Tewin Algonquin land development [Hwy 417/Boundary Rd] | Proposed
 

Massive Ottawa suburb planned by Algonquins of Ontario hinges on urban boundary expansion in east end

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Oct 01, 2020 • Last Updated 1 hour ago • 4 minute read

The Algonquins of Ontario and a local developer are pursuing the creation of a new suburb near Ottawa’s eastern border that showcases the spirt of Algonquin principles, but they need to convince city planners and politicians to include the massive tract of land inside an expanded urban boundary.

The swath of land, located southwest of the intersection of Highway 417 and Boundary Road, would be transformed into a community of 35,000-45,000 residents called Tewin, which means “home” in the Algonquin language.

“The purchase of these lands is an investment in our future and provides for invaluable opportunities for economic development and capacity-building for the Algonquins within a major city, within our traditional territories,” said Wendy Jocko, chief of the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan, which is an Algonquins of Ontario community.

The future of the project hinges on a looming city decision establishing the lands that should be brought inside an expanded urban development boundary, satisfying population growth projections under a new official plan.

The Algonquins of Ontario selected Taggart Investments as its partner in a development vision for a new suburb.

“I’m personally passionate about this project because it’s basically what I have always dreamed of doing,” said Michelle Taggart, Taggart’s vice-president of land development. She called the partnership with the Algonquins of Ontario “much more than a land deal” because there’s an opportunity to build a sustainable community using values of the Algonquin people.

There is, however, an immediate challenge for the project.

Council in May approved adding between 1,350 and 1,650 hectares of development land inside an expanded urban boundary to accommodate 401,000 new residents over a 26-year period. Since then, city planners have been narrowing down which new properties should be brought inside the boundary, which is an extremely consequential decision for landowners with development plans.

The Tewin land is not inside the current urban boundary and would require approval to be brought into the expanded boundary.

Alain Miguelez, the city’s manager of policy planning in the planning department, said staff are targeting a date in early 2021 to bring a report on urban expansion to a joint meeting of council’s planning committee and agriculture and rural affairs committee.

The Algonquins of Ontario and Taggart believe they have a huge advantage, going as far to suggest their proposed suburb will be the best one designed and developed in all of Ottawa. The suburb would have a large mix of housing types and include employment land. The Amazon warehouse on Boundary Road is just east of the property.

The development partners believe Tewin lines up perfectly with the “five big moves” that the city has been promoting as part of the next official plan. They also think the prospect of Ottawa having two One Planet Living communities — the first one is Zibi on the Ottawa River — would give the Canada’s capital immense credibility on an international scale for encouraging sustainable urban planning.

The Tewin vision earmarks about 500 hectares for a dense, mixed-use community and another 600 hectares for a natural land trust.

There are plans to have training and procurement opportunities for Algonquins through the creation of Tewin, plus a scholarship program.

It could be hard for the city to reject the land as a candidate for urban expansion. Council in 2018 approved a reconciliation action plan aimed to strengthen the relationship between the municipal government and Indigenous communities.

“It is time for the Algonquins to be front and centre within the nation’s capital,” said Janet Stavinga, executive director of the Algonquins of Ontario. “They have thus far been precluded the opportunity due to the historical wrongs of the past and there’s a real opportunity for the City of Ottawa, for the citizens, to seize this chance for reconciliation to have the Algonquin presence recognized in the capital to be able to create a community that’s sustainable.”

At the same time, council has already approved criteria for new properties inside the urban boundary. The criteria include serviceability for sewer and water and distance to emergency services.

Proximity to transit, however, is the big point-getter in the evaluation criteria; specifically, the closeness to current and future rapid transit stations.

Tewin would struggle to collect points based on today’s transit blueprint.

“We will bring rapid transit to this site at no cost to the taxpayer,” Taggart said, pointing to one option of creating an area-specific development charge to fund transit infrastructure, much like what was done to extend the Trillium Line deeper into Riverside South.

Tewin would rely on bus routes to connect the community with Leitrim and Cyrville rail stations and use Highway 417 to run express bus service.

