City of Ottawa staff recommend rejecting plan to expand urban boundary in Stittsville for 360 homes

Ottawa City Hall is seen in this undated file photo. (CTV News Ottawa)

City of Ottawa staff are recommending the city reject an application to add land to the urban boundary in Stittsville to permit 360 housing units to be built, saying the city currently has enough land available for housing.

Caivan has filed an application with the city to add land at 5971 Flewellyn Road, 1770 Shea Road and 1820 Shea Road to the urban boundary and redesignate the lands as “Neighbourhood” under the Suburban Transect to support the development of a residential subdivision.

The plan calls for 360 housing units to be built on 16 hectares of land.

However, in a report for Wednesday’s planning and housing committee meeting, staff recommend councillors refuse the Official Plan amendment to add the land to the urban boundary. Staff say there is no expansion of the urban boundary required to maintain at least a 15-year supply of residential land as required under the Official Plan’s growth management framework.

“The Provincial Planning Statement (PPS) requires municipalities to maintain at all times a 15-year supply of designated residential land and a three-year supply of serviced land,” staff said in the report.

“The City currently exceeds these requirements, with 18.7 years of designated residential land supply, including more than seven years of serviced lands. With the addition of approximately 339.0 hectares of Future Neighbourhood areas that have recently commenced their secondary planning processes, the total supply approaches 25 years.”

The city currently has 1,581 net hectares of designated and available land for housing development.

“The applicant has not demonstrated a land need to substantiate the request for an expansion to the City’s urban boundary,” staff said.

“The submission did not include a dedicated Land Needs Assessment, nor did the planning rationale provide an analysis demonstrating that inclusion of the subject lands within the urban boundary is required to meet the 15-year residential land supply requirement.”

The lands at Flewellyn and Shea roads are adjacent to the Stittsville South Urban Expansion Area, which was added to the urban boundary as part of the 2022 Official Plan.

Stittsville Coun. Glen Gower says he does not support the request to expand the urban boundary to accommodate the 360 homes. The report says Rideau-Jock Coun. David Brown supports the staff recommendation to refuse the application.

The report does note the City of Ottawa has launched a comprehensive review of population forecasts and a growth management strategy through an Official Plan update.

“Should additional settlement area land be required to accommodate the Ministry of Finance population projections, the City will evaluate potential expansion areas through a holistic and coordinated citywide review,” staff said.

“Landowners may request that their lands be considered as candidate settlement area expansion parcels through this Official Plan update, without the need for an individual application.”

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