Councillors aim to take farmland off table in boundary debate

A highly anticipated city meeting about whether to expand Ottawa's urban boundary kicked off Monday morning with a move to take all prime farmland off the table.

The two committees responsible for planning issues will meet for hours, if not days, to discuss the city's second attempt at urbanexpansion since amalgamation nearly two decades ago.

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City staff have asked councillors to approve adding 1,281 hectares of rural land to the urban area to meet a population that's expected to grow to 1.4 million people by2046. Those 400,000 additional citizens will require an estimated195,000 new homes.

Additional land could be assigned to future warehouses, industrial parks and logistics centres near 400-series highway interchanges.

Agricultureand rural affairs committee chair Eli El-Chantirytabled a motion to exclude all prime farmland from those calculations.

"By being explicit about this, we offer more certainty for our farmers and for food security in Ottawa," said El-Chantiry, who pointed outprovincial laws require the cityto protect farmland.

City council will vote on the expansion May 27.

Long list of speakers

This "land budget" will dictate how Ottawa grows, and that has attracted an unusually long list of public delegations looking to weigh in by video.

There are 109 delegations signed up to speak, among them community associations, environmental groups, executives of several development companies, and even John Smit, the city's former director of economic development andlong-range planning, speaking on behalf of consultantsGBA Group.

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City planner Don Herweyer began the staff presentation by admitting their recommendation to push out the rural-urban divide was "not popular" in some quarters.

The Greater Ottawa Homebuilders' Association has waged an ad campaign arguing the city is seeking too much intensification. Meanwhile, community groups held a video rally to argue expanding the boundary would clash with the city's goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and nearly 4,000 residents have signed an Ecology Ottawa petition calling on the city to "hold the line."

Herweyer described the staff proposal as"ambitious" and "forward-thinking" because it calls for more intensification and more compact suburbs than in the past.