Committees receive update on efforts to align Official Plan with provincial policy

The City’s Planning and Housing Committee and Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee received an update on a review for consistency between the City’s Official Plan and Provincial Planning Statement, 2024. In a joint meeting today, the Planning and Housing and the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committees received an update on a review for consistency between the City’s Official Plan and Provincial Planning Statement, 2024 (PPS 2024). PPS 2024 is a province-wide land-use planning policy framework that the Government of Ontario adopted in October to support the need for more housing. The City must revise its Official Plan to align with PPS 2024. The approved report provides a high-level outline of changes that may be needed to address the land-use planning policies the Province enacted, which generally fall into five categories:

• Settlement Area Expansions: To align with PPS 2024, Council approved a process in October to permit privately initiated applications for expanding urban and village area boundaries. Further amendments may be needed to establish how the City will maintain a supply of land sufficient to accommodate projected growth.
• Strategic Growth Areas: PPS 2024 outlines areas where growth and development should be focused. Ottawa’s Official Plan already includes policies that direct growth to lands that align with what PPS 2024 calls Strategic Growth Areas, but adjustments may be required. Staff will also look for inconsistencies within existing secondary plans, which also need to align with PPS 2024.
• Major Transit Station Areas (MTSAs): PPS 2024 requires the City to delineate the boundaries of MTSAs; that is, areas within a radius of 500 to 800 metres of existing or planned transit stations that typically see high ridership. While the Official Plan already identifies some station areas, currently designated as Protected Major Transit Station Areas (PMTSAs), the review may require the addition of new MTSAs, as well as boundary expansions for some existing PMTSAs.
• Employment Areas: PPS 2024 reduces previously permitted uses in what it terms Employment Areas. Ottawa's Official Plan already reflects many of the new policies, but further review will ensure new requirements are being met. The review will also consider recommendations to remove some of the lands currently designated as employment areas within the Official Plan.
• Agriculture: PPS 2024 requires municipalities to use an agricultural systems approach that would consider the potential impacts of land-use planning decisions on the entire agricultural system. The Official Plan may need to be revised to ensure consistency with this approach, including possibly adding policies to require agricultural impact assessments as part of a development application. PPS 2024 also altered policies about Additional Residential Units in prime agricultural areas and now permits up to three dwellings. The current Official Plan only permits two dwellings and will require an update.

The report does not propose specific amendments at this time, and the Committees directed planning staff to bring forward any necessary amendments to another joint meeting of the Committees in June. This timing would ensure amendments could then be incorporated in the final draft of the new Zoning By-law, which is scheduled to be released for public comment in September. The Planning and Housing Committee met earlier in the day and approved a zoning amendment to permit emergency shelters and transitional shelters on all lands inside the urban boundary, with some exceptions. Within the urban area, such shelters would be permitted automatically in all zones except Environmental Protection (EP), Mineral Extraction (ME), Heavy Industrial (IH), General Industrial (IG), Light Industrial (IL) and Business Park (IP) zones. Additionally, the property at 40 Hearst Way had been considered previously as a potential location for a newcomer reception centre and the revised zoning would require a further amendment to permit any future shelter at this site. The amendment aligns with the new Official Plan’s more permissive direction to allow shelters anywhere residential dwellings are allowed. It also aligns with Council direction provided in February 2025, and with language proposed in the draft new Zoning By-law. Items from today’s meetings will rise to Council on Wednesday, April 16.