Council asks new housing minister to review urban boundary expansion

Ontario's new minister of municipal affairs and housing is being asked to review a controversial expansion of Ottawa's urban boundary carried out under his predecessor's watch.

City council unanimously carried a motion Wednesday asking Paul Calandra to look into the expansion approved last fall by former housing minister Steve Clark, who overrode the city's initial plan and added hundreds of hectares in a bid — as his press secretary said at the time — to allow "desperately needed housing to be built."

The request comes several weeks after scathing reports from the province's integrity commissioner and auditor general into how Clark's office handled a massive land swap in southern Ontario's Greenbelt.

They suggested some private developers improperly benefited from the process and led Clark, the MPP for Leeds–Grenville–Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, to resign from Premier Doug Ford's cabinet.

• Ford apologizes for 'wrong' Greenbelt decision, vows to reverse land swap
• Steve Clark resigns amid Greenbelt land swap controversy

"I don't buy the argument that we need to trample over wetlands and prime agricultural land and farmland just to meet those single-unit home targets," said Capital Coun. Shawn Menard, who introduced the motion, in an interview with CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning.

"There's plenty of land within the city of Ottawa to intensify."

A 'paternalistic' decision

The urban boundary sets the geographical limit for how far a city can grow. In November 2022, Clark used his powers to expand Ottawa's by 654 hectares, including agricultural lands city staff had previously chosen to leave out.

That decision superseded the expansion council approved in 2020, increasing it by roughly 50 per cent. 

• The Ford government has expanded Ottawa's boundary. Here's what's been added

Then-mayor Jim Watson was critical, calling Clark's override "paternalistic" and arguing it would be expensive for taxpayers and cause urban sprawl.

It came amidst a push by the Ford government to aggressively boost housing supply, with Ottawa having a target of adding 151,000 new homes in a decade, double the city's own projections.

Menard said one particular property — a former farm on Watters Road in Orléans — was of particular concern.

That farm was not among the properties originally approved by the city, largely because it sits on prime agricultural land. In August 2021, it was purchased by a group whose five directors had donated north of $12,000 to the PCs in 2021 and 2022.

Menard singled the farm out in a letter signed by himself and 10 other councillors, calling for the auditor general and the integrity commissioner to look into the "lack of transparency and accountability" around the expansion.

"Given what we know happened with the Greenbelt, we want to make sure that the same thing didn't happen here," he told Ottawa Morning.

"[Though] quite frankly, it appears it did happen here."

'Benefit of the doubt'

While Ottawa's situation is "quite different" than the Greenbelt controversy, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said he was cognizant that concerns had been raised about some land parcels.

"I'm not a fan of petitioning other levels of government and expressing our opinion, but this is about our official plan. We need to work collaboratively with the provincial government," Sutcliffe said after Wednesday's council meeting.

• Why you should care about the official plan vote

"I have a strong working relationship with the provincial government, so it's simply a request to ask them to have another look. And if there's anything that needs to be reviewed, they can do so."

Like his letter, Menard's initial motion also suggested going straight to the auditor general and the integrity commissioner. He explained after the council meeting why the language had changed.

"There's a new minister in place," he said. "So we're going to give them the benefit of the doubt."

Late Wednesday afternoon, Ottawa NDP MPPs Joel Harden and Chandra Pasma issued a joint statement saying they would call on the auditor general to investigate.