33 City Planning Temps Made Permanent
This is a release from the City of Ottawa from Sept. 11, 2024 and found by an eagle-eyed Bulldog reader:
The Planning and Housing Committee today approved changes to City planning processes that would make the review of development applications more efficient, accelerating the construction of much needed housing across Ottawa. The changes would ensure the City is aligned with the Province’s recently enacted Bill 185, Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act.
Under the revised process, the City would deliver a decision on zoning applications, as well as concurrent zoning and site plan applications, within 120 days. Individual site plan applications would be processed within 90 days. Providing applicants with feedback or a decision within 120 days will ensure a consistent timeline for anyone seeking application approvals. A consistent and streamlined review process will help get more homes built in Ottawa more quickly.
The changes also introduce greater flexibility for applicants. The City would allow them to revise an application during formal review to better address issues raised by planning staff, or by engaged residents during the public consultation period.
A simplified pre-consultation process is proposed to take no longer than 21 days to complete. While Bill 185 does not permit mandatory pre-consultation, the City continues to recommend this step. Engaging with the City early provides valuable input that leads to complete submissions and helps applicants submit applications that are more likely to receive staff and Council support.
The Committee’s approval also includes making permanent 33 temporary full-time equivalent staff positions to continue offering applicants the same high level of service it currently delivers.
The Committee also approved changes to the Demolition Control By-law to further improve planning timelines. The by-law prevents the City issuing a demolition permit for residential dwellings until a building permit has been issued. This can result in development delays of about two months. The amendment would allow a demolition permit to be issued in cases where a Planning Act application has been approved but prior to a building permit being issued.
The Committee approved several zoning amendments to facilitate new housing development across Ottawa, including an affordable housing development on City-owned lands in the Heron Gate community. The amendment would permit zoning for a future subdivision with about 158 dwellings on the former public works yard southwest of Walkley and Heatherington roads. The subdivision would have low-rise apartment buildings and townhomes that would all have some level of affordability through agreements with the City.
In Stittsville, the Committee approved zoning for two high-rise buildings on Hazeldean Road, west of Carp Road. A 12-storey building and a 21-storey building are planned, with 431 dwellings in all. The proposal is consistent with Official Plan policies for high-rise buildings at this location, and with guidelines to ensure appropriate transitions to nearby homes.
In Orléans, the Committee approved zoning for a draft approved subdivision southwest of Innes Road and Lamarche Avenue. Phase one of a planned three-phase development would add three apartment buildings with 285 dwellings in total on the southern part of the property. The buildings would be six and seven storeys, and would step down to three storeys near the existing low-rise community to the south. The applicant also plans to design and build a signalized intersection at Innes Road and Lamarche Avenue to help address concerns from area residents about traffic.
The Committee received an update on implementation of the Community Benefits Charge By-law, which Council approved in August 2022. The by-law applies to all new residential and mixed-use development applications for buildings five storeys or taller and that have 10 or more residential units. The City applies a charge to all qualifying applications, directing funds to reserve accounts for the relevant ward. Those reserves are then used to fund permanent capital projects to benefit the community. Since the by-law was implemented, the City has received more than 70 development applications subject to the charge and has collected $562,600. In the 10 years following approval in 2022, the City projects $35 million in community-benefits-charge revenues that will directly benefit residents across Ottawa.
To help address the housing crisis, Council committed to providing home builders enough opportunities to build 151,000 quality market homes by 2031 – or 15,100 per year. If Council approves, the land-use permissions that the Committee recommended today will help put applicants in a position to build 887 new dwellings in Ottawa. Visit ottawa.ca/residentialdwellings for a graphic showing quarterly progress towards Ottawa’s housing pledge targets.
Recommendations from today’s meeting will rise to Council on Wednesday, September 18.
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With overheads and employment taxes that works out to around 6 and 1/2 million dollars a year of salary.
We’ve done the same thing with the garbage staff, by law, etc. Adding 25 million dollars or more a year of staff
Is that 33 people who were temporarily filling existing, permanent FTE positions or is it people who were temporarily employed by the City above and beyond the approved complement of FTE positions?
If it’s the latter, that means that the Planning Department has essentially pushed 33 new positions into their staff numbers without going through the annual budget process. Council has basically pre-approved a budget increase that won’t have to fight with other items for approval in the 2025 budget because they are now incorporated into the base going forward.
I suspect it is the latter since the release refers to “33 temporary full-time equivalent staff positions”, so it’s “positions” not “people” that are being approved. It’s not a process to make permanent people who are in acting or interim positions and therefore filling temporarily a position that existed but was vacant. Normally, approving people in acting positions to move into those positions permanently wouldn’t come to Council other than for very senior positions.
As C points out, this involves a huge expenditure of money and it’s being slipped through without a lot of debate or discussion. This was done in September when the 2025 budget was being developed. I wonder how other Departments feel about this circumventing of the process which means that Planning won’t have to compete against other priorities for those amounts of money and it will reduce the budget pie for others. At best, it’s sneaky.