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Dec 27, 20244 min read

City Hall Corner

Updates from Councillor Hill on City Hall meetings and policy



December 27, 2024


I’m going to do something a little different for this week’s City Hall Corner. If you’re a regular reader, you know I normally break down the council committees of the week on my website (last City Hall Corner here). But with Council slowing down for the Christmas holidays, why don’t we switch it up and look ahead to next year?

 

2025 is going to be a busy, and I hope impactful, year at the City of Ottawa. Several of the files that we’ve been working on throughout the last two years will either come online (like our new bus routes!) or come to a final vote (like the Transportation Master Plan).  Here’s just a sampling of some of the big files that will be coming to City Hall next year:

 

  • The Transportation Master Plan (TMP)

    • The TMP is the every ten(ish) year plan the City uses to set the financing and prioritization of major road infrastructure projects. I have been working since I took office to ensure Greenbank, Barnsdale, and other key Barrhaven projects remain top of mind for staff. Codifying those efforts in the new TMP is a major priority of my office. 

  • Mid-term Governance Review

    • Council will take a step back at the mid-way point of our time in office to review the governance structure we agreed to at the start of the term to make sure we got it right and make some tweaks. We could see a shakeup of committee assignments, changes to council priorities and some tweaks to how our office’s operate. This may not be the most exciting subject, but the ripple effects could impact other more important work for the remainder of the term. 

  • Lansdowne 2.0

    • Last year Council had a robust debate on how to approach the next stage of the Lansdowne project. Council accepted an initial design proposal in 2023 and asked staff to put the project out for tender. At the end of 2025 we’ll get the final financials for the project, including the staff selected contractor, and make a “Go/No Go” decision.

  • Waste to Energy Business Case

    • This year we passed the Solid Waste Master Plan. This is the policy that governs the Trail Waste Landfill, and curbside pickups. As part of that document, the City committed to reviewing waste to energy options to address our landfill problem. Short version: we are running out of space at Trail and we will need to either build a new landfill or look at alternative technology to convert our future waste into energy. Top of the list for potential Waste to Energy solutions is an incinerator, which could be a way to reduce our ghg emissions and make some extra cash as well. We’ll find out more about the feasibility of such a project in an update in 2025. 

  • Climate Change Master Plan (CCMP)

    • The City passed its first Climate Change Master Plan in 2020. That plan expires at the end of 2025. Starting next year we’ll begin a process to set the next direction for the city’s environmental policy. We’ve done some good work so far in this field but it will be important to ensure the next iteration of the CCMP prioritizes the work only the municipality can do, such as green building retrofits of existing city infrastructure, and avoids pushing new costs onto residents in the middle of an affordability crisis.

  • New Zoning Bylaw

    • Speaking of an affordability crisis, next year will also bring an opportunity to tackle the supply side of our sky -high housing market. Since before this term of office, staff have been working on an update to the City’s Zoning Bylaw. We saw the first draft this year but will continue the process of shaping the final bylaw throughout 2025. The goal of the new bylaw is to simplify the zoning process to make it easier to build in areas identified by the city for expansion or intensification. I’m hopeful by what I’ve seen so far, but the current draft still needs some improvements to ensure we don’t restrict the ability to build tall around downtown transit stations (a big ask of everyone from the*federal gov’t* to the leader of the opposition)

  • New Ways to Bus

    • We ended 2023 with a lot of work on OC Transpo’s route review, which has been dubbed “New Ways to Bus.” Thank you to everyone who provided feedback to the earlier drafts of this plan and gave me the information I needed to make the case for improvements to staff. Since many of the new routes are reliant on Line 2 and 4 of the LRT, New Ways to Bus was put on hold until the LRT expansion went online. We can now expect to see the new routes in action in April 2025. Like any new project, there will be growing pains. My office will be monitoring the rollout very closely and flagging to staff any tweaks that need to be needed to the new routes. So please keep us in the loop on your experience with transit in the spring!

That’s just cracking the surface on what promises to be a busy agenda for 2025. I’ll need your help to ensure Barrhaven’s priorities are being met by City Hall, so keep an eye on this space to stay informed. I can’t wait to tackle the big issues with you next year!

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