Rather than cave to pressure from developers, city council voted to defend their decision last June to limit urban boundary expansion to 222 hectares yesterday.
After rejecting an expansion of the urban boundary to 842 hectares last summer, council voted for a smaller expansion over five years, and yesterday, voted 17-3 to defend the decision, despite appeals to the Ontario Municipal Board.
Outside city hall, about 60 concerned residents and members of local groups had rallied to ask council to hold the urban boundary line.
“We’re here to make sure Ottawa plans better for the future,” said rally organizer Will Murray with Our Ottawa.
“We have a system in place right now that subsidizes urban sprawl. We have to sort out how we can do better at that. For the next 20 years, there is already enough space within the urban boundary for single family homes.”
“We need to build an effective and efficient city,” said Our Ottawa member Bob Brocklebank.
“There’s no way we can build an efficient city by creating scattered communities.”
Providing services “way out in the middle of nowhere” costs a lot of money, he said.
“Also, consider young families who are thinking about moving into one of these areas,” Brocklebank said.
“There’s a big cost for them too. Not just in their property tax, but that young family knows they’ll never have transit in their community.
“This is not an efficient way to run a city.”
