Ottawa Municipal Election 2010

[adam-machiavelli]

1. Global human population is expected to peak sometime in the next 30 to 40 years. So we may be developing new sprawl that won't be necessary shortly after.

2. If Canada is compelled to accept hundreds of millions of climate change refugees then I suspect most of those people will be resettled in small and medium sized existing and new cities because there comes a point when cities grow too big to function efficiently. So Ottawa won't grow to 7 million anytime soon. But if it does, we can re-evaluate the insane possibility of settling people on some of Canada's most fertile land.

[reidjr]

Originally Posted by adam-machiavelli

1. Global human population is expected to peak sometime in the next 30 to 40 years. So we may be developing new sprawl that won't be necessary shortly after.

2. If Canada is compelled to accept hundreds of millions of climate change refugees then I suspect most of those people will be resettled in small and medium sized existing and new cities because there comes a point when cities grow too big to function efficiently. So Ottawa won't grow to 7 million anytime soon. But if it does, we can re-evaluate the insane possibility of settling people on some of Canada's most fertile land.

But thats the thing new canadians go to toronto and vancouver the most then montreal then ottawa.Ottawa may not get to 7 million but we could have alot of population growth in the next few years.I don't agree with sprawl i was in barrheaven yesterday and its sick how much its growing.

[eternallyme]

Development freezes would raise property values so much that it would become so unaffordable to buy a house for most families. It would be a huge boon to outlying municipalities who would see massive growth.

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by Proof Sheet

Having said all that, when I'm waiting for meetings in the Planning Dep't, often times people there for the 1st time are often amazed at all the people in the Pl'g Dep't (courtesy of the staff directory phone book) and their comments are usually along the lines of 'what do all these people do here'. etc. In driving through the City I see public notification signs with staff members names on them that I have no idea who they are...I'm not aware of many staff members leaving or retiring which makes me think that there has been hiring going on.

My problems are not with individual staff members...it is the system which is so byzantine in its operation with little sharing of information. Many homeowners,builders, developers, commercial operators etc could file a site plan application on their own, but they hire planning consultants to filter all of the crap from the owner.

The mistake would be to cut back on the policy end of things...that is where the corporate knowledge is and the long term thinking....some of the development application processing (especially non-controversial items) could be handled by contract staff or outside consultants (with no conflict of interest). Unfortunately, for thinkers like O'Brien policy planners do not represent cost recovery from incoming application fees.

With 439 employees, they could at least hire a receptionist To be fair with all the reorganization it's much more than just planners there though... and I believe they are working on a number of ways to improve that process.

I don't know how cost-effective outsourcing the development application processing would be in larger municipalities... it makes sense in the rural context but dunno about the city. IIRC there was a proposal to do that for Barrhaven though (for engineering).

The great thing about a larger organization like the City of Ottawa is that larger pool of resources, long-term thinking, and corporate knowledge you mention. Kind of like if you work for the province you have access to the resources of MNR, MOE etc. This is especially beneficial for rural areas which may not have had access to those resources except through consultants.

[reidjr]

Jane scarf the one that was kicked off then stage last week is now taking the case to the human rights court.

[DubberDom]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

Development freezes would raise property values so much that it would become so unaffordable to buy a house for most families. It would be a huge boon to outlying municipalities who would see massive growth.

Absolutely.

While Global population growth rates may slow down, Canada should continue increasing throughout the rest of the 21st century through immigration.

I don't necessarily buy into population growth reversing in 30 years, unless religious fundamentalism is defeated. People in the Islamic World will continue to procreate faster, unless there is a fundamental shift in that religion

[Dado]

You and eternallyme have completely missed where that discussion was heading, and I suspect it stopped because it's not really anything to do with a thread on Ottawa's municipal election.

They were not discussing some minor change to our immigration policy, they were discussing the extremely remote possibility of the federal government instituting a population increase policy that would see the population increased by millions each year.

Under that kind of policy environment, the current planning and growth framework of the provinces and their municipal children would have to be overhauled. As a country, we simply could not allow the few remaining fertile lands surrounding our major cities to be developed all the while the need for agricultural products increased because of the massively increased population.

Outward growth in cities, towns and villages alike that lie in arable lands would have to be heavily curtailed. The idiotic beggar-thy-neighbour pro-sprawl policies that rural municipalities are allowed to engage in vis-à-vis their urban neighbours would have to end. While Canada is a big country, the one thing we don't have a lot of is fertile arable land and that is also the one thing we seem intent on getting rid of. Population growth and development would have to be focused elsewhere, for instance into the Canadian Shield where plenty of water exists but not much in the way of arable land. We would be talking about urbanizing regions of the Canadian landscape that have barely seen urbanization; literally carving cities out of the wilderness and turning current 'remote' cities like North Bay and Sudbury into metropolises with populations numbering in the millions.

