Im pretty ignorant on a lot of things, these are my thoughts on the city. Any feedback is appreciated
TLDR suburban sprawl is bankrupting the city and keeping rural and urban residents divided on issues the should share common ground on(I’m a rural resident that works in the city)
My number 1 municipal issue is suburban sprawl. It receives almost 0 attention from candidates because there are so many suburban wards which can easily keep rural and urban voters divided on key issues that in my opinion all spawn from irresponsible sprawl.
In Ontario, we lose approximately 325 acres of farmland a day to sprawl.
This style of development is a perfect example of what’s wrong with North American city planning. We build sprawling, car-dependent neighbourhoods that require enormous investments in roads, sewers, water systems and other infrastructure, but often don’t generate enough property-tax revenue to cover their long-term costs.
Look into Ottawa’s infrastructure deficit. It helps explain why the city can keep growing while struggling to pay for the infrastructure it already has.
Suburban homeowners want the best of both worlds: a big yard, room for a garage and access to all their amenities just minutes away. But that lifestyle comes with a public cost that rarely gets factored into the conversation.
One of the most common political talking points I hear is, “I want my government budget run like my household.”
Fine. But downloading costs to the provincial or federal government doesn’t solve the problem. It simply passes the bill up the chain, leaving taxpayers to pay for the same underlying inefficiencies.
-This year, we’ve heard that Ottawa needs to build another Barrhaven to accommodate population growth.
We’re expanding the urban boundary around Bowesville. I support building around the Bowesville LRT station. We should absolutely be building housing around transit.
The problem isn’t that we’re building there. It’s what we’re building there.
Instead of using transit expansion as an opportunity to create denser, walkable, transit-oriented communities, we’re continuing to build more of the same car-dependent suburban neighbourhoods.
We have an opportunity to decide what the area around Bowesville looks like. We can build a community that makes the most of its LRT connection, or we can repeat the same mistakes that have contributed to Ottawa’s infrastructure and transit problems.
We should be asking developers to build communities that work for the city in the long term, not just developments that are profitable to build today.
-Roads are Ottawa’s largest budget expense.
Amalgamation was sold, in part, as a way to reduce administrative costs by consolidating offices and services. On paper, that logic makes sense.
But amalgamation also created a much larger municipal boundary, and the city has continued to expand outward. Farmland, wetlands and forests have been cleared to make room for more subdivisions and townhomes, bringing additional infrastructure obligations with them.
Every new development needs roads, water, sewers, maintenance and eventually repairs or replacement. These costs don’t disappear when the developer finishes construction. They become the city’s responsibility for decades.
Our sprawling development pattern also makes public transit more expensive and less efficient. When destinations are spread across a huge area, it becomes harder to provide frequent, reliable transit without spending enormous amounts of money.
We cannot keep expanding our infrastructure footprint indefinitely and expect our finances to improve.
-If Ottawa wants to address its deficit and infrastructure gap responsibly, we have three options:
1-Drastically raise taxes to pay for the infrastructure and services our current development pattern requires.
2-Build more density so existing infrastructure can support more residents and generate more tax revenue per kilometre of road, pipe and sewer.
3-Cut services and accept a lower level of service for residents.
None of these choices are painless. But continuing to build sprawling, expensive neighbourhoods while pretending the long-term costs don’t exist isn’t a magic fourth option.
We need to grow Ottawa responsibly.
In established neighbourhoods where infrastructure needs upgrades, we should look for opportunities to add housing, build upward and fill in underused spaces. That allows us to accommodate more people without continually extending the city’s infrastructure into undeveloped land.
I’d recommend looking into BuildingIn.ca. They’re doing interesting work in Arnprior around housing and development
-Sprawl has become politicized into car lanes vs bike lanes.
Suburban residents are now a major part of Ottawa’s electorate. And when we build neighbourhoods where driving is practically mandatory, we create a political environment in which politicians can frame almost every alternative as an attack on drivers.
This is where the rhetoric about a “war on cars” comes in.
Bike lanes and bus lanes are vilified for supposedly increasing congestion. But road space is limited, and moving more people efficiently often means giving them alternatives to driving.
This brings me back to developers.
Developers have a financial incentive to build profitable projects. That’s not inherently wrong. But their financial incentives don’t align with the long-term financial interests of the city.
The city’s job is to ensure that development serves the public interest: that it provides housing people can afford, protects valuable natural spaces, makes efficient use of infrastructure and leaves Ottawa financially sustainable.
Instead, we keep expanding outward, taking on more infrastructure obligations and then wondering why the city struggles to balance its budget.
We need to stop judging development solely by how many homes are built or how much new investment comes into the city. We need to ask what those developments will cost taxpayers over the next 30, 50 or 100 years.
If we want a city that can afford its infrastructure, provide reliable transit, protect its natural spaces and build the housing people need, we have to change the way we grow.
That means building smarter, adding density where infrastructure already exists, making the most of transit investments and demanding that developers contribute to communities that are financially sustainable in the long term.
We cannot keep sprawling our way into a bigger deficit and expect a different result.