating more infrastructure that will add more liability? It just doesn't add up from a fiscal perspective."

The Ontario government is forecasting 500,000 more people will call Ottawa home within 25 years, and is urging the city to provide enough development land to house them. The next city council will have to decide whether most will go in existing neighbourhoods or new suburban communities outside the boundary.

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Mayoral candidate Alex Lawson hit back against Saravanamuttoo, saying a mayor shouldn't stand in the way of growth. He said the city needs to provide the kind of housing people actually want.

Lawson asked whether those residents want dense development or spacious backyards and cars "to drive to Costco with their families."

"If that's the lifestyle people are going to be wanting, we have to look at what part of the urban boundary we're going to be expanding," he said.

The city has a consultant's report that says the market is demanding those kinds of homes and suggests adding an area the size of Barrhaven to the urban boundary. That option is likely to come up for debate sometime after the election.

Mark Sutcliffe said the urban boundary hasn't expanded under his tenure and he wants to avoid that as much as possible, but he said the city has to be "realistic" in the face of so much growth.

"Not every single person who is going to be moving to Ottawa or purchasing a new home wants to live in an apartment in downtown Ottawa or in the Glebe or in Westboro. Many of those people are going to want to own a home in the suburbs," he said.

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"They're going to want a backyard for their kids to play in, they're going to want space. So we need to take a balanced approach."

Jeff Leiper called it a "fraught" question and said council will have to take a hard look at the math as it responds to provincial demands.

He said any parcels added to the boundary will have to be located close to existing infrastructure and well-served by transit.

"The cost to future generations of urban boundary expansion has got to be first and foremost when we are considering what parcels to add," he said. "We absolutely have to think of those taxpayers of the future rather than taking a short-term approach."

Sutcliffe, Leiper face off over approvals

The debate, organized by the Greater Ottawa Home Builders' Association and the Ottawa Real Estate Board, saw another tense moment when Sutcliffe attacked Leiper over his record chairing the council committee that approves development.

"I'm surprised to hear you say you're proud of your time as chair of planning and housing, because it wasn't working, and after two years I kept hearing from the industry that they kept hearing no from the committee and from city staff," Sutcliffe said, adding that he had to step in and launch a task force to ease roadblocks to development.

Leiper said Sutcliffe's allegations are "simply not true." He said his committee has approved more than 36,000 housing units.

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"I don't think you can name a single refusal," he said. "It's clear to me that you've never been a city councillor, and I think you're still struggling to understand the land use approval process."

The city's housing dashboard confirmed Leiper's number, adding another 37,000 homes that got approvals through other avenues outside of his committee.

Sutcliffe's campaign put out a news release on Friday citing those same numbers. It said, "Under Sutcliffe’s leadership, Ottawa has said “YES” to more than 75,000 new homes. Today, Ottawa is approving homes faster than builders can build them."

Sutcliffe said the city would match that pace over the next four years if he's re-elected.

It's rare to see housing applications rejected at planning committee, where Leiper has one of 12 votes. Sometimes meetings end within minutes of opening with all projects approved, at times without any debate.

CBC asked Sutcliffe's campaign team for specific examples of what he had in mind. They provided examples where, for the most part, Leiper had personally dissented on applications that nonetheless passed at committee.

By far the largest example was Tewin, a new suburb in the city's southeast that is still early in the planning process and is only now seeking approval for a high-level plan. Leiper has called it an inefficient development, given the cost of serving the far-flung area with infrastructure.

Other examples preceded his time as chair, which began after the 2022 election. That includes the Heron Gate project, a development of more than 6,400 units that came to council in 2021. It proved controversial due to tenant evictions and displacements from the existing community on the site.

Others were in Kitchissippi ward, which Leiper has represented for three terms, such as an apartment project at 335 Roosevelt Ave. that he voted against in 2022.

Leiper and Sutcliffe clearly had more to say on the matter, but moderators cut them off, to the disappointment of Lawson.

"It was just getting exciting," he said.

Arthur White-Crummey is the municipal affairs reporter at CBC Ottawa. He grew up in Ottawa, spent years in Saskatchewan covering the courts, city hall and the provincial legislature, before moving back to his hometown. You can reach him at arthur.white-crummey@cbc.ca