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© Clive Doucet 2008
November 2004
The birds of fall are fat.
A robin nestles flat on the garage roof.
Sunning and sleepy,
He's too portly to stand comfortably.
His chest the same spreading orange
as the leaves.
Head nods. Feathers fluff.
It will be a long, slow flight south.
-from Canal Seasons, Penumbra Press
Glebe
Traffic Plan
2005 Budget Consultation
New Pedestrian Light on Main
Street at Bower and Beckwith
Ward Boundary Review 2005
Glebe Traffic Plan at Transportation Committee - October 20th
The bad news is Transportation Committee voted to send the Bronson 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. right-turn prohibition proposal out for wider consultation, after which it will come back to Transportation Committee for reconsideration. I remain confident that the majority of Council will recognize it as a reasonable compromise for restoring community safety and quality of life on the Broadway/Torrington/Findlay loop, local roads that are serving an arterial function i.e. some 600 cars per hour in the morning peak period.
The good news is that the bulk of the staff report (38 measures from the Glebe Traffic Plan) was approved by Committee and the plan will improve quality of life and safety in the neighborhood for a generation, just as the 1972 Glebe Traffic Plan did. Guy Giguere, June Creelman and I will write more extensively about it in next month's edition once the plan is approved by Council.
Hats off to the GCA and particularly the GCA Traffic Committee for their
collective years of hard work - Guy Giguere, Brian Carroll, Bhatboy,
Sheila Purdy, Brad Christakos, Brian Mitchell, Wayne Burgess, Pat Steenberg,
and of course Eileen Scotton and all the other community members that
gave their time to the traffic committee over the past six years. They
deserve a huge vote of thanks. The 2002 Glebe Traffic Plan remains an
example of how a consensual problem solving and decision making approach
can deliver lasting results. 
2005 Budget Consultation - Priorities Stage
What came across as #1 on peoples’ list was that before we even begin to talk about ‘guiding principles’ and ‘ward priorities’, something has to be done about the property tax assessment system which drives up taxes in the neighbourhoods of Capital Ward by 10%, 20%, and even as high as 40%. Thus any discussion of ward and city priorities is difficult to undertake because residents feel the taxation system upon which almost half the city’s financing is based is not fair.
Nonetheless, three general principles have received strong support from residents of Capital Ward:
1) Growth should pay for itself. This means development charges must reflect the actual costs of adding tract housing. (Development charges cover only 46% of the costs of servicing new growth projects with municipal services like arterial roads, transit, police, ambulance, libraries, and community centers. The rest is paid for by the city-wide tax base - 21%, while federal and provincial grants cover the remaining 33%);
2) New capital expenditures must contribute to reducing, not increasing, the city's operating costs over the long term;
3) Projects and programs that respond to more than one Official Plan principle should be given priority. Thus if a city expenditure meets five out of seven OP principles, it should get priority over an expenditure which meets one.
In advance of the release of the Draft Budget on December 15th, I have prepared a series of Q&As which address some recurring questions around the issue of how much it costs to run the city:
Comment: "I pay too much to the city."
Answer:
-
On average, property taxes represent roughly 4% of a household's income in Ontario, Ottawa's average is at 3.9%
-
Provincial income tax represents roughly 7% of a household's income in Ontario
-
Federal income tax represents roughly 14% of a household's income in Ontario
Comment: "Ottawa spends too much money on city employees. They should cut back."
Answer:
-
Adjusted for inflation and population growth, since 2000:
-
city spending has decreased by 6.4%
-
staffing levels have decreased by 8%
-
administrative costs have been brought down to 6% of the overall budget, compared to an average of 11% province-wide
Comment: "Ottawa is not careful enough with our money."
Answer:
-
Two outside bond rating agencies (Dominion and Moody's) in 2004 rated Ottawa 'Triple A' in recognition of the city's demonstrated fiscal prudence:
-
a long-range financial planning philosophy which has resulted in a low debt ratio and an aggressive 'pay as you go' approach to building capital reserves
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achieving $80 million in permanent annual operational savings from amalgamation
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slashing the capital budget by half in 2004
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2004's comprehensive operating costs-cutting exercise Universal Program Review which resulted in $28.5 million in implemented internal efficiencies
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staff proposing to find another $4.5 million in internal efficiencies for the 2005 Budget
Comment: "I'm tired of tax hikes."
Answer:
Since 2000, this is how Ottawa compares to other major Canadian cities
for tax increases:
-
Ottawa 2.9%
-
Hamilton 14.9%
-
Toronto 15.3%
-
Calgary 16.7%
-
Edmonton 17.2%
-
Vancouver 19.8%
Question: "Why can't you just baseline our taxes and baseline our services and just run the city without threatening service cuts or tax hikes? Just pay for core services - stop pay for frills and concentrate on police, fire and sewers."