With so much work and so many approvals required before breaking ground, it’s hard to say when Tewin would become a reality if the land is allowed inside the urban boundary. Taggart said there would be “many years of planning” ahead.

There’s a the risk that the city won’t consider the land for inclusion and Stavinga has been managing those expectations with the Algonquins of Ontario communities.

The City of Ottawa will continue to grow, and at some point, even with aggressive intensification targets, council will probably consider another urban boundary expansion.

Algonquins are willing to wait at long as it takes to see the Tewin vision come to life.

“It may not be the ones that are here now, but it will be those in the future,” Stavinga said.

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twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...on-in-east-end

Intriguing development concept but way too far out. There's absolutely no urban transportation infrastructure at all. The highway is only 2 lanes per direction out there, all 2 lane rural roads, no rapid transit anywhere even remotely nearby and it would cost billions to change that.

This would be the disastrous mistake that Finlay Creek was, on steroids.

I would love to see more, such as a map showcasing the land we're discussing, what parts would be developed and what sections would remain naturalized. Some concepts showing the types of housing and layout.

The development seems far, but really it's closer than Stittsville, Barrhaven and parts of Kanata. The 417 east is under utilized at the moment and could stand to accommodate more volume. Amazon is a huge employer and this would give more opportunities for employees to live near by, not to mention build a business case for transit to the distribution centre (and larger community).

We've let the big developers dictate the crappy suburbs for far too long. I'm very interested to see what the Algonquins of Ontario could bring to the table and what would a One Planet suburb look like.

I know it's geographically close but what I mean is it has very little urban infrastructure in the area, so the cost of building it out will be very high compared to incremental growth in the existing suburbs.

I'm not sure 417 can absorb a new suburb of 40,000 without widening to 6 lanes. There's also no practical way to get rapid transit out there without spending an enormous amount of money.

It's also dangerously close to the city limit - the Russell border is just a few kilometers away - so there's a real risk of spillover sprawl in the Russell area.

As interesting as this sounds, I'd have a hard time swallowing this without rapid transit from day -1. No matter how many solar panels are slapped on the place, spawning a new suburb of 50k along a highway is just a bad thing for our region.

The only way I could see this being a good thing is if they work with VIA and OC to get an O-Train Line 3 running between Tremblay and the site, then build no more than 1 km walking distance from the stations. But it'd have to be rapid transit. No peak-only nonsense, but a train every 20 minutes or less, 6 am to midnight, every day of the week.

Taggart is apparently ready to bring transit to the site at no cost. How that would be done, I don't know, but I would be interested to know what their solution would be.

Bringing a bare-bones O-Train Line, similar to the original pilot, could be an option, but I think the development is on the wrong side of the highway.

I would say they could use the former New York and Ottawa Railway corridor, but that corridor is fragmented and no longer owned by a public entity (until you get to Russell and Embrun). It would also require quite a few grade separations.

*Edit - if Ottawa allows the minor roads to be at-grade, I guess the only real grade separation would be the Highway.

*Edit 2 - it actually turns out the development land is so big that they own all the rail corridor from the Greenbelt southwards up to Mitch Owens Road - so they would just have to receive permission from the NCC to re-build the rail corridor through the Greenbelt and across the highway.

Yeah it's across the highway from the VIA tracks.

Alternatively, the long abandoned (but still mostly intact it seems, judging by Google maps) New York Central railway RoW passes directly through the area and could possibly be revived.

^ Ha!

It seems to still exist between Russell and Ramseyville, minus where the highway seems to have been built over it (I think the railway was abandoned before the 417 was built although I'm not sure). I wonder who owns it.

