City wants planning policy to be clearer

The City of Ottawa said it hopes making the rules that govern the city's growth easier to understand will help cut down on battles between developers and community groups.

The city held an all-day planning summit Thursday with some 250 participants in attendance.

Mayor Jim Watson said with a review underway of all the city's major urban planning documents, it was the perfect time to take a longer look at how the city will grow.

Watson said the city needed to focus on:

• Containing urban expansion.
• Promoting transit-oriented development.
• Retrofitting existing suburban developments to make them more complete neighbourhoods.
• Creating complete rural villages.
• Ensuring planning initiatives help the economy.
• Delivering greater predictability and certainty when it comes to development.

Planning committee chair Peter Hume said that last point has been a problem as the city's zoning rules have been open to interpretation.

Policies interpreted in different ways

"We want to provide clarity to both sides of the equation... what that planning policy means and how it's going to be turned into a zoning bylaw," said Hume.

"We've seen lots of examples where a developer has interpreted a city policy one way, and a community group has interpreted it another way."

Hume said the city would be launching a number of initiatives to provide more clarity on zoning rules and improve neighbourhood relations, including:

• Commissioning a study of tall buildings to come up with specific guidelines for where the buildings will be placed.
• Guaranteeing timelines for minor planning applications, so that if the city misses the deadline, the next application is free.
• Creating a zoning SWAT team to work with communities and developers on specific concerns before they snowball into major confrontations.
• Creating a neighbourhood connection office to work with councillors and communities to implement projects at the local level.
• Reviewing some community design plans to ensure zoning is up to date.

The planning summit continues all afternoon.