Answer:
We cut $8 million out of our bus system last year, 46 bus lines. So
logically, our transit system should cost less this year. It doesn't
because diesel fuel alone will cost the city $7 million dollars more
in 2005 than it did in 2004. So the costs are the same and we have 46
fewer bus lines. The equation is simple - declining investments equal
declining services.
The Municipal Price Index (MPI) - all the goods and services that the city buys to maintain services and provide new services - is rising faster than the Consumer Price Index for individuals, between 6 and 16%, as opposed to 2.5%. The city cannot control the costs of asphalt, diesel fuel, PVS piping, police and fire collective agreements, etc.; we are obliged to pay what the market demands.
This means our base costs are rising while our revenues adjusted to growth and inflation and downloading are declining. (Starting under the Bob Rae government and ramping up under the Harris/Eves governments, the province has downloaded services like social housing, social assistance, ambulance, child care, public health, and public transit funding, which taken together represent roughly $130 million per year in new and permanent operating costs for the city).
If we freeze purchasing of these services, the city cannot create new services to growth areas and we can't maintain services in old areas. In other words, baselining is not possible. Baselining would mean less services every year - that's less police, less fire, less sewer, less asphalt, less buses, less paramedics, etc.
Comments? Please
use my budget blog.
New Pedestrian Light on Main Street at Bower and Beckwith
By the time this edition of Mainstreeter hits the streets, the new pedestrian light at Bower and Beckwith should be installed. There was a delay in the installation due to the Hydro strike, but with the labour issue settled the way is cleared for the light to go in. This pedestrian-activated light will make a huge difference for residents on both sides of Main Street wanting to get back and forth in safety from one side of the neighborhood to the other.
It was one of the many recommendations in the 2000 Main Street Transportation and Streetscaping Plan. The next recommendations to be implemented are a pedestrian-friendly reconstruction of Lees Avenue with wider sidewalks and corner bulbouts, and then a rebuild of the Main and Riverdale intersection to shrink the asphalt and improve the pedestrian environment.
Depending on the outcome of this year's budget deliberations, we may get the green light for the Lees Avenue reconstruction this coming summer. I invite any Ottawa East residents that are interested to get in touch with my office as I will be ramping up a community working group to help staff with the design stage.
We had great success this past summer with a neighborhood working group
on the Patterson/Strathcona reconstruction in the Glebe - their input
helped deliver substantial quality of life streetscaping improvements
to the project in the form corner bulbouts, intersection narrowings,
and alternating side on-street parking. These are low-cost but effective
ways to improve the pedestrian environment by reducing crossing distances
and slowing cars down without having to build speed humps.
In the Community
My assistant Sarah Lindsay will be available at the Old Town Hall every Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. to hear from any Ottawa East residents that have concerns they wish to convey in person. She will also be helping out the Ottawa East Community Association and the Community Activities Group.
Apart from phoning, emailing, or coming down to see me at City Hall,
residents can talk to me on one-on-one basis in the community at my monthly
Coffee with Clive chat sessions. They take place the first Friday of
every month, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., at the Wild Oat in the Glebe, Bank
and Fourth.
The City has hired a consultant to conduct a Ward Boundary Review which will advise Council on the most equitable way to deal with a growing population disparity between wards.
The problem is that outer suburban areas like Kanata, Barrhaven, and Riverside South are already populous and growing rapidly. Meanwhile, the inner urban wards have essentially stable populations (i.e. infill is balanced off by families having fewer kids on average), while the four rural wards created by the Transition Board during amalgamation to ensure rural representation in the context of the new city have much lower average ward populations. The range is from a high of 68,450 residents in the suburban ward of Kanata, to a low of 13,725 residents in the rural ward of Rideau, with a middle ground of 45,550 in the inner-city ward of Rideau-Vanier.
For Capital Ward, currently comprising the geographically contiguous neighborhoods of Heron Park, Old Ottawa South, Ottawa East, The Glebe, Dow's Lake, Carleton University, and a strip of Riverside Drive between Smyth and Industrial, the question will be should the ward be expanded to balance off the current population disparity between Capital Ward at 35,500 and, for example, Alta Vista Ward at 46,025.
One suggestion that I have is that the Riverside Drive section of Capital Ward be expanded to acknowledge the historical and geographical community of interest of Billings Village that once encompassed both sides of Bank Street on the south shores of the Rideau River. The new southern boundary of the ward could Alta Vista Drive from Industrial to Bank.
This would add some population to Capital Ward which is currently sitting on the lower end of the urban ward spectrum, as well as create better linkages between the Riverside Drive apartment buildings and the wider communities of Riverview Park and Heron Park.
That's one of my ideas. I'm sure you have yours as well, so be sure to make your voice heard in this process. The Davidson Group is holding a series of Open Houses in late November and early December to hear from the public on this issue - for more information go to the city website. You can also reach them by email (ward@ottawa.ca) or by phone (580-2660). The deadline for comments is Monday, December 6th.