Council split on fourplexes as feds press cities to relax zoning

Ottawa is preparing to loosen rules to allow taller and denser housing as it drafts a new zoning bylaw, but some are asking whether the city should go even further to ensure it doesn't lose out on its share of $4 billion in federal funding.

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe met with federal Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Sean Fraser late last month to discuss, at least in part, the city's application for money under the Housing Accelerator Fund.

Fraser has been playing hardball on housing across the country. He sent letters to cities like Halifax and Mississauga, Ont., asking them to raise height limits to four storeys in central areas or near transit stations and allow four units on every lot in exchange for the money. 

Sutcliffe said Ottawa is already working on new zoning rules that should satisfy Fraser. He said both want the same thing: more housing.

"We are working on a plan that I think will go well beyond what the federal government expects from us in terms of the density that we will achieve across the city," he said.

"They'll see that we are moving in the direction they want us to and that it's consistent with their plans, and then we can move forward with the funding application."

Asked whether Fraser signalled Ottawa's plan would be enough, Sutcliffe said "we're still talking about that."

The city is expecting more than $150 million from the federal fund to pay for a plan to add nearly 7,000 housing units. But it's still waiting for an answer to its application, and some councillors aren't comfortable taking any risks with that money.

3 units per lot, or 4?

Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster noted that Fraser has pushed other cities to allow up to four units per lot, not the three units council recently approved to comply with the province's More Homes Built Faster Act. She asked city staff why Ottawa isn't simply moving forward with four units as it drafts a new zoning bylaw.

"I'll just register my concern, because this is a request that's being made very strongly," she said at a planning and housing committee meeting last week.

"I would hope that, should the government make that request, that we would move quickly, understanding that a lot of money's on the line for the city that's really important to us."

The minister's office said it's illegal in many cities to build the sort of housing needed to end the housing crisis, with Fraser's team hoping cities all over the country will "increase their ambition."

"In London, Halifax, Hamilton and Vaughan, we have had agreements struck where those cities were willing to move to legalize four units as-of-right," an emailed statement reads, "and left no stone unturned to clear up by-laws that they had on the books which were blocking building.

"If cities are able to effectively justify why they would not be able to implement measures we have put forward, Minister Fraser is open to considering locally made solutions that will go above and beyond the requests made by the Minister and achieve the desired objectives."

Raising height limits a 'key flashpoint' for Ottawa

A first draft of the new zoning bylaw is expected in March. Once a final version is passed, expected in 2025, it will replace a complicated hodgepodge of regulations built on a foundation that precedes amalgamation.

Planning and housing committee chair Jeff Leiper said it will mean a "very significant change" on densities allowed across the city, and includes measures that are already likely to attract opposition.

He said it will be more nuanced than across-the-board permission for four-storey fourplexes, which he called "arbitrary." But he thinks it will achieve the same results in the end. 

"We're confident that we're going to achieve the densities that the federal government is looking for in a way that is well thought through and comprehensive and holistic," he said.

The city's zoning bylaw is required to conform to the latest official plan, which already foresees highrises around transit stations and increased density along major corridors.

Leiper said it will also allow taller housing in some low-rise neighbourhoods, raising limits currently set at two storeys to two-and-a-half or three, depending on building form. He thinks that will be enough of a political challenge.

"That's going to be significantly opposed by many Ottawa residents," he said. "That will be a key flashpoint. A bigger flashpoint than the number of units."

There's signs the federal government might be flexible on height requests, since it eventually approved Halifax's application even without the four-storey change Fraser initially requested.

In Leiper's view, Ottawa's new three-unit-per-lot policy is also likely to satisfy the federal government, especially since it applies to semi-detached and row houses that could each be split into three separate dwellings. 

"For a majority of the city, the changes that we've accomplished mean that there could be as many as six units," he said.

Suburban councillors worry infrastructure unprepared for fourplexes

Councillors seem divided on whether Ottawa should move to an across-the-board four-unit limit, with or without a federal ultimatum. The fault lines run partly along the Greenbelt.

"I think it's a fantastic idea," said Rideau-Vanier Coun. Stéphanie Plante when she heard about Troster's comments at planning committee.

In Plante's view, raising height limits to four storeys would also make sense in wider swaths of the city. She said the need for new housing is urgent.

"Obviously I have a different perspective," she said. "I'm a downtown councillor. We had intensification here already. I am eager as well for other parts of the city to have intensification.… It's getting packed in here for sure."

A bit further out, in the inner suburbs, Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Sean Devine seemed amenable to a four-unit policy.

"We've already approved three units per lot. Four is not a big leap," he said in an email. "We should do all that we can to meet our growth targets, and we should do it in a way that creates denser, more livable, more affordable communities."

Outside the Greenbelt, councillors agreed on the urgency of the housing crisis, but worried that infrastructure might not be able to keep pace with a rapid increase in density.

Orléans East-Cumberland Coun. Matt Luloff said four units per lot wouldn't work in his ward. He partly blamed the federal government. He asked how it can push for more density when its own agency — the National Capital Commission — is holding up the city's preferred option for a desperately needed third roadway through the Greenbelt in the east end.

"You can't in one breath say we want more density and, in the other, block every effort for us to improve our transportation corridors," Luloff said.

Kanata South Coun. Allan Hubley said he's not against the idea of four units in principle, but worries the transit system isn't yet up to supporting those kinds of densities in the suburbs. In his view, even three units isn't sustainable without proper transit, since it risks turning backyards into parking lots. 

He said the feds are "dangling what they call easy money."

"This is not easy money," said Hubley.

Stittsville Coun. Glen Gower said the city's goal is to update zoning and other policies to spur housing growth, but four units per lot isn't the only solution.

He hopes the federal government isn't applying a "cookie cutter approach" and takes a close look at Ottawa's plan.