For our 27 May live recording, leave a comment if there is a local topic you would like us to discuss on the Municipal Panel. And act quickly if you want to join us in person at the People's Summit.
The City seems to have no feasible plan for addressing heavy and growing interprovincial personal and commercial traffic. The status quo is problematic; as Gatineau continues to grow, traffic volumes will only get worse. Should there not be a response to this problem?
Also, condo construction can last up to a decade, in effect levying congestion costs on those who have no control over development schedules. Should developers be required to adhere to a construction schedule with stiff penalties for delays? I notice that the not for profit sector seems to have no difficulties getting housing built in a reasonable time frame.
How the City does (or rather doesn't) do serious engagement with residents around proposed developments. Staff no longer go out to meetings in the community, especially in the evenings (when residents can attend). Engage is pre-loaded to get the answers staff are looking for, especially when they use surveys. Province is part of the problem with Bill 23 and now changes to CofA regs. With the new zoning bylaw proposing intensification in suburban and peripheral wards, it's going to cause a lot of NIMBYism if folks can't talk to the Planning department. Also, are scooters still a pilot project:)))?
Why would they bother because they get elected no matter what? Staff just regurgitate city boilerplate. A small but related point. City dog and pony show at Ron Kolbus centre. There was a display about how the city managed road maintenance aka pothole patching. I pointed out that city staff in fact did not use vibrating compactors to pack the hot patch (asphalt) into potholes. The city engineer assured me they did. I moved here in 2008 and until 2022 the city did not use compactors....full stop. Gatineau started using them about the same time so I guess both cities attended the same conference. I have emailed every Bay Ward councillor multiple times about this with nothing but head patting and city boilerplate staff responses. If it takes them 14 years to figure out how to patch a Fing pothole what hope is there for more complicated things?
After 30 years of "fighting city hall" I despair of anything ever getting any better but I guess we can only keep trying.
+ I'm with David decrying the state of road surfaces (at least in Centretown). It's shameful, really. Years ago I read about a Carleton prof who had come up with a better kind of asphalt. Parching up potholes is not the way to go!
+ A related issue is the state of the sidewalks. Some years ago the City came up with the brilliant idea of patching up cracks and holes with black asphalt -- ugly and uneven!
+ I believe public engagement is one of Joanne's favourite topics so I hope it gets discussed. I understand there are some 80 people in various City departments with public engagement responsibility. Their jobs should be abolished as all they do is spin and mislead. I want to hear from and engage with people who know the substance of issues.
+ Related to that, the employee directory should be made public again. Not being able to contact a staff person is a major barrier.
I could go on ad infinitum but will stop here.
By the way, I registered for the Summit but never received a ticket or even acknowledgement.
Quality of road surfaces! As a quote, I read in a newspaper from a diplomat, "Ottawa, where the streets are worse than Karachi." They present not only repair costs to cars and bicycles but in more extreme cases, the risk of injury.
Is there a municipal plan to address the growing use of e-bikes and scooters as a mode of transportation? It is wonderful to see more people choosing not to take a car, but there needs to be infrastructure for heavy e-bikes and fast e-scooters that separate them from the pathways that are also used by dog walkers and families with small children. This also applies to the cycle commuters that like to go fast - they need their own section of the MUPs. I hope the city recognizes how many more active commuters there are and is planning for it.
The lack of municipal vision, design policy or belief in creating high quality places for people; we are content to let the NCC do the heavy lifting; and bc the NCC is concerned about downtown/core and limited areas, our lack of vision extends not just within the core, but beyond. That’s manifested in our procurement policy and how we budget and plan. Consideration: municipally we’ve never recieved a GG award in architecture; Edmonton has recieved 9 (half in the last 4 years) almost all of which are municipal projects.
The economics of city recycling. Does all that plastic really get recycled? How much of it is effective, and how much is just a "feel good" program that doesn't make a difference?
The city has made some modest progress toward providing more public toilets and/or signage of those that exist but more needs to be done to meet needs in parks, transit stops, tourist areas and parts of the city where there is significant pedestrian traffic.
Why does it take forever to do anything in this city?
