Leiper Responds To ‘Bungalow Belt’ Open Letter

This is the response of Kitchissippi councillor and planning committee chairman Jeff Leiper to the open letter from Alta Vista resident Mike Hayes about Leiper’s recorded comment at a recent planning committee meeting:

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Good morning, Mr. Hayes.

I think what I said was that “change is coming to the bungalow belt”. It’s not a disparagement. The Official Plan anticipates that there will be new density across all the urban areas of the City. The level of intensification will be different according to the “transect” in question. Alta Vista will continue to allow less density than areas closer to the downtown by virtue of being “outer urban”. But, it will be new density. How much will ultimately be determined through the course of the comprehensive zoning by-law now ongoing, with the limits on that defined in the Official Plan.

My comments were obviously related to the development charge assertion made by Councillor Kitts, which was accurate. When you look at the 10-year DC collections, wards like hers have seen hundreds of millions of dollars flow into DC collections while there is comparatively little coming from the belt of R1 zones that ring Ottawa’s denser traditional streetcar communities – or even from wards like Kitchissippi. There is, as I’m sure you can imagine, resentment among some residents that so much funding is being generated in new suburbs that is not translating into infrastructure that they believe should come with growth, particularly transportation infrastructure for hundreds of thousands of new residents.

In the last 10 years, the wards that largely make up the inner urban transect (15, 12, 14, 13, 17) have generated $254.6 million in DCs. The “bungalow belt” (10, 8, 18, 16 ,9, 11 and 7) has generated $149.1 million. The remainder of the total $1.9 billion in DCs over the last 10 years have been generated in the suburbs. DC generation is a very good proxy for growth. It should be no surprise that councillors want to see that growth shared – if not equally at least equitably across more of the city. My comment should be taken as confirmation that the Official Plan and comprehensive zoning by-law will result in that new density in neighbourhoods like yours that councillors are seeking, albeit with a lower target for wards like Alta Vista.

I know that your note will resonate with Councillors Carr, Johnson, Brockington, Kavanagh and others, as it does with me. When the funding for infrastructure shifts from the initial DCs to taxes in the decades after the initial builds, we see the effect. There is a larger discussion to be had about that and tax decisions, but intensification is one of the key responses we have to make in response to generations of wrong-headed planning so that future generations who will have expectations about the infrastructure and amenities to which they have access won’t be as thwarted as today.

It is not the Mayor’s place to sanction anyone – he is not my boss. However, you can make a complaint to the Integrity Commissioner who will investigate asserted violations of the Code of Conduct to which Members of Council are subject. If she considers that there has been a violation, she can make recommendations to Council to address those.

This excerpt is courtesy of the city-wide community group Your Applewood Acres (And Beyond) Neighbour

For You:

Open Letter: The Bungalow Belt Battles Back

In Defence Of Jeff Leiper: POTTER

Check Your Prejudices, Jeff Leiper: BENN

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