Reshaped city might save farmland
The stage is now set for Ottawa council to reshape the city for the next quarter-century after the joint planning, agriculture and rural affairs committee approved the expansion of the city’s urban boundary this week.
This is no surprise. Given the character of the joint committee, and indeed council, holding the line on boundary expansion, as urban community associations and environmental groups wanted, was never a winning proposition. Now the boundary will expand by between 1,350 and 1,650 hectares to accommodate homes for hundreds of thousands of additional people over the next 25 years.
There may be a silver lining in this city-building exercise. With rural community leaders and politicians now complaining loudly about “suburban creep” and standing up to defend farmland from development, the ground may be shifting from unfettered development.
Coun. Eli El-Chantiry’s motion to exclude farmland from an expanded boundary is significant. If council approves the Official Plan incorporating Chantiry’s changes, farmland would be excluded from “any and all consideration” for boundary expansion. And such lands would “(not) be evaluated, considered or ranked in any way,” to be “even remotely associated or considered” for inclusion in an expanded urban area or village.
As well, farmland will not be used for infrastructure such as storm ponds, waste water facilities and sports fields that support new suburban development. El-Chantiry, who is chair of the agriculture and rural affairs committee, has limited the options for developers. Developers now sitting on land they hoped to develop might have a hard time of it.
Sprawl works because of the availability of cheap farmland to develop. Provincial rules protect prime farmland, usually the first three of seven classes. But as often happens, developers and speculators buy farmland, let it sit for years to turn into scrub, then apply to develop the land. In the past, town and city councils eager for property tax dollars approved the new homes. That’s how, over the years, quaint, historic villages were turned into the new suburbia. But if farmland of any kind is now off-limits to development, where to build?
El-Chantiry says it’s important to take these measures to protect food sources because once farmland is lost, it is irretrievable. This plan may not halt sprawl altogether, but it would make it harder.
That Ottawa is losing farmland is not in doubt. About 40 per cent of the city’s rural area is agricultural land. In 2001, when the amalgamated city took off, Ottawa had 120,000 hectares of farmland. Today, the figure is down to 102,000 hectares. A big reason is that new homes are chewing up farmland, threatening food security and fuelling greenhouse gas emissions.
The fight against urban sprawl has always pitted two groups against each other. One group says building on undeveloped and unserviced rural land is not only expensive but increases road congestion and the carbon footprint of people driving long distances to work. It also destroys farmland.
On the other side are developers who argue that people have the right to live where they choose, and government has no business interfering.
The thing is, developers don’t seem to have learned anything over the years. They appear to be stuck in a time warp. Every industry has adapted to the urgency of climate change, but not developers. Time after time during Official Plan debates, all they do is ask for more and more cornfields to be turned into asphalt, oblivious of climate change and the impact on farmland.
Somehow in this Official Plan process, rural community leaders and politicians woke up to the fact that the unchecked sprawl, “suburban creep,” is not in their interest. Beyond Stittsville, mini-versions of Orléans or Barrhaven are sprouting up in what are supposed to be rural villages, and the leaders don’t seem to like what they are seeing.
But nothing is settled yet. The next battle, perhaps the real battle, will come when staff actually draw boundary lines and map out which lands are in or out and, crucially, who stands to lose or gain. Stay tuned.