FCA declares conditional support for City’s Section 37 policy proposal if flaws fixed

From the FCA:

Ottawa, Feb. 13 – The discussion around Section 37 of the Ontario Planning Act will heat up Tuesday when City Planning Staff ask the Planning Committee to recommend Council approve the ‘Guidelines and Protocol for the Implementation of Section 37 of the Planning Act’.

Section 37, which allows for increased height or density in a new development in exchange for community benefits, has been in place for 10 years in Ontario and is often used in Toronto to help ensure the increased height or density of a development does not prevent or inhibit the creation of a sustainable community.

Jay Baltz, Chair of the Federation of Citizens’ Associations of Ottawa’s (FCA) Planning & Zoning Committee and member of the Hintonburg Community Association will present the FCA’s position paper on Section 37 to the Planning Committee on Tuesday.

“While the FCA supports Section 37 in principle and agrees with many of the City’s recommendations, the current implementation proposal for Section 37 in Ottawa is, unfortunately, seriously flawed”, Baltz said. “We cannot support the implementation of these guidelines unless amendments are made that satisfactorily address the issues we have identified.”

The difference between the proposal put forward by the City to Community Associations last Spring and the current proposal is significant. “Closed-door meetings with developers over the last eight months have watered down the City’s Section 37 proposal for Ottawa’s communities”, Baltz said. “The loopholes are large enough to drive a bus through.”

The FCA position paper identifies eight areas of concern, three of which stand out.

First, the FCA disagrees with the City’s valuation strategy of creating two very large land valuation areas instead of calculating the real increase in land value for each rezoning application, as they do in Toronto. “To assume land valuations will be the same in areas of the City that are vastly different is a mistake”, Baltz said. “This strategy will seriously undervalue the uplift in areas with the most intense development activity, such as Sandy Hill, Lowertown, Vanier, Centretown, and the West Wellington St. / Richmond Rd. area from Hintonburg through Westboro.”

Second, because City Staff consistently rule current zoning not to be in line with the Official Plan, the FCA anticipates this loophole will be used by developers and City Staff to circumvent the intentions of Section 37 to award community benefits. Therefore, the FCA opposes uplift being reduced (“drawn down”) because of the age of the zoning, its relevance to Official Plan policies and the implementation of public benefits such as ‘plazas and pathways’ as it is outlined in section 2.7 of the City’s proposal.

Third, the FCA opposes the exception which allows redistribution of permitted density in a ‘manner that is consistent with the City’s design guidelines’.

“While developers and Staff often make the argument that permitted volume may be redistributed into taller, thinner towers”, Baltz said, “we contend that if this flexibility is desirable, it should be written into the zoning bylaw using the tool most appropriate for this purpose, which is the Floor Space Index (FSI).  Unfortunately, in the ‘consolidation’ of the zoning bylaws and in recent Community Design Plans, FSI has been largely removed as a zoning tool, despite protestations from many Ottawa area planners.”

The Federation of Citizens’ Associations of Ottawa (FCA) is a city wide association and forum for community associations and citizens’ groups in Ottawa. The FCA  is comprised of urban, suburban and rural community associations from across the amalgamated City of Ottawa. Members share information about issues facing their communities and take joint action on city-wide issues.

Media Contact:

Jay Baltz

Planning & Zoning Committee Chair
Federation of Citizens’ Associations of Ottawa

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