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

[CityTech]

I was against this, but I think we can make it work.

One perk of building a brand new suburb from scratch, in an area that is now completely rural, is that we have a blank slate to work with, as opposed to the strategy of just tacking on extra parcels at the edges of already mature suburbs like Orleans, Kanata North, etc, where development inevitably has to follow the existing, suboptimal, patterns.

The high cost of building city services out here will inevitably mean the community has to be dense, as the development fees per hectare will be quite high.

As others have suggested, a commuter rail line from Tremblay to Tewin should be built. It wouldn't be that expensive. Its construction should be a precursor to any development beginning: not a single house is built in Tewin until that line is complete and operational, so the community will have that link from day 1. In the long run, the city should plan for that commuter rail to eventually become a spur of the Confederation Line, but that can be seen as a later step once the community is more mature.

Tewin should have a walkable town centre in the middle of the community, with the Tewin commuter rail station right in the heart of this town centre. There should be a strict rule that all retail, all community services, the community's high schools, and all employment lands should be in this town centre. No business parks on the fringe by the highway, no strip malls scattered all over the place.

The soil conditions in Tewin prevent high rises, but medium density development, missing middle type stuff, should be built, with density at its highest in and around the town centre and gradually becoming less dense as you move further to the edges. This way, the percentage of Tewin's population that is within walking distance of the town centre and commuter rail station is maximized.

In addition to the commuter rail line, there should be a bus route from the town centre that goes north to Orleans and one that goes west to Riverside South. Those two bus routes can also double as local bus service connecting further parts of the community to the town centre.

One way all this could be funded could be with the help of the CMHC. In the past, the CMHC actively invested in experimental new neighbourhoods. They could do so again. Indigenous ownership would mean there's a lot of "wokeness points" for governments of all stripes to score, so this kind of support is politically possible. Tewin could be a model for the sustainable, walkable, and affordable suburbs of the future.