Thank you for your interest in the draft New Official Plan. The draft New Official Plan is a complex document. In order to facilitate your feedback, we have created a series of one-pagers on the key topics we heard in our engagements so far.

There are twenty-one of these documents providing a brief overview of the New Official Plan proposed policies. You can select the topics of interest to you or go through them all.

A link is also provided below each one-pager, taking you to a tailored feedback form. This allows you to give feedback directly on this area of interest.

If you have any questions or would like to provide general comments, you can always do so through newop@ottawa.ca.

We understand there are many one-pagers and feedback forms. You will have until February 17, 2021 to complete these. Please feel free to take time to go through these at your own pace.

For a high level introduction to what is new in the draft New Official Plan, please start with our Introduction one-pager.

Looking to review the full draft Official Plan? Please find the sections below:

Volume 1: Draft Official Plan

• Draft Official Plan
• Schedules
  • A Series
  • B Series
  • C Series
• Annexes

Volume 2A: Urban Secondary Plans

Volume 2B: Rural Secondary Plans

Here are a couple short summaries mapping out how Secondary Plans have changed in the New Official:

Urban Secondary Plans

Rural Secondary Plans

Volume 2C: Area Specific Policies

• Area Specific Policies

Interested in more information about the 613 Flats – please review some different ideas of how they could be built. Each of the below is a different form or typology for the 613 Flats concept.

If you have feedback on these, please use the 613 Flats Feedback Form.

Typology 1

Typology 2

Typology 3

Typology 4

Typology 5

Typology 6

The City started to develop the new Official Plan around the 5 Big Moves of: growth, mobility, urban design, resilience and economic development in 2019. Community engagement occurred across the city to discuss these key concepts. You may have seen our team at one of over 70 events across the City. This feedback was incorporated into the Preliminary Policy Directions presented to Council in December 2019.

Through the discussions so far, the City has had over 50,000 engagements with residents and will continue our equity and inclusion informed outreach into 2021.

This discussion is helping the city develop new ideas for the plan. One of the key cornerstones of the New Official Plan is the Transect approach, which means the City will plan by context.

We are changing from a previous approach to plan by land-use in order to recognize the specific needs of neighbourhoods in different parts of the City. The Transect approach will focus on “form and function” by planning for the appropriate shape of new buildings, their relationship with public space, and how they function to be informed based on which Transect you live in.

Planning by Transect will allow the City of Ottawa to recognize the different contexts of the City’s varied geography and provide guidance as to how each area is to evolve.

We are proposing 6 different Transect areas across the city: Downtown, Inner Urban, Outer Urban, Suburban, Greenbelt and Rural. We are organizing 5 public presentations. These presentations will help residents learn what this new planning approach will propose for their neighbourhood.

Inner Urban: Tuesday, November 3

Rural: Wednesday, November 4

Outer Urban: Tuesday, November 10

Downtown: Thursday, November 12

Suburban: Monday, November 16

Not sure which presentation to sign up for? Email newop@ottawa.ca for assistance.

Thank you to the residents who were able to attend the Transect Presentations. If you were not able to join us, or would like to review the presentation material again, please find the completed PowerPoint presentations below:

Inner Urban Transect

Rural Transect

Outer Urban Transect

Downtown Transect

Suburban Transect

The new Official Plan is a document that describes how the city will grow and has a goal to be the most liveable mid-sized city in North America. To achieve this goal, Five Big Moves were adopted to frame new Official Plan, including the concept of 15-minute neighbourhoods. 

What do we mean when we say a 15-minute neighbourhood? It is a neighbourhood where you can access most of your day-to-day needs within a 15-minute walk from your home, including when using a wheelchair or other mobility aids, on sidewalks or pathways.  

A 15-minute neighbourhood is a neighbourhood where you can walk to get to the grocery store, where you can easily walk to frequent transit, and where children can safely walk to school.    

Walkable, 15-minute neighbourhoods reduce our dependency on cars, promote equity, social connections and a greater sense of community, foster physical and mental health, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  

Learn more about the connection between health and our built environment here.

We'd love to hear what makes a successful 15 minute neighbourhood for rural residents! Please take a few minutes to complete this survey, it will close on October 22nd, 2020.

Based on selection criteria outlined in the Growth Management Strategy that Council adopted in May 2020, staff have identified and ranked clusters of land recommended for inclusion within Ottawa’s urban boundary. The report recommends lands to accommodate new neighbourhoods as well as industrial lands to accommodate employment projections.

Read the full report here.

Interested in the materials that went into the selection criteria decision in May 2020. You can review those materials below:

New Official Plan Growth Management Strategy Report

Residential Growth Management Strategy for the New Official Plan

Selected Growth Management Policies, Provincial Policy Statement 2020

Vacant Urban Residential Land Survey

Village Residential Land Survey

Analysis of Residential Net to Gross Ratios in the City of Ottawa

Urban Expansion Detailed Evaluation Criteria

Stakeholder Comments and Response to Urban Expansion Criteria

The Preliminary Policy Directions are more detailed policy ideas for the New Official Plan, building on the 5 Big Moves. They recommend:

• a new framework of urban designations intended to better address neighbourhood context,
• a proposed approach to growth management with intensification focusing on low-rise building forms along corridors and nodes,
• improved support for active transportation and better alignment of land use and transportation policies, revisions to the employment area policies,
• integration of public health,
• climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation policies throughout the Plan,
• and revised policies for the rural area that will support rural and village character and rural economic development.