Here it is on the aerial image of the development. The only major obstacles are the Highway and the Hunt Club ramp on the east side of the highway. The ramp could easily be avoided.
https://i.imgur.com/BvstZwR.png

That said, this is still a terrible place for urban expansion. Check out this map, there is a reason why the Ottawa hasn't expanded to the southeast and its called Leda Clay: http://bulgaripaving.ca/so-whats-the-deal-with-clay/

Fascinating. We can follow the former railway all the way to Cornwall on Google Maps. It might be fairly simple and cheap to rebuild, grade separations aside, up to just past Walkley, but then it goes through some industrial land, a strip of the OC Transpo facility (which might not be a major issues) and then Train Yards where several buildings would need to be demolished. Alternatively, they could hook-up to the VIA tracks at Walkley, but that might conflict with HFR.

Thanks for posting the map. I didn't realize it was the land we were talking about was almost the size of Orleans. The Leda Clay could be problematic, but that hasn't stopped the City from approving development in, well, Orleans.

Call me cynical, but my first thought was to wonder whether Tamarack had partnered with the Algonquins as a way to get around the urban boundary issue.

My thoughts exactly. You can call me cynical as well.

I hope that's not the case, but I can certainly understand the suspicions.

As per the article:

"The Algonquins of Ontario selected Taggart Investments as its partner in a development vision for a new suburb."

Hopefully this means the Algonquins of Ontario thoroughly reviewed possible partners and chose a developer with good intentions that best shares their vision.

It’s not cynical it’s obvious. This is not Algonquin land but they being are brought in to develop land that is otherwise extremely unlikely to be included in the medium term. It’s a smart play by Taggart but if we want to give money to First Nations we should probably just do it I suppose not these continual sweetheart deals. How much of the millions in increased land value will they even get?

When I'm thinking of vision in a brand new suburb, the proponents aren't who I immediately think of.

This makes a lot of sense to me, there is already excess transportation capacity with 417, it could handle a community of up to 50k residents easily based on its current format.
We are out of room and capacity in Orleans and need to balance out the traffic flows
Public transit could be accommodated easily by Bus lanes for the first 20 years.

Sure people will cry foul at expanding suburban development but we don't have too much choice, the other option is to continue seeing unaffordable housing in the urban core, not many families have $1M+ for a townhouse.

Communities outside the City of Ottawa are continuing to boom (Limoges, Embrun etc..)

The other option is to selectively develop parts of the Greenbelt... but that's another can of worms

We do have a choice - Greenbelt, Experimental Farm, Lebreton, Hurdman and countless other sites throughout the city that just sit there...

Good luck with the 1st two suggested location :cheers::cheers:

I keep seeing people proposing we build on the greenbelt, or over the experimental farm in multiple threads, or building along the 417 East because it is "under capacity".

How about we also ask ourselves the question: "then, what/where after?"

Yes, building over readily/easily available land might fix our current problem of small inexpensive housing supply. But then, what to we do after? where do we build after?

The city won't stop growing and demand will also increase. So once these areas are built on, where do we build? once both the 174 and the 417 East are at capacity, what do we do? The commute will be horrible for everybody.

Do we really need another suburb? Maybe for the near future it is an easy fix. But isn't it just another band-aid solution that will reoccur down the road? At the cost of loosing natural ecosytem, and farm land?

I'm not saying we should'nt, maybe we need a balance. I'm simply bringing the question.

I'm not proposing the entire swath of greenbelt or experimental farm be suburban blight... we could be very innovative to develop the space and have a great balance between housing, jobs, greenspace, civic buildings, etc. I am dumbounded each time driving to Orleans or Kanata how much space is just there... taking 20-30% of it would make a considerable difference in addressing supply if done right!

I agree that it is possible to repurpose small portions of the greenbelt without making it a significant loss of the protected greenspace.

But once we start taking chunks of it, it will be very hard to stop, or saying no to developers. It establishes a precedent.

It is sad that we have to resolve to hard dividing lines for the purpose of protecting the environment, wild life, ...
In an ideal world, urban and wild would be a gradiant, with branches interweaving.

Redevelopment of the Greenbelt is quite simple, first classify the lands by ecological sensitivity, those low sensitive lands could be sold off in stage & developed contingent on NCC using 100% of proceeds to buy up ecologically sensitive lands elsewhere in Ottawa. That's a win-win.
Oh yeah... and that Experimental Farm....

