Plan pits villages against developers
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Plan+pits+villages+against+developers/2175185/story.html
Confused planning policy clear in Richmond dispute with Mattamy
BY RANDALL DENLEY, THE OTTAWA CITIZENNOVEMBER 3, 2009COMMENTS (13)
STORYPHOTOS ( 1 )
Randall Denley
Photograph by: The Ottawa Citizen, The Ottawa Citizen
People in the village of Richmond are on the receiving end of what is surely the most contradictory planning policy the City of Ottawa has. The city won't expand its urban boundary on the grounds that suburban sprawl must be stopped. It's a reasonable position, but the city contradicts it with an aggressive plan to direct growth to rural villages instead. If new development doesn't make sense on the urban edge, why is it better 10 kilometres down the road where there is no municipal water, an inadequate sewage system and a lack of road capacity?
That's what people in Richmond are trying to figure out as they cope with a plan by Mattamy Homes that could ultimately more than double the size of their village. While people were initially open to developing Richmond, there are now signs that it could end up like Manotick, where villagers have waged a long, bitter fight to slow development.
Mattamy and local residents are working on a plan for the community, but some village leaders say that it's just a device to further Mattamy's development plans. Mattamy has brought in a team of consultants to create "a pie-in-the-sky vision of what Richmond could be like, while acting as a smokescreen to distract us from the real issue, which is the proposed doubling in size of our village," says Elaine Morgan, who is vice-chair of the committee working on the community plan. If Mattamy's development goes ahead, "We're going to become another Barrhaven, another Stittsville," Morgan says.
Bruce Webster, head of the Richmond Village Association, is concerned that greater density in the Mattamy development will change the character of the village. It's urban development outside the urban area, he says.
Although Mattamy purchased or took options on more than 300 acres 18 months ago, basic questions about servicing the development remain unanswered, Webster says.
One can certainly see why people in Richmond would be alarmed. The community plan that's meant to set the tone for the village's development is being paid for by Mattamy. Councillor Glenn Brooks promised the plan during the last election, but subsequently discovered that the city couldn't afford the $750,000 project. Even for a developer with the best of intentions, that sounds like putting the fox in charge of henhouse security.
The city anticipates that about nine per cent of its growth over the next 20 years will go to rural areas and most of that will be directed to villages. City planners say the growth will make the villages more "sustainable," by adding enough new bodies to allow retail expansion, keep up the numbers of students in schools and justify additional city services.
In other words, the city is determined to make villages larger for their own good, even though they are communities that many chose to move to because of their small size.
The door is open to making villages bigger because they typically have land within the village boundary that was set aside years ago for future expansion. In the case of Richmond, a larger village was envisioned by the former Goulbourn Township. Back in the day, rural councillors liked rural growth because it brought in more tax dollars. The justification for it in the amalgamated city is more difficult to see.
To some extent, Mattamy is caught in the crossfire between villagers and the city, which has adopted village policies that aren't universally popular. The company is exercising the development right that comes with the land it bought and it is convinced that Richmond will be changed for the better, Mattamy spokesman Frank Cairo says. He argues that his company's development will deliver more retail, better water and sewer service, better roads and better transit.
The development will add between 1,700 and 2,300 housing units to the 1,400 in the village now, Cairo says, but that growth will take place over many years and it will be in a style that suits Richmond.
"Our plan is not to build Kanata all over again in Richmond," Cairo says. "Mattamy looks at this as a legacy project."
The Mattamy-led planning exercise is exactly the kind of overview that Richmond would have benefited from years ago. The village's growth has been slow and organic, but it's also unfocused and sometimes not very attractive. This isn't one of those quaint little villages people like to visit on weekends.
While Mattamy's plan talks about concepts and visions, sewers and dollars will drive the village's future. Its sewer system is nearly maxed out now. To develop, Mattamy will have to spend a lot of money on sewer improvements and the creation of a communal well system. Having spent that, the company will need a substantial number of units to make a profit.
What Mattamy proposes is likely to fit squarely within the city official plan. Too bad that plan doesn't make sense or please people who like quiet village life.
Contact Randall Denley at 613-596-3756 or by e-mail,
[email protected]
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Prev
Email
Print
Tweet This
Linear Mode