In many ways, the worst thing we could do would be to incrementally increase immigration because that doesn't provide the catalyst to start thinking about and how to address the long term consequences of our current growth patterns.

At any rate, all of this belongs in another forum.

[lrt's friend]

A massive change in our immigration policy could destablize the country. Our ability to integrate a massive increase in non-European immigrants is questionable and could import foreign religious and ethnic strife in an uncontrollable manner. Canada could easily cease being a Christian English speaking country and our political system could be overturned by a completely new ethnic majority.

[Ottawan]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

A massive change in our immigration policy could destablize the country. Our ability to integrate a massive increase in non-European immigrants is questionable and could import foreign religious and ethnic strife in an uncontrollable manner. Canada could easily cease being a Christian English speaking country and our political system could be overturned by a completely new ethnic majority.

I'm not sure where to even begin with this statement. Firstly, I highly doubt most Canadians see the concept of our country as being "English" or "Christian" as central to our national identity. We are far from being either at the moment, and I don't see any need to fear this fact. Our ethnic composition has been in constant flux*** and a new ethnic composition (I highly doubt any specific group will ever be able to form the majority) is not something that needs to spark xenophobic fears. Certainly history has shown it would not overturn our political system.

Secondly, there is a big difference between importing foreign political and religious opinions, something which undoubtedly occurs with immigration (although is softened with each subsequent generation) and having these conflicts & opinions rise to the level of "ethnic strife in an uncontrollable manner".

Thirdly, I do not see how importing "non-European" immigrants increases the chance of such strife and negatively affects our identity or their ability to integrate. Some of the least integrated immigrants in Canada (for example Mennonites) are of European origin. Some of the largest conflicts come from immigrants from European countries such as Bosnia (to say nothing of conflict in earlier times due to Irish migrants). The vast majority of English-speaking Canadians of European origin are not originally from English-speaking countries.

Fourthly, it is EXTREMELY unlikely that immigration will be increased to the level of millions. However, were such to occur, with the proper resources and policies, I'm sure it could be accomodated in a responsible and sustainable manner. We have a huge country, a developed economy, developed cultural sensibilities, a court system capable of arbitrating disputes and a government that is, for all of its flaws, actually quite capable.

I think ideally our immigration levels should be increased, not to millions a year, but to a constant level of 1% of our population (that would mean an increase from the mid-200,000 level to the mid 300,000s, and a subsequent increase each year to keep pace with the size of the population). This level of immigration would be less than Canada has experienced for much of its history. It would allow our economy to continue to grow, lessen the risks of labour shortages, and increase our comparative global importance.



***Originally the ethnic majority was Native, then French Canadian, but after that there has been no clear majority. Next came Loyalists (Of Germanic and British origin largely). Then came immigrants from the British isles, including Ireland (note, the Irish were not considered 'white' immigrants in the mid-1800s when they first came and threatened to 'overwhelm' the supposed ethnic majority). This was followed by small numbers of Jewish, Indian, Japanese and Chinese migrants at the turn of the century, and even more frighteningly, millions of Italians (yes, this was seen as a horrible threat). Following WWII, Canadians were afraid that refugees from central and eastern Europe would upset our nation's makeup. It has been since the late '60s that ethnicity has been eliminated from immigration considerations, and this has produced generations of non-European but very loyal Canadians, despite ongoing fears about anyone considered an 'other' coming to this nation of former 'others'.

[reidjr]

Originally Posted by Ottawan

I'm not sure where to even begin with this statement. Firstly, I highly doubt most Canadians see the concept of our country as being "English" or "Christian" as central to our national identity. We are far from being either at the moment, and I don't see any need to fear this fact.

Secondly, there is a big difference between importing foreign political and religious opinions, something which undoubtedly occurs with immigration (although is softened with each subsequent generation) and having these conflicts & opinions rise to the level of "ethnic strife in an uncontrollable manner".

Thirdly, I do not see how importing "non-European" immigrants increases the chance of such strife and negatively affects our identity or their ability to integrate. Some of the least integrated immigrants in Canada (for example Mennonites) are of European origin. Some of the largest conflicts come from immigrants from European countries such as Bosnia (to say nothing of conflict in earlier times due to Irish migrants). The vast majority of English-speaking Canadians of European origin are not originally from English-speaking countries.