As an example, the first public consultation for bus lanes on Bank Street was in June 2024. The second phase was supposed to be in fall 2024 and still hasn’t happened. How can the city complete meaningful projects faster and actually improve things?
It seems than in the next four years a lot of big things could happen to change Ottawa's economy (e.g. Trump driven tourism, Carney making fundamental changes of our national economy, high-speed rail....). How can Ottawa take advantage of this?
All the problems in Ottawa stem from this issue. We cannot expect good roads, effective public transit or even proper governance/administration until there is some form of accountability at City Hall. At the moment, there are rubber stamps, pretend reforms and frustrated auditors with little power.
How can this change? What should proper institutions look like?
It seems like the Tewin development is going to cost City taxpayers hundreds of millions - latest estimate, $590 million? $900 million? Who actually knows? - to service a new area of sprawl that was very conspicuously added within the City's urban growth boundary.
The developer clearly believes that having a (questionably legitimate) indigenous partner gives them carte blanche to act first and apologize later for actions like logging the entire site under dubious circumstances to establish a cleared site as a fact on the ground.
The Strong Towns central organization recently released a video suggesting that Ottawa has "pressed pause" on Tewin (https://youtu.be/7IUaoguPVvY). But is that actually the case, or is it just Coun. Kavanagh's hail-Mary motions at Council?
Is there anything that can be done to reverse the approvals for this project, or at least try to force the developer to make it into something less egregiously sprawly and a less expensive subsidy from taxpayers to the developers? Or, in the face of a national housing crisis, are we all just expected to hold our noses and recite the mantra "all new housing is good housing"?
The City seems to have no feasible plan for addressing heavy and growing interprovincial personal and commercial traffic. The status quo is problematic; as Gatineau continues to grow, traffic volumes will only get worse. Should there not be a response to this problem?
Also, condo construction can last up to a decade, in effect levying congestion costs on those who have no control over development schedules. Should developers be required to adhere to a construction schedule with stiff penalties for delays? I notice that the not for profit sector seems to have no difficulties getting housing built in a reasonable time frame.
How the City does (or rather doesn't) do serious engagement with residents around proposed developments. Staff no longer go out to meetings in the community, especially in the evenings (when residents can attend). Engage is pre-loaded to get the answers staff are looking for, especially when they use surveys. Province is part of the problem with Bill 23 and now changes to CofA regs. With the new zoning bylaw proposing intensification in suburban and peripheral wards, it's going to cause a lot of NIMBYism if folks can't talk to the Planning department. Also, are scooters still a pilot project:)))?
It’s also worth noting that the city publishes as we heard it reports, not “what was said” reports. There’s a difference
Why would they bother because they get elected no matter what? Staff just regurgitate city boilerplate. A small but related point. City dog and pony show at Ron Kolbus centre. There was a display about how the city managed road maintenance aka pothole patching. I pointed out that city staff in fact did not use vibrating compactors to pack the hot patch (asphalt) into potholes. The city engineer assured me they did. I moved here in 2008 and until 2022 the city did not use compactors....full stop. Gatineau started using them about the same time so I guess both cities attended the same conference. I have emailed every Bay Ward councillor multiple times about this with nothing but head patting and city boilerplate staff responses. If it takes them 14 years to figure out how to patch a Fing pothole what hope is there for more complicated things?
Lansdowne and the City's seeming inability to listen to anyone except developers.
After 30 years of "fighting city hall" I despair of anything ever getting any better but I guess we can only keep trying.
+ I'm with David decrying the state of road surfaces (at least in Centretown). It's shameful, really. Years ago I read about a Carleton prof who had come up with a better kind of asphalt. Parching up potholes is not the way to go!
+ A related issue is the state of the sidewalks. Some years ago the City came up with the brilliant idea of patching up cracks and holes with black asphalt -- ugly and uneven!
+ I believe public engagement is one of Joanne's favourite topics so I hope it gets discussed. I understand there are some 80 people in various City departments with public engagement responsibility. Their jobs should be abolished as all they do is spin and mislead. I want to hear from and engage with people who know the substance of issues.
