Council split on fourplexes as feds press cities to relax zoning

Ottawa is preparing to loosen rules to allow taller and denser housing as it drafts a new zoning bylaw, but some are asking whether the city should go even further to ensure it doesn't lose out on its share of $4 billion in federal funding.

Ottawa is preparing to loosen rules to allow taller and denser housing as it drafts a new zoning bylaw, but some are asking whether the city should go even further to ensure it doesn't lose out on its share of $4 billion in federal funding.

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe met with federal Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Sean Fraser late last month to discuss, at least in part, the city's application for money under the Housing Accelerator Fund.

Fraser has been playing hardball on housing across the country. He sent letters to cities like Halifax and Mississauga, Ont., asking them to raise height limits to four storeys in central areas or near transit stations and allow four units on every lot in exchange for the money.

Sutcliffe said Ottawa is already working on new zoning rules that should satisfy Fraser. He said both want the same thing: more housing.

"We are working on a plan that I think will go well beyond what the federal government expects from us in terms of the density that we will achieve across the city," he said.

"They'll see that we are moving in the direction they want us to and that it's consistent with their plans, and then we can move forward with the funding application."

Asked whether Fraser signalled Ottawa's plan would be enough, Sutcliffe said "we're still talking about that."

The city is expecting more than $150 million from the federal fund to pay for a plan to add nearly 7,000 housing units. But it's still waiting for an answer to its application, and some councillors aren't comfortable taking any risks with that money.

Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster noted that Fraser has pushed other cities to allow up to four units per lot, not the three units council recently approved to comply with the province's More Homes Built Faster Act. She asked city staff why Ottawa isn't simply moving forward with four units as it drafts a new zoning bylaw.

"I'll just register my concern, because this is a request that's being made very strongly," she said at a planning and housing committee meeting last week.

"I would hope that, should the government make that request, that we would move quickly, understanding that a lot of money's on the line for the city that's really important to us."

The minister's office said it's illegal in many cities to build the sort of housing needed to end the housing crisis, with Fraser's team hoping cities all over the country will "increase their ambition."

"In London, Halifax, Hamilton and Vaughan, we have had agreements struck where those cities were willing to move to legalize four units as-of-right," an emailed statement reads, "and left no stone unturned to clear up by-laws that they had on the books which were blocking building.

"If cities are able to effectively justify why they would not be able to implement measures we have put forward, Minister Fraser is open to considering locally made solutions that will go above and beyond the requests made by the Minister and achieve the desired objectives."