M E M O / N O T E D E S E R V I C E
To / Destinataire Mayor and Members of Council File/N de fichier
From / Expditeur Michael Mizzi
Acting General ManagerPlanning and Growth Management
DepartmentSubject / Objet Ontario Municipal Board Decision
Official Plan Amendment 117 Centretown Community Design Plan
Date: 19 May 2015
The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you that the City of
Ottawa has filed for an Ontario Divisional Court Judicial Review of
a recent Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) decision on aspects of
Official Plan Amendment 117, which implements the Centretown
Community Design Plan (CDP).
The Centretown CDP was approved by Council in May 2013 and
several appeals of OPA 117 were heard by the OMB last fall. Last
week, the OMB released its ruling, which upheld several aspects of
OPA 117, but struck down others.
For the last number of years, beginning with the 2012 Planning
Summit and continuing through development and adoption of the most
recent Official Plan amendment, the goal of City Council has been
to provide certainty with respect to what kinds of development can
be done where, in particular, when it comes to direction on
height.
Through a series of approvals and directions, the City of Ottawa
has taken the position that residents should be able to know what
the future of their neighbourhoods will be, and developers should
be able to know what they can build and where they can build it in
order to do business planning appropriately. Working with the
community and the development industry, this principle of certainty
has been diligently worked into the Citys Official Plan, its
Secondary Plans, multiple CDPs and into the Zoning By-law.
In the OPA 117 case, the OMB ruled that the City of Ottawas
Official Plan and its Secondary Plans should not be used to
prescribe maximum heights for development, and that these documents
need to be flexible on what can be built in what locations.
This decision works to undermine the principle of certainty the
City of Ottawa has been striving to achieve, and I have been
advised that in the opinion of the Citys City Clerk and Solicitor
Department, the OMB is wrong in law. Therefore, after consulting
with the Mayor, the Chair of the Planning Committee, and the
Somerset Ward Councillor, I have been advised that the City Clerk
and Solicitor Department has filed an appeal of the OMB ruling with
the Divisional Court of Ontario.
