There has been an unprecedented level of public engagement on the draft New Official Plan, with over 100,000 resident engagements so far.

Comments on the draft New Official Plan were seeking clarification and suggesting different ideas. The highest concentration of comments focused on a few specific areas.

The next step in our consultation will be to provide residents an interim As We Heard It report highlighting these areas of concentrated public interest and outlining how such input has led to changes in the proposed policies.

The interim As We Heard It report will be posted to this webpage later this spring.

In the coming months, staff will continue to receive and incorporate public input. Public consultation on the draft New Official Plan continues and will include:

• Spring - Public presentation and online engagements on the interim As We Heart It report providing the opportunity to submit questions and additional feedback.
• Summer – Online engagement on updated draft New Official Plan policies.
• Late Summer – Public Open House on the full updated draft New Official Plan.
• Fall - Statutory Public Meeting at the joint Planning and Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee. Residents can register to present to Committee on these dates.

The New OP team is currently working on making changes to the proposed policies based on a large amount of feedback.

How the proposed policies are changing will be shared with residents via an As We Heard It report later this spring.

A revised New OP will be released this summer followed by an Open House. The final report will be presented to Committee and Council this fall.

Please read this FAQ to see if it answers your questions. If you have a question that has not been answered below you can email it to newop@ottawa.ca.

We continue to answer questions submitted and we will add those responses to this page as they are developed.

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 March 12, 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.

613 Flats Feedback Form	Housing Feedback Form	Rural Economic Development Feedback Form
Climate Change Feedback Form	High-Performance Development Standards Feedback Form	Rural Transect Feedback Form
Culture and Heritage Feedback Form	Mobility Feedback Form	Sidewalks and Driveways Feedback Form
Employment Feedback Form	Natural Systems Feedback Form	Special Districts Feedback Form
Equity and Inclusion Feedback Form	Pandemic Feedback Form	Urban Canopy Feedback Form
Food Feedback Form	Parks Feedback Form	Urban Design Feedback Form
Healthy and Inclusive Communities Feedback Form	Regeneration Feedback Form	Water Resources Feedback Form

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

Alta Vista / Faircrest / Riverview Park Secondary Plan	Kanata Town Centre Secondary Plan	Southkeys Secondary Plan
Bank Street South Secondary Plan	Mer Bleue Urban Expansion Area Secondary Plan	Stittsville Main Street Secondary Plan
Barrhaven Downtown Secondary Plan	Montreal Road District Secondary Plan	Wateridge Village/ Former CFB Rockcliffe Secondary Plan
Central & East Downtown Secondary Plan	Old Ottawa East Secondary Plan	Wellington Street West Secondary Plan
Cleary and New Orchard Secondary Plan	Richmond Road / Westboro Secondary Plan	West Downtown Core Secondary Plan
Elmvale Acres Secondary Plan	Rockcliffe Park Secondary Plan
Inner East Line 1 Secondary Plan	Scott Street Secondary Plan

Volume 2B: Rural Secondary Plans

Village of Carp Secondary Plan	Village of Manotick Secondary Plan	Village of Richmond Secondary Plan
Village of Constance Bay Secondary Plan	Village of North Gower Secondary Plan	Consolidated Villages Secondary Plan
Village of Greely Secondary Plan

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

Carp River Restoration Policy Area AREA-SPECIFIC POLICY AREA 2 – VOLUME 2C Annex 2.A	Barrhaven – Highway 416: Non-Traditional Industrial Mixed and Traditional Industrial Freight and Storage Land AREA-SPECIFIC POLICY AREA 5 – VOLUME 2C Annex 5.A – Maximum Building Heights	Westgate SITE-SPECIFIC POLICY AREA 32 - Volume 2C Annex 32.A - Designation Plan
Kanata West AREA-SPECIFIC POLICY AREA 2 – VOLUME 2C Annex 2.B – Maximum Building Heights	Carp Road Corridor AREA-SPECIFIC POLICY PLAN AREA 8 - VOLUME 2C Annex 8.A- Designation Plan

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 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.

Read the full report to Planning Committee and Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee 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.