Where Will We Live
Summary
The City of Ottawa wants to accommodate growth in a way that protects and preserves the scale and character of established residential areas while making optimal use of existing services and infrastructure and avoiding the need to expand the urban boundary. By examining potential in the areas of the city designated for growth in the 2003 Ottawa Official Plan, the aim of this study is to quantify the potential for additional dwelling units. Since much of the suburban greenfield housing supply is already tracked through the Vacant Urban Residential Land Survey (VURLS), the focus of this study is primarily on various forms of intensification.
| Category | Potential # of dwelling units |
| 1. Mainstreets | 69,153 |
| 2. Downtown | 10,115 |
| 3. Small-scale infill | 1,353 |
| 4. Transit stations, Town Centres and Employment Centres | 26,099 |
| 5. Greenfields | 46,618 |
| 6. Federal Lands | 18,048 |
| 7. Other Opportunities | 37,153 |
| TOTAL | 208,539 |
This report does not address total residential potential since it does not attempt to quantify the potential for redevelopment opportunities from other sources of housing supply which will inevitably be created due to unanticipated site-specific opportunities and circumstances.
Using conservative assumptions, there is potential for about 208,000 dwelling units through the intensification opportunities discussed in this report. Even assuming only a fraction of this potential is realized between now and 2021, the city will be able to accommodate a large share of future growth through intensification.
Overall residential supply includes the intensification opportunities covered in this report, in addition to the following:
- Vacant Urban Residential Land Survey (VURLS) lands, surveyed annually, are mostly comprised of land in the urban centres outside the Greenbelt. According to the 2002 survey, these lands have an estimated capacity of about 69,000 dwelling units.
- The Kanata West expansion lands, which are slated for approximately 6,300 dwelling units.
- Residential opportunities in rural villages and in General Rural Area designations. The Official Plan anticipates about 14,400 dwelling units to be built in the rural area between 2001 and 2021.
- The dwellings built in 2001 and 2002 (11,000).
- New apartments in houses, with an estimated potential of 4,500 units by 2021.
When all urban and rural lands are taken into account, the city has an overall potential supply of about 313,000 dwelling units. The forecast demand is approximately 191,000 units including vacancies and demolitions. This report shows that there are sufficient opportunities to provide balanced growth in a variety of urban, suburban and rural environments for the planning period and beyond.
For this to happen, the City must implement the Official Plan’s strategic directions to:
- Increase residential development at key locations, namely, downtown and along Mainstreets, at and around rapid transit stations and employment centres, and in suburban town centres;
- Increase residential densities in new greenfield communities,
- Take advantage of opportunities to intensify employment areas (especially campus-style business parks) and regenerate greyfields and brownfields such as aging shopping centres and outdated industrial facilities,
- Ensure that infill and redevelopment takes on more urban qualities and design characteristics that will make residential intensification more attractive, convenient and enjoyable for residents.
The implementation of these policy directions will primarily take place through Community Design Plans and zoning provisions. The City’s Planning and Infrastructure Approvals Branch will also be implementing these policy directions on a project-by-project basis with a long-term view to ensuring that new development contributes to the incremental evolution of the city toward the directions set out in the Official Plan.
Only a part of the potential identified in this report is required to meet forecast housing demand to 2021; even if only half the potential calculated in this study were to be constructed, the city would comfortably be able to accommodate growth well beyond the Official Plan horizon of 2021. Much of the higher density potential represents opportunities for the planning period after 2021.
A future edition of this report is planned for 2006.