+ Related to that, the employee directory should be made public again. Not being able to contact a staff person is a major barrier.
I could go on ad infinitum but will stop here.
By the way, I registered for the Summit but never received a ticket or even acknowledgement.
Hi Erwin, could you check your junk folder please. The confirmation might be there. :-(
Regardless, we'll get another confirmation out to you shortly.
Quality of road surfaces! As a quote, I read in a newspaper from a diplomat, "Ottawa, where the streets are worse than Karachi." They present not only repair costs to cars and bicycles but in more extreme cases, the risk of injury.
Is there a municipal plan to address the growing use of e-bikes and scooters as a mode of transportation? It is wonderful to see more people choosing not to take a car, but there needs to be infrastructure for heavy e-bikes and fast e-scooters that separate them from the pathways that are also used by dog walkers and families with small children. This also applies to the cycle commuters that like to go fast - they need their own section of the MUPs. I hope the city recognizes how many more active commuters there are and is planning for it.
The lack of municipal vision, design policy or belief in creating high quality places for people; we are content to let the NCC do the heavy lifting; and bc the NCC is concerned about downtown/core and limited areas, our lack of vision extends not just within the core, but beyond. That’s manifested in our procurement policy and how we budget and plan. Consideration: municipally we’ve never recieved a GG award in architecture; Edmonton has recieved 9 (half in the last 4 years) almost all of which are municipal projects.
The Vacant Unit Tax: Another administrative burden on innocent taxpayers, where you must attest to following the rules, every year, or else!
1) The principle behind this approach: Is it fair?
2) Is the V.U.T. effective in meeting its stated objective? What are the metrics? What are they showing? Are they able to measure real impacts?
3) How many innocent taxpayers have fallen into the Kafkaesque nightmare by simply having forgotten to fill out their mandatory annual statements?
The economics of city recycling. Does all that plastic really get recycled? How much of it is effective, and how much is just a "feel good" program that doesn't make a difference?
Two crucial things for discussion: The City really needs a lot more public washrooms;
Need for Accessibility designated public parking on main City streets.
There are too few public toilets in Ottawa and those that are available are often not signed.
What should the city be doing to address the homeless situation?
What is the city doing around the
The city has made some modest progress toward providing more public toilets and/or signage of those that exist but more needs to be done to meet needs in parks, transit stops, tourist areas and parts of the city where there is significant pedestrian traffic.
Why does it take forever to do anything in this city?
As an example, the first public consultation for bus lanes on Bank Street was in June 2024. The second phase was supposed to be in fall 2024 and still hasn’t happened. How can the city complete meaningful projects faster and actually improve things?
It seems than in the next four years a lot of big things could happen to change Ottawa's economy (e.g. Trump driven tourism, Carney making fundamental changes of our national economy, high-speed rail....). How can Ottawa take advantage of this?
Corruption and how to stop it.
All the problems in Ottawa stem from this issue. We cannot expect good roads, effective public transit or even proper governance/administration until there is some form of accountability at City Hall. At the moment, there are rubber stamps, pretend reforms and frustrated auditors with little power.
How can this change? What should proper institutions look like?
Thank you again for all your work, Neil.
It seems like the Tewin development is going to cost City taxpayers hundreds of millions - latest estimate, $590 million? $900 million? Who actually knows? - to service a new area of sprawl that was very conspicuously added within the City's urban growth boundary.
The developer clearly believes that having a (questionably legitimate) indigenous partner gives them carte blanche to act first and apologize later for actions like logging the entire site under dubious circumstances to establish a cleared site as a fact on the ground.
The Strong Towns central organization recently released a video suggesting that Ottawa has "pressed pause" on Tewin (https://youtu.be/7IUaoguPVvY). But is that actually the case, or is it just Coun. Kavanagh's hail-Mary motions at Council?
Is there anything that can be done to reverse the approvals for this project, or at least try to force the developer to make it into something less egregiously sprawly and a less expensive subsidy from taxpayers to the developers? Or, in the face of a national housing crisis, are we all just expected to hold our noses and recite the mantra "all new housing is good housing"?
Michael Vickers
Ottawa