Let's face it, if we restrict development land too much, it just bumps up the price. Sure that's good for the 50 year old who's been living in their house for 25 years with no mortgage, but it makes it impossible the next generation to ever afford a house. Furthermore, we end up pushing more development outside the city (Gatineau or Kemptville, Rockland Carleton Place, Embrun etc...

Some cross posting warranted here. The City is considering the lands to make-up the shortfall of the phase 1 urban boundary expansion, but have some concerns. The Algonquins of Ontario are arguing for full inclusion of lands lands as part of Stage 1.

Lots of debate over allowing the land within the urban boundary. Tierney puts up a motion to make up the urban expansion deficit with the Tewin land. El-Chantiry's motion asks to NOT add South March lands so that the hectares can be transferred to the Algonquins f Ontario land.

With the motions on the table, Tewin would get 445 hectares to develop, which would come close to the 500 hectares they have for the built up area of the proposed community.

Gower brings everyone back to earth by pointing out that the area would be costly for the city to service and sits on poor soil conditions.

McKenney asks what scoring the land would get, and City staff says very low due to lack of City services and poor soil conditions.

More on the meeting on Kate Porter's Twitter.

https://twitter.com/KatePorterCBC/st...39993619496965

This is a bit concerning. Despite staff recommendations not to include the land due to a lack of services and poor soil conditions, Councillors are pushing through with it.

Avalon is a prime example of why we shouldn't approve lands that are unsuitable for development.

At the very least, the approval of their land should come with conditions, requesting a plan to deal with outstanding issues.

A perspective of the true size of the approved land.

https://twitter.com/KatePorterCBC/st...71386969911306

Despite my concerns, I'm very interested to see how the Algonquins will approach suburb development. I expect something quite different from what we traditionally see. Furthermore, this will be the first new large scale suburb in over 50 years. When we tack on to existing suburb, it's hard, nearly impossible, to break the mold. With a new community built from scratch, there are more opportunities to innovate.

Serious discussion needed on commuter rail to serve this future community.

EDIT: On that, quick quote from the original article posted on this thread:

T.E.W.I.N website:

https://www.tewin.ca/

Does....does Ottawa need more further-aflung suburbs? :uhh:

Does "need" really enter into this?

In terms of location, this is closer than Kanata or Barrhaven. It would be relatively easy to build a simple commuter rail line from the VIA station to the site. It also has more potential of becoming a true self sustaining community than Orleans or Barrhaven (with Kanata being a fairly independent suburb).

Developers stunned by recommendation to remove lands from boundary expansion to help Algonquins project
Several developers who own land in the South March area were set to have their high-scoring properties brought into the new urban boundary, only to be rejected by councillors.

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Jan 26, 2021 • 8 minutes ago • 3 minute read

https://smartcdn.prod.postmedia.digi...trip=all&w=850

Councillors blindsided four development companies on Tuesday by recommending the removal of high-scoring development land from inside a proposed urban boundary in the Kanata area so the Algonquins of Ontario can build a major residential community on low-scoring development land in the rural east.

A joint meeting of the planning and agriculture and rural affairs committee established which additional lands should be included in a shifted urban boundary to satisfy growth projections in a new official plan.

The city’s planning department used a scoring system to decide which lands should be included inside a new urban boundary.

Several developers who own land in the South March area were set to have their high-scoring properties brought into the new urban boundary, only to be rejected by councillors.

“It is incredibly surprising that in an unprecedented move that politics has taken over a prescribed scoring process and months of work by city staff and included a parcel of land with a zero score on servicing over lands which have some of highest scores and support the growth and maturation of an existing complete community where jobs, services and houses co-exist,” Claridge, Multivesco, Uniform and EQ Homes said in a statement.

“The joint committee has taken a step backwards in their supposed step into the future with a new official plan. It has taken one of the biggest employment nodes and one of the only true 15-minute communities out of the equation that these same politicians drew up to start the process.”

