OttawaA pair of city committees has refused developers’ applications to expand Ottawa’s urban areas north of Kanata and north of Barrhaven to allow for about 5,500 new homes, and councillors are willing to stand by those decisions at the Ontario Land Tribunal. Staff say infrastructure would cost city millions but Coun. Kavanagh sees irony after Tewin proposal approvedKate Porter · CBC News · Posted: Nov 12, 2025 4:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Five developers applied to the City of Ottawa to expand Kanata’s urban areas north along March Road. (Mathieu Deroy/CBC)A pair of city committees has refused applicatinos by developers to expand Ottawa’s urban areas north of Kanata and north of Barrhaven to allow for about 5,500 new homes, and councillors are willing to stand by those decisions at the Ontario Land Tribunal. Planning staff who reviewed the applications advised councillors against admitting two rural areas inside the urban boundary, saying they don’t meet the city’s criteria. They say the City of Ottawa has more than enough land already set aside to meet provincial requirements, and say upgrades to water infrastructure could total tens of millions and “are not cost-effective”. Full city council will need to endorse that approach at its meeting Wednesday.Developers applied for the expansions under a new system the City of Ottawa devised in fall 2024 after the Ontario government mandated that municipalities must accept applications for urban boundary changes at any time, and not only during periodic comprehensive reviews.Developers seek to expand Ottawa suburbs after Ontario rules rewrittenBig changes are coming to how Ottawa manages urban growthBut city staff say they have begun the process of updating the city’s population projections and deciding if lands will be needed for future development, meaning it would be premature to allow these expansions before that work is done in 2027.Staff told the city’s planning and housing committee that their opinion on these applications was unlikely to change before then, so they would continue opposing urban expansions in their reports.South March and CedarviewOn Nov. 5, the city’s planning and housing committee agreed with staff and refused a proposal by Mattamy Homes to build an urban neighbourhood of 1,493 homes on 72 hectares east of Highway 416 off O’Keefe Court, which is currently zoned for estate lot homes. Then on Nov. 6, the rural and agricultural affairs committee unanimously refused a plan by developers Claridge, Regional Group, Mattamy, Uniform and Minto for 4,000 homes on 233.5 hectares north of Kanata.In an unusual situation, the rural committee’s refusal contradicted the planning committee’s decision, which had decided to defer the file until the new year.Both files have already seen the landowners challenge the City of Ottawa at the Ontario Land Tribunal over hefty application fees or whether their application was complete. They were brought before the committees this month because of yet more appeals related to the city not making decisions within the required timeframe, and the O’Keefe Court file has hearing dates scheduled in June 2026, said city lawyer Tim Marc.The parcels north of Kanata, known as the South March lands, received high scores from staff in Ottawa’s 2021 urban boundary process because they were close to existing infrastructure and transit, but councillors voted to leave them out to pursue the entirely new suburb of Tewin in the rural southeast.Now, city staff say the South March lands would need $23.8 million for drinking water infrastructure and another $2.84 million for an emergency overflow to prevent basement flooding, but those costs aren’t laid out in its master plans, nor have the developers committed to fund them.The area’s councillor, Clarke Kelly, told the planning and housing committee “there’s no reason for further incursions into rural Ottawa with suburban sprawl” when the city can accommodate population within the existing urban boundary. A resident told committee the area is already dealing with traffic jams on March Road.Developers have applied to be able to develop 223.5 hectares of rural lands along March Road and Second Line Road north of Kanata. (CBC)As for the Mattamy lands hugging Highway 416, staff said that development would “leapfrog” an existing country subdivision and would be two kilometres from the nearest trunk watermain. They estimate $31.5 million in drinking water infrastructure would be needed.Mattamy’s consultant from Fotenn, Miguel Tremblay, countered that there were options to avoid a costly watermain upgrade and said the lands could be developed sooner than other parcels in the city’s inventory.25-year supplyStaff say the city currently has land for 25 years’ worth of housing, when Ontario policies require a minimum of 15 years. The city published its most recent survey of available lands on Oct. 1, which said it needs 1,267 hectares but had 1,582 hectares, or 18.7 years worth. Add another 339 hectares that became eligible since July 1, 2024, and staff say current supply stands at 1,920 hectares.Coun. Theresa Kavanagh backed staff’s refusal of the Mattamy application at planning and housing committee because she said she trusted the staff’s analysis, and the city needs to consider infrastructure costs when it chooses expansion lands.Councillors vote against bid to sink Tewin development“I have to admit there is a certain irony here when Tewin was pretty much the same and yet we accepted that.” In October, Kavanagh led a failed bid to remove the 445-hectare planned development of Tewin from the urban boundary. The drinking water and wastewater trunk services for Tewin and its estimated 15,000 homes are projected to cost $314 million, while the city’s overall price for serving the rural southeast trunk sewers and watermains could exceed $591 million overall. During that debate last month, councillors suggested it was political of Kavanagh to revisit a previous council’s decision. They said they were concerned about reversing Tewin because of the risk of a challenge at the land tribunal and referred to the need to find other lands to meet their housing supply requirements.ABOUT THE AUTHORKate Porter does explanatory and analysis pieces about local issues for CBC Ottawa. She covered Ottawa City Hall daily for eight years, doing deep dives into development decisions, covering the LRT public inquiry and analyzing multiple elections and budgets. In her more than 20 years at CBC, she has also read the radio news and covered the arts beat.Follow Kate on Twitter
Ottawa council set to refuse urban expansion proposals for 5,500 homes