Fourthly, it is EXTREMELY unlikely that immigration will be increased to the level of millions. However, were such to occur, with the proper resources and policies, I'm sure it could be accomodated in a responsible and sustainable manner. We have a huge country, a developed economy, developed cultural sensibilities, a court system capable of arbitrating disputes and a government that is, for all of its flaws, actually quite capable.

I think ideally our immigration levels should be increased, not to millions a year, but to a constant level of 1% of our population (that would mean an increase from the mid-200,000 level to the mid 300,000s, and a subsequent increase each year to keep pace with the size of the population). This level of immigration would be less than Canada has experienced for much of its history. It would allow our economy to continue to grow, lessen the risks of labour shortages, and increase our comparative global importance.

Part of the probleam is our social programs are over welmed part due to immergration part to other reasons.We have many many canadian with out work now we should be working to get them back to work for those who can before we look at brining many people in to work.We have to stop the abuse of welfare and ei there have people say they refuse to work for less then $50 a hour so they stay on ei.Now with that said and we get our social programs under control we then open the doors again but we don't just say come in your free to go what we do is people that get the ok we don't import no need to we go case by case and the one approved are taken to places like regina and they placed on a farm and they have to work.

[lrt's friend]

My point related to a desire to quickly increase the population to over 100 million. This would mean annual immigration in the millions. In this regard, I do believe that bringing in massive immigration from third world countries would be very problematic and would completely change the identity of this country in a short time period to something that could easily be undesireable. Regarding ethnic and religious strife, all you have to do is look at western European countries where immigrants have often been less successfully integrated. Serious problems arise when immigrant populations do not quickly find adequate employment.

[Dado]

Well that was predictable...


But basically I agree. Bringing in large numbers of non-westernized immigrants in quantities that would raise the population to multiples of the current population would almost certainly break the country.

[Ice Hockey 87]

Watson, O'Brien trade shots over suburb proposal
By Kate Jaimet, The Ottawa Citizen October 12, 2010 6:04 PM Comments (6)

OTTAWA — Mayoral candidate Jim Watson came out swinging Tuesday against incumbent Larry O’Brien’s proposal to work with a single developer to build a new, 60 square-kilometer suburb. But O’Brien struck back with a press release calling Watson a short-sighted naysayer who would cripple Ottawa’s growth.

“We’re going to have a tough enough time finding resources to fund (light rail) transit out to Orléans and Kanata, which should be a priority, and he’s proposing a new satellite city that would drain virtually all of our capital dollars into providing services to unserviced land,” Watson said in an interview after a speech at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre Tuesday.

Watson also criticized O’Brien’s proposal during the speech, and in a detailed press release Tuesday morning.

O’Brien was not available for an interview Tuesday to defend his proposal, said his campaign spokesperson Jasmine MacDonnell. She said he would release his urban planning platform on Saturday.

The campaign team instead issued a press release criticizing Watson’s stance.

“This is typical of what we’ve come to expect from Watson. His thoughts start with ‘no’ and go downhill from there,” the press release quoted O’Brien as saying. “His response to any big-picture thinking is to evoke fear among residents and throw out grossly exaggerated numbers.”

O’Brien suggested the idea of building a massive new suburb at a debate held by the environmental group Ecology Ottawa on Oct. 3. He said the city should “go into significantly larger planning exercises — 15,000, 16,000 acres of development with one major partner.” That translates into a single suburb of 60 to 64 square kilometers, or roughly the total developed urban land area of Kanata, Stittsville and Barrhaven combined.

“At the Ecology Ottawa debate he talked about a “friendly developer” which sent alarm bells off. What has he been up to, who has he been speaking to, and is this going to pass the fairness test?” Watson said in an interview with the Citizen.

“I don’t think it’s fair to the small builders (and) I’m not sure how you would even control that. If a number of people own the land, I don’t think it’s the role of the city to go and pick their favourite developer.”

In a press release, Watson said that services in new communities such as water and sewer are usually financed 40 per cent by new homeowners and 60 per cent by existing taxpayers. He calculated that O’Brien’s proposed new suburb could contain 140,000 homes, costing taxpayers $12,500 per home in services for a total of $1 billion “before the community is even built.”

O’Brien’s press release called that a “fabrication,” but did not offer an estimate of the cost of building a 60-square kilometer community.

Watson said he believes in holding the line on the urban boundary, and supports intensification in existing neighbourhoods. In developments where increased density becomes a controversial issue, such as the redevelopment of Les Soeurs de la Visitation property in Westboro, he said the mayor should become actively involved “to work on a fair and equitable compromise.”

But in his press release, O’Brien attacked Watson’s position.