Instead, councillors took the roughly 175 hectares of land and packaged it with 270 hectares that still needed to be slotted into the urban boundary, ultimately assigning the 445 hectares of land to the “Tewin” project pursued by the Algonquins of Ontario and Taggart Investments west of Carlsbad Springs.

Councillors heard that the land owned by the Algonquins of Ontario scored at the lowest end of the scale because of its far-flung location not near public transit and other municipal infrastructure.

But an important variable emerged.

The Algonquins of Ontario told the joint committee this week that the city should bring its lands inside the urban boundary, in part, in the name of Indigenous reconciliation. The group said it needed 500 hectares brought into the urban boundary.

Janet Stavinga, executive director of the Algonquins of Ontario, said the organization should still be able to proceed with its project with the 445 hectares.

There was a pronged approach to get the Algonquin lands into the urban boundary on Tuesday.

Coun. Eli El-Chantiry convinced the majority of the joint committee to remove the South March lands, which he argued are unsuitable for development, even though the lands received acceptable scores from city staff.

Then Coun. Tim Tierney shifted his colleagues’ attention with a motion to include the Algonquin lands inside the urban boundary. He said the city should seize the chance to acknowledge reconciliation.

“This is a real opportunity where we can put ourselves on the map,” Tierney said.

Other councillors grappled with weighing a critical municipal planning decision with Indigenous reconciliation.

“It’s well worth considering very, very carefully,” Coun. Jeff Leiper said.

Leiper, along with Coun. Riley Brockington, was on the losing end of the vote to establish a new community with the Algonquin lands.

Even Stephen Willis, the city’s general manager of planning, wasn’t sure how to balance the priorities.

“We’re in new territory right now on this issue,” Willis said.

City planners came to the joint committee meeting this week asking for approval on a plan identifying their recommended new development lands.

There were 1,101 hectares of land that received top grades for getting into the urban boundary, but the city still needed to find 270 hectares of lower-graded lands to add. That’s where the Algonquin land came in.

In expanding the urban boundary, the city has to consider how much more money its would cost to provide municipal services in those outer communities. The cost for including the Algonquin lands wasn’t made clear during the meeting.

It wasn’t the only controversy.

Coun. Carol Anne Meehan won support to swap out staff-recommended land in Riverside South with nearby agricultural land to allow residential development closer to the new Trillium Line extension.

Meehan struggled with her own proposal, since she previously supported protecting agricultural land during the urban boundary expansion.

Coun. Scott Moffatt said Meehan’s motion worryingly sends a message that “transit trumps agriculture, but El-Chatiry, the chair of the agriculture committee who originally won council’s support to protect agriculture land, said the land swap provides a “one-time opportunity we shouldn’t miss” for public transit.

Council will vote on the recommended new lands inside the urban boundary on Feb. 10.

[email protected]
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...ntario-project

Just because it's closer than Kanata or Barrhaven doesn't necessarily make it feasible, especially considering how much flak those two suburban communities already take from here and elsewhere.

My main concern is the point raised from rocketphish's link:

So not only was it not costed and voted on but it also had low developmental scoring from city staff. :shrug:

I was speaking purely in terms of location.There are plenty of other glaring issues with the land in question.

There is a giant elephant in the room on this file.

At one point they showed a map of the land ownership in the area and how much was in Natural Heritage Features and these lands have a lot of issues.

This was all rejected in the early 1970s because of poor soil conditions. This brought us Orleans and Barrhaven as the alternative.

Cross-post:

So it's the Government of Ontario who quite possibly swindled the Algonquins of Ontario to buy-up sub-par land. I wonder what "market value" was and if it put into consideration the poor soil conditions and lack of services.

We know that the NCC is fair with potential development partners, taking into consideration the cost of cleaning-up contaminated soils. Not sure the Province would do the same.

Not only poor soil, but unlike the rest of the urban zone, much of this area drains into the South Nation River which meanders through Eastern Ontario instead of more directly into the Rideau and Ottawa. Storm sewerage is going to add a lot of environmental issues, this effectively spreads water pollution over a wider area.