Read more details in the following reports:

• Staff Presentation New Official Plan Preliminary Policy Directions
• Staff Report New Official Plan Preliminary Policy Directions
• Document 1: Growth Projections for the New Official Plan
• Document 2: Preliminary Policy Directions
• Document 4: As We Heard It report

A New Official Plan

The City is rewriting its Official Plan- the strategic document that describes how the city will grow over time, where we will place major infrastructure, and what policies will be in place to support economic growth and guide the development and evolution of communities. The purpose of this review is to position Ottawa to be flexible, resilient, and, above all, a city where people want to live, work, and play.

Preliminary Policy Directions

The City is proposing to make a number of significant policy changes through the Official Plan to make Ottawa the most liveable mid sized city in North America. Known as the ‘Five Big Moves’, the following statements capture the most significant policy proposals for the new Official Plan:

1. Growth: Achieve, by the end of its planning period, more growth by intensification than by greenfield development. This growth will provide a variety of affordable housing options for residents.

2. Mobility: By 2046, the majority of trips in the City of Ottawa will be made by sustainable transportation.

3. Urban Design: Improve our sophistication in urban and community design, and put this knowledge to the service of good urbanism at all scales, from the largest to the very small.

4. Resiliency: Embed public health, environmental, climate and energy resiliency into the framework of our planning policies.

5. Economy: Embed economic development into the framework of our planning policies.

Read the full 5 Big Moves report here.

Welcome to the Official Plan Toolkit!

The toolkit has 4 sections: The New Official Plan, Plan, Connect, and Share. The various sections will provide information on the project, engagement and feedback tools, and how you can provide your feedback into the Official Plan. The image above illustrates how these sections work together.

Download the Toolkit.

Help us track the local workshops by emailing newop@ottawa.ca to let us about your outreach plan.

Note, as more information is developed for the new Official Plan, the Toolkit will be regularly updated with new Workshop Rubrics, etc.

Why a new Official Plan?

Ottawa has changed dramatically since it was incorporated in 1855, when it was a small lumber town of 16,000 people. This year, the City of Ottawa will reach one million people and the Ottawa-Gatineau Metropolitan region will reach 1.5 million people.

What is an Official Plan?

An Official Plan provides the policy framework to guide the city's physical development including:

Terms

Don't understand some of the words in the report or survey? Check out this glossary of terms. If you have a word that isn't listed in the glossary, let us know and we will get a definition and add it!

Can I see the Current Official Plan?

You can get a sense of what such a plan looks like by reviewing the current Official Plan.

What is the process for creating a New Official Plan?

The process to create the new Official Plan is guided by requirements in the Planning Act and Provincial Policy Statement, 2014.

The process will run in coordination with the reviews of the Infrastructure Master Plan, Transportation Master Plan, Greenspace Master Plan and the Development Charges By-law.

All aspects of the Official Plan will be reviewed and updated, including secondary plans for urban neighbourhoods and rural Villages.

The process will take place over the course of two years as follows:

March 2019 to August 2019

Discussion papers on key issues facing the city released on March 4, 2019

Ongoing public consultations on discussion papers

August 2019 to September 2019

In response to comments on the discussion papers and the findings of the Beyond 2036 planning study, a report will be presented at a joint meeting of Planning Committee and Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee on August 22, 2019 and Council on September 11, 2019. The report will contain:

1. High level preliminary policy directions;
2. Draft projections for total population, housing and jobs to 2046;
3. Draft growth strategies.

A link to the report in the Committee agendas and minutes will be available on August 12, 2019;

Public consultations on the high level policy directions will occur through September 2019.

September 2019 to December 2019

Detailed policy directions will be prepared for the new Official Plan and presented in a report at a public meeting held under Section 26 of the Planning Act in December 2019;

Council will give direction to table a draft Official Plan in June 2020, based on the policy directions in the December report;

The December report will include a description of:

• Detailed policy directions to be included in the Plan;
• Growth strategy for the city including growth projections and, if necessary, adoption of criteria for site evaluation for expansion areas, and;
• Direction on secondary plans, site- specific policies and community design plans.

January 2020 to October 2020

A draft Official Plan will be prepared during this time, based on policy directions approved by Council in December 2019.

October 2020 to July 2021

The draft Official Plan will be tabled in October 2020;

Following tabling of the draft Official Plan, a 90-day statutory circulation to the public, technical agencies and Ministry will occur;

July 2021

Council adopts new Official Plan.

Following adoption by Council, the Plan will be sent to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. The Ministry has up to six months to review and approve the Official Plan. Approval by the Ministry is expected by late-2021.