The Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee today approved amendments to the City’s Site Alteration By-law. The by-law regulates activities such as removing topsoil from land, excavating, altering a property’s grade and clearing vegetation. The amendments would help further reduce the risk of negative impacts when property owners undertake such work.
In most cases, residents do not need the City’s approval before beginning site alteration, but they must follow the rules in the by-law. The amendments approved today include:
- Simplifying language around automatic agricultural exemptions and clarifying regulations to ensure normal farm practices are not restricted
- Adjusting the schedule indicating the by-law’s environmental protections to include lands approximately one kilometre from the urban boundary and urban expansion areas included in the Official Plan
- Revising drainage provisions to focus on surface drainage and deviations from approved drainage patterns
- Removing notification requirements for projects not associated with a Planning Act application
- Making administrative changes to reflect new Official Plan terminology, the new Tree Protection By-law, and organizational changes made at the City since the by-law was approved in 2018
The Committee also received the 2023 annual report on Ottawa’s Rural Clean Water Program showing that rural property owners completed 56 projects to protect Ottawa’s waterways, wetlands and groundwater last year. The program helps farmers and other rural landowners with cost-sharing grants to undertake projects that improve surface water and groundwater quality.
The City provided more than $134,800 in grants last year for water protection projects. In addition to the grant funding, landowners contributed more than $155,600 to these works, investing a total of more than $290,500 in rural land stewardship. Another 16 projects, worth more than $100,500 in grants, are on track to be completed in 2024.
Approved projects included 24 related to forest management plans, 12 related to erosion control and 10 related to watercourse buffers and windbreaks, making those the most popular project types. A new project type for wetland restoration was introduced in 2022, and two such projects were approved and initiated: one near a tributary of Stevens Creek and one in the Carp River watershed.
Learn more about the Ottawa Rural Clean Water Program and how to apply for a grant at ottawa.ca.
The committee approved a zoning amendment to facilitate the development of seven detached dwellings northwest of Smith and Milton roads, in the Village of Navan. The amendment would rezone the lands from Development Reserve to Village Residential First Density, with additional relief for setbacks, lot width and maximum lot coverage to accommodate site constraints.
If Council approves, the land-use permissions that the Committee recommended today will help put applicants in a position to build seven new dwellings in Ottawa. To help address the housing challenge, Council committed to providing home builders enough opportunities to build 151,000 quality market homes citywide by 2031. Visit ottawa.ca/residentialdwellings for a graphic showing quarterly progress towards Ottawa’s housing pledge targets.
Recommendations from today’s meeting will rise to Council on Wednesday, October 16.
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