I agree this area has a lot of problems... and no comment on those. But, it really is intriguing how easy it would be for the City and Taggart/the Algonquins of Ontario to setup a commuter rail line to the Via Rail's Ottawa Station (and Tremblay Station).

I've drawn up an alignment that would only require 4 grade-separations to achieve a fully grade-separated line between VIA Rail's Ottawa Station and the heart of "Tewin" (edit: if you wanted to go deeper into the Tewin lands, grade separations or at-grade crossings of Piperville Road and Thunder Road would also be required, bringing the total grade separations to 6). Overall route length = approximately 14 km to Piperville Road. It would require some sharing of VIA Rail track, but not too much - and I'm sure something could be arranged and/or double track constructed for that length. The VIA Rail structure over Innes Road is already built for double track.

The fun thing about this alignment is it would be pretty easy to eventually extend commuter service to Russell and Embrun (those communities have preserved the NY&O ROW as a trail).

https://i.imgur.com/lZid3aE.png

Tewin should also ultimately run frequent bus service along Leitrim Road to connect with Line 2 at Leitrim Station, but that is less fun to draw on a map.

And this could be a basic commuter rail line with half hour frequencies. We don't need to spend billions for metros to suburbs. Try to make the area as self-sustaining employment-wise as possible (like Kanata, but even more), but still connect it to the urban core for those who still work in the city and/or for leisure.

There are plenty of arguments for and against expanding commuter tail outside the city, but I would none-the-less support expanding to Russell and Embrun if the Tewin line is successful.

Earthquake hazard map :

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...51902539_c.jpg

Bedrock depth :

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...50285929_c.jpg

Worst possible spot to build.

Source : https://www.iclr.org/wp-content/uplo...e_Feb_2014.pdf

Bringing Algonquin land into urban boundary shows city's commitment to reconciliation, Mayor Watson says

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Jan 27, 2021 • 25 minutes ago • 2 minute read

Bringing far-flung land owned by the Algonquins of Ontario into Ottawa’s urban boundary “is about sharing the wealth, not just the crumbs,” Mayor Jim Watson said Wednesday.

An overwhelming majority of councillors responsible for making planning recommendations are telling council to include 445 hectares of land owned by the Algonquins of Ontario inside a redrawn urban boundary.

The land is west of Carlsbad Springs, south of Highway 417.

The Algonquins of Ontario, which represents 10 communities in land claim negotiations with the provincial and federal governments, is partnering with Taggart Investments on a major residential development called “Tewin” using the guidance of Algonquin values.

The land scored poorly in an assessment by city planners tasked with determining which lands should be brought inside the urban boundary to satisfy the city’s growth projections. However, planners also gave councillors the option of studying the Algonquin land over five years to see if it could be developed as a new community.

A joint planning and agriculture affairs committee this week voted to remove Kanata-area South March lands proposed to be included inside the urban boundary to allow the Algonquins of Ontario to pursue the rural-east development.

The companies which own the South March lands decried the decision, saying “politics has taken over a prescribed scoring process and months of work by city staff.”

Watson said the city needs to be flexible when it comes to deciding which lands should come inside the urban boundary, even when there’s a council-approved scoring system for lands.

The mayor said the city needs to take action when it comes to reconciliation with Indigenous communities.

“We’re always very good at reading the statement of our respect for First Nations, but this will really be the first time the City of Ottawa has done anything of a very substantive and tangible fashion that will allow our First Nations brothers and sisters an opportunity to create some economic growth and opportunity for their people through employment and through investment,” Watson said.

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twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...or-watson-says

It's hard to feel bad for developers. But choosing the worst parcel of land has consequences. It might end up costing the city millions more than it makes the Algonquins. I wonder if we are open to a lawsuit also.

As for a sustainable community I will believe it when I see it. I bet if you get dropped off in the center of the development when complete you won't be able to tell the difference. We'll see of course.

And so much for the theory Developers run city hall. Though maybe some dark money somewhere given one of the first proponents of this in council.

I'd frankly be shocked if this weren't approved.