Ottawa·NewCancelling a refund to developers was among the final tweaks council made to a sweeping city housing plan the mayor has billed as an effort to make Ottawa the “most housing-friendly city in Canada.”Plan streamlines city approval process, gives developers a break on feesBen Andrews · CBC News · Posted: Oct 08, 2025 6:10 PM EDT | Last Updated: 20 minutes agoOttawa city council gave the final stamp of approval Wednesday to a major housing plan that aims to speed up new housing builds. (Patrick Morrell/CBC News)Cancelling a refund to developers was among the final tweaks councillors made to a major city housing plan billed by the mayor as an effort to make Ottawa the “most housing-friendly city in Canada.”Council gave its final stamp of approval Wednesday to Ottawa’s housing acceleration plan, which lays out 53 recommendations for how the city can help get homes built faster and for less.”When you look at the sum total of this housing plan, I think it’s an excellent and giant step forward,” Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said after the meeting.The plan is based on the work of a task force composed mostly of representatives from the real estate development and construction sectors. It aims to speed up new housing projects by streamlining the city’s approval process, and reducing or delaying some fees paid by developers.Councillors expressed nearly unanimous support for the suite of reforms, passing all but one of the recommendations unchanged.They did raise concerns that financial breaks for developers, designed to spur new builds, could come at the expense of neighbourhood livability.”I see a lot in this plan that there is to like,” said Coun. Shawn Menard. “I do worry about further going down this path. Over time, we are seeing governments subsidize for-profit developers, to give more public money.”Councillors drop fee refundAt a joint planning and finance committee meeting last week, councillors zeroed in on one recommendation that would have nixed the city’s community benefits charge for five years.The charge is a fee paid by developers that helps support public amenities ranging from park improvements to traffic calming measures.Rather than drop the fee altogether, councillors voted to reduce it from four per cent of the land’s value to two per cent, and even lower in high-transit areas.Coun. Ariel Troster called the housing acceleration plan an ‘unprecedented subsidy program’ for private developers. (Francis Ferland/CBC)On Wednesday, Coun. Ariel Troster moved to reverse a proposed refund of the benefits charges that had already been collected by the city for projects that are underway.”It didn’t make any sense as far as I was concerned to return the money [to developers],” Troster said. “That money has been allocated to projects that are set to go forward in many different wards in the city.”The city says it has collected about $1.6 million in community benefits charges from 10 developments.The money hasn’t been spent but is earmarked for four different projects related to a mix of parks and traffic, according to Marcia Wallace, the city’s general manager of planning.Troster said projects such as those are important, calling the housing plan “a pretty unprecedented subsidy program” for private developers.Approval process ‘ossified’But even councillors who expressed reservations were willing to stomach the risks in an effort to shake up a sluggish system.Coun. Jeff Leiper, who chairs the city’s planning committee, said the city’s housing approval process has become “ossified” over the last decade, mired in “red tape” and “micro-management.”Sutcliffe read out loud from a full paper of positive feedback he had received on the plan.”Not very often that we see that kind of support from across the spectrum — from people who are working on homelessness in our community, to people who are working on affordable housing, to people who are building market homes,” he said.ABOUT THE AUTHORBen Andrews is a reporter with CBC News in Ottawa. He can be reached at benjamin.andrews@cbc.ca or @bendandrews.
Councillors cancel fee refund in final tweaks to major housing plan
