Ottawa City Council’s Planning and Housing Committee and Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee met on December 17 in a joint meeting to discuss the final draft of Ottawa’s new Zoning By-law. We learned that staff had proposed undoing some of the gains made on bike parking, which is of course critical to transitioning our city from car dependency to sustainability. Please read our delegation!
"I wanted to make sure I was mimicking the Ecodistrict Ottawa is a part of, which is the St. Lawrence Lowlands. Another thing we wanted to consider was the type of plants. We wanted plants that 1) were drought resistant, 2) staggered blooms (spring, summer and fall) and 3) co-planted well together..."
The City describes its draft 2026 Budget as pursuing affordability—usually with reference to keeping property taxes low. But does this approach really yield affordability? Ecology Ottawa, with its partners in the Peoples Official Plan coalition, submitted a letter to Mayor Sutcliffe and the rest of City Council challenging this approach.
Ecology Ottawa was at Environment and Climate Change Committee to speak to the City’s 2026 budget. While the City is investing in a variety of measures to reduce GHG emissions and strengthen climate resiliency, these measures don’t go far enough. We propose that the City better engage the community, as they committed earlier this fall.
The Waste Audit is part of Ottawa’s Solid Waste Master Plan, which was approved by City Council in June 2024, as a guide for Ottawa’s waste management over the next 30 years. The information collected from the Waste Audit is meant to identify areas for improvement and trends within waste diversion and management efforts.
With an over $900M operating budget, our transit system continues to be both expensive and yet unreliable. It’s hard to square the budget’s stated theme of affordability with yet another fare increase, and the so-called “historic investments” with the fact that most money in the budget is for the LRT lines and debt service payments. Trains are expensive, but they do not in themselves constitute a good transit network.
City staff presented the draft 2026 OC Transpo budget to the Transit Committee on Monday November 25th. We delegated in order to highlight several major issues with the budget, which was ultimately passed by the committee by 8-1. Several promising provisions were deferred to City Council’s December 10th meeting.
Ecology Ottawa recently joined other Ottawa organizations to express our opposition to the provincial government's Bill 60, and omnibus bill that—among other things—would prohibit installing bike lanes in Ontario municipalities if this involved removing car lanes. This sort of reconfiguration is essential for us to meet our goals of shifting from car-oriented travel patterns to sustainable, person-oriented travel. Please read our remarks.
A few years ago, the director of the OHRI Cancer Centre, Dr. Rebecca Auer (now the CEO of OHRI), tasked us with making our research greener. As a scientific research group, with the ultimate goal of improving patients’ lives, we believe we have a unique role to play in reducing waste and energy consumption.
City staff presented the final draft of its Climate Resiliency Strategy, Climate Ready Ottawa, at the October 21 meeting of Council's Environment and Climate Change Committee meeting. Ecology Ottawa delegated on the strategy, commending the plan for its comprehensive scope and the public engagement leading to it, as well as offering some recommendations for its improvement.
You've heard of the City of Ottawa's Climate Change Master Plan, and you know it's approaching the end of its horizon; but how are we doing on its eight priorities, and what else did the latest Progress Update reveal? Our Council Watcher Karolina Galuszka's got you covered.