“When Jim Watson staunchly supports the status quo, what he’s really saying is that those residents living in the core should get ready for high-rises in their neighbourhoods, and that those in the suburbs should accept being treated like second-class citizens,” the press release states.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen


Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/ottawa...roposal/3660262/story.html#ixzz12C5Dl2f9

[lrt's friend]

I find it strangely ironic that O'Brien supports the development of a humungous new suburb yet he was the one who pulled the plug on LRT that would have facilitated growth of the southern community. Exactly how would he provide transportation to such a new suburb? Build a 12 lane expressway into Ottawa?

All we need is a study that recommends that it be placed outside of Ottawa's boundaries.

[Ice Hockey 87]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I find it strangely ironic that O'Brien supports the development of a humungous new suburb yet he was the one who pulled the plug on LRT that would have facilitated growth of the southern community. Exactly how would he provide transportation to such a new suburb? Build a 12 lane expressway into Ottawa?

I think Larry OBrien cancelled the LRT, because he wanted the suburbs to be car oriented from the beginning. The 400 highway series ring road he unveiled a couple weeks ago would probably serve the suburbs. I dont think Ottawa can afford to add additional 60 square-kilometers of low-density housing. That kind of urban sprawl would damage the city's efforts towards creating a more sustainable city.

[reidjr]

Originally Posted by Ice Hockey 87

I think Larry OBrien cancelled the LRT, because he wanted the suburbs to be car oriented from the beginning. The 400 highway series ring road he unveiled a couple weeks ago would probably serve the suburbs. I dont think Ottawa can afford to add additional 60 square-kilometers of low-density housing. That kind of urban sprawl would damage the city's efforts towards creating a more sustainable city.

Its going to be this area or some where they need to devlope more houseing some where.

[DubberDom]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

All we need is a study that recommends that it be placed outside of Ottawa's boundaries.

I keep on saying this!!! Either allow for growth and development inside Ottawa, or else you are simply driving growth to outlying communities. The 416, new Hwy 7, 417 east and west and likely soon the 174 offer 4 lanes of grade separated transit directly into Ottawa from Rockland, Limoges, Embrun, Kemptville, Carleton Place, Arnprior etc... They are more than happy to welcome new residents, and transportation costs are a relative non-issue.

Don't forget Gatineau!!

Most everybody on this board supports intensification, but when a proposal comes forward like "Les soeurs de la visitation", you are all up in arms... make up your mind!

[lrt's friend]

I want to relate my visits to Raleigh North Carolina. It is the state capital plus a high tech centre. Not so different from Ottawa. They are well in progress of building their second ring road. What has happened is relentless low density sprawl around their ring roads and employment has moved with the residents and equally low density. The massive high tech research triangle is actually mid way between Raleigh and an adjacent city. The downtown area is more or less dead. This is not helped by the fact that you cannot build more road capacity into the city. So everything new gets built around the periphery in a way that can't be served effectively by transit. In fact, beyond the central parts of the city, there is no transit. Traffic keeps getting worse since there are no alternatives. Because the city has no focus, they throw up their arms because they can't figure out how to start building rapid transit and make it effective.

So proceed with great caution in building ring roads. This will completely change how our city functions. It will change residential and employment patterns from the central parts of the city to the ring road corridor, just as the Queensway created Orleans and Kanata.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I want to relate my visits to Raleigh North Carolina. It is the state capital plus a high tech centre. Not so different from Ottawa. They are well in progress of building their second ring road. What has happened is relentless low density sprawl around their ring roads and employment has moved with the residents and equally low density. The massive high tech research triangle is actually mid way between Raleigh and an adjacent city. The downtown area is more or less dead. This is not helped by the fact that you cannot build more road capacity into the city. So everything new gets built around the periphery in a way that can't be served effectively by transit. In fact, beyond the central parts of the city, there is no transit. Traffic keeps getting worse since there are no alternatives. Because the city has no focus, they throw up their arms because they can't figure out how to start building rapid transit and make it effective.

So proceed with great caution in building ring roads. This will completely change how our city functions. It will change residential and employment patterns from the central parts of the city to the ring road corridor, just as the Queensway created Orleans and Kanata.

If the outermost ring road is built, it would likely result in major development in the outlying villages more than anywhere. After all, at first, the traffic would be hardly noticeable on it.

If there was an ideal place for a ring road, it would be at the immediate edge of the existing inner area, without intruding on the Greenbelt. A suburb-connecting ring road would also work, although it would create development pressure in the southeast and southwest corners.

[eternallyme]

All the talk about "more sustainable city" can quickly backfire. What that does is raises housing values greatly, which makes it much cheaper to commute from outlying areas. How are 40-60 km a direction commutes the ideal solution?