Another First From Mayor Mark Sutcliffe

09/19/2025

If I’m not mistaken, the housing initiative this week is the first time this Your Worship has sent a release from his office to Bulldog World Headquarters. Imagine that.

We’re agog with agogness here at the epicentre of all that is Bulldog. Thank you Your Worshipness for stopping ignoring after three years a publication, with 186,000 page views a week, read by people who are interested in municipal public policy. Golly.

Call me a maverick but you’d think the City of Ottawa might want to advertise in such a publication. But maybe we’ve been a little tough on Happy Town News. Telling the truth has its disadvantages.

Anyway, if the mayor can find it in his heart to send a release to Ottawa’s most popular and foremost publication named after a dog, maybe HTN can find in its collective hearts (with all those bodies at HTN, that’s got to be a lot of heart) to buy an ad or a thousand. Come on you big-hearted PR types.

Anyway we look forward to invoicing our first ad from the City of Ottawa in 16 years. Come on HTN. All is forgiven. For now.

Ken Gray

Below is a release from the office of Mayor Mark Sutcliffe:

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Mayor Sutcliffe Unveils Canada’s Most Ambitious Housing Action Plan

Ottawa – Today, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe introduced the City of Ottawa’s Housing Action Plan, a bold strategy designed to accelerate housing development, reduce costs, and make Ottawa the most housing-friendly city in Canada.

“Families, seniors, and young people are struggling with rising housing costs,” said Mayor Sutcliffe. “Housing has become too expensive for too many. With this plan, we’re moving from being part of the problem to being part of the solution. We are saying yes to housing.”

Addressing the Housing Crisis

Ottawa, like many Canadian cities, is facing a housing crisis. Over the past six years, the average resale price of a home has increased by more than 50 percent, while average rents have risen by 30 percent, far outpacing income growth. These challenges have intensified pressure on families and contributed to higher demand for food banks.

Since the start of this term, the City of Ottawa has approved more than 60,000 new homes, yet many projects have faced delays due to high interest rates, rising construction costs, and procedural roadblocks at City Hall. The Auditor General recently highlighted that bottlenecks and inconsistent expectations across City departments have resulted have slowed development approvals.

The biggest overhaul in the City’s history

“The Housing Action Plan is a generational effort to fundamentally change our approach to housing. It’s the most ambitious municipal housing plan in Canadian history.”

Mark Sutcliffe, Mayor of Ottawa

The Housing Action Plan builds on recommendations from the Housing Innovation Task Force – a Task Force that Mayor Sutcliffe established earlier this year. The Task Force found that housing development has become too slow, too expensive, and too complicated.

To respond to and build upon the Task Force’s recommendations, the plan introduces more than 50 concrete actions to streamline processes, correct our culture, and lower costs. These actions fall under the following five key themes:

Simplify rules and streamline approvals
Cutting red tape, standardizing agreements, and ending unnecessary rules and studies to move shovel-ready projects forward faster.

Evolve City culture to be housing development friendly
Shifting to a results-oriented approach, resolving policy conflicts, and giving staff tools to get to “yes” on responsible development.

Introduce more flexibility in fees and charges
Pausing or reducing fees, deferring development charges interest-free, waiving fees for non-profit affordable housing, and streamlining legal agreements.

Consolidate and strengthen capacity for Affordable Housing development
Partnering with the affordable housing sector and other levels of government to scale up purpose-built affordable units by strategically using public lands.

Unlock urban intensification and transit-oriented development

Encouraging more residential density downtown and near transit, making office-to-residential conversions easier, and expanding missing middle housing permissions and gentle density across urban Ottawa.

Council will consider these actions on October 8. If approved, 40 percent of the plan’s recommendations will be implemented immediately. Another 40 percent of recommendations will be implemented during this term of Council, including updates to secondary plans, streamlined approval processes, and programs to accelerate housing development.

Record Progress Underway

Ottawa is already seeing results. From 2022 to 2024, more than 28,000 housing starts were recorded, achieving 95 percent of the City’s target. Housing starts have increased over 50 percent this year compared to last year which represents the highest growth among major Canadian cities.

The Housing Action Plan also includes many substantial moves that are already underway. For instance, in January, Council will review the final draft of Ottawa’s new Zoning By-law, the most ambitious and housing-friendly version of that by-law in Ottawa’s history. It will enable substantially more housing per hectare, particularly near transit, and reduce residential development standards from 600 to 30, making it easier to build a broader range of housing, including the missing middle.

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