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© Clive Doucet 2009
November 2005
There once was this rainbow
which arced between the clouds.
There once was this fall of water
over rocks.
There once were these grassy
plains
which glittered like a vast emerald.
There once were the oceans
that created the colour blue.
There once was this two legged
mammal
who thought he owned the colours
of the rainbow, the plains, the
oceans.
Tax Assessments
Traffic Safety
Alta Vista Corridor
From front and center - to left behind – and back
to front and center
Pesticides
2006 City of Ottawa Budget
Tax Assessments
Most of you who have checked your recent tax assessment will have seen a double digit increase. My office has been receiving many calls from people with increases in the 20% to 30% range. While people whose assessed value is higher than what the home would sell for can appeal their assessment, this offers only temporary relief (until the next assessment) and does not address the fundamental inequities in the current market value assessment. It is a very frustrating system for residents who see their tax bills go up regardless of what the City of Ottawa does in its budget. It is also frustrating for municipal representatives who don’t control this system that the province imposes on us. When residents are seeing double digit increases, it doesn’t make the City Council debates over single digit changes seem all that relevant.
There’s a very insidious message in the current market value tax assessment. In general, the wards of the city that have seen the largest increases are older and more dense neighbourhoods and the wards that will see taxes go down are the outlying and less dense neighbourhoods. This means the areas which are the least costly to provide services to will receive significant tax increases while sprawl development will see tax decreases. In other words, the market value assessment is currently undermining sustainable growth and subsidizing urban sprawl.
These inequities in the tax assessment system aren’t new. The same refrain has been coming from municipalities to Queen’s Park every year around this time, ever since market value assessment was introduced. What has changed is that the message has been getting louder and is beginning to have an effect. Ottawa City Council passed my motion requesting the Ontario Ombudsman to review the system and put a freeze on the tax changes pending his review. The Ombudsman has announced a review will be done. We haven’t got the freeze and we haven’t gotten any commitment from Queen’s Park to fix the system either but this decision of the Ombudsman, Mr. Marin, to launch a special investigation province-wide over the next 4 to 6 months is a real breakthrough. It’s the first time anyone in Queen’s Park has paid attention to our plea. As Premier McGuinty recently said, ‘I wasn’t elected to reform the property tax system’. We think he was. We need you to send him and Richard Patten the same message.
The recent accident on Sunnyside at Seneca viscerally hammered home the need to give more priority to pedestrian safety. Left to their own devices some transportation planners still regard vehicular capacity as sacred. Enabling more cars to travel faster just doesn’t measure up for me compared to keeping people safe and having our residential streets be just that, residential first and foremost. "Area Traffic Measures" or traffic calming as many people call it is in demand almost everywhere in the ward. Traffic calming is not without controversy. For every measure brought in there are skeptics. The bottom line remains that area traffic measures have proven to be most cost effective way to reduce speeding and accidents.
The saga of traffic speed and volume control has been and will be a continuing battle for our ward – that’s why I worked so hard to get the light rail line running parallel to Bronson and why the Bronson Safety Audit has to bring new measures to control speeds on Bronson. We also need more specific control measures on Sunnyside including bollards at Seneca to protect pedestrians.
The battle to make sure the Alta Vista Expressway continues. We’ve had some victories – leasing out a parking lot across this corridor to the hospital was one. Receiving the environmental assessment was another and limiting it to a simple transit/road link from Riverside to hospital another. But losing the request to take out the Hincks connection through the dump was worrisome as this effectively will create the middle section of the expressway. Hopefully, we will be able find a way to limit it to a transit/road connection from Riverside only
From front and center - to left behind – and back to front and center
Old Ottawa East used to be front and center in the city. The rail yards, Morrison Lamothe Bakery, Main Street itself were all important community and business destinations in the old City of Ottawa. In 1960, the construction of the Queensway shattered the north end of Old Ottawa East. The rail yards were abandoned by CN and CP. Morrison Lamothe closed. We have been fighting to get Old Ottawa East back in the city map ever since – fighting the Alta Vista Expressway and to revitalize Main Street. Part of that is reclaiming our community identity and in this regard I would like to suggest we consider re-naming Old Ottawa East, Main Street Village. Main Street is the oldest and only street named Main in the new City of Ottawa. We want to see it become a focal point for the community again – not a place to divide west from east, north from south. Renaming Old Ottawa East to Main Street Village would help to do that by putting the focus on the street that connects all our neighbourhoods.
The medical community of Ottawa, CHEO, biologists, physicians at the University of Ottawa, the city’s Medical Officer of Health have all come out strongly against the use of pesticides for cosmetic yard care. The doctors are saying they are seeing a rise in emphysema, asthma, prostate and breast cancers, immune disorders – all of which are related to disturbances in human nervous and endocrine systems. While no-one can make a 1 to 1 connection they think our city would be a healthier, safer place without lawn pesticides. I agree with them. The Mayor agrees with them. The majority of Ottawa residents agree with them but we had 10 councillors who didn’t. They felt the evidence was not strong enough and wanted a bylaw which would continue to permit the use of pesticides for anyone with more than 25% weed cover on their lawns. This compromise was not a compromise. It would have been business as usual for the pesticide industries. The search continues for a workable compromise. I will only be supporting a solution that will be effective at protecting people. Over 70 municipalities in Canada have done it.
It might be overshadowed by the tax assessment but the City budget has a big effect on services or lack thereof residents experience. Find out what's going on and have your say. Here are the key dates and events:
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Wednesday November 9th the draft 2006 budget will be available to the public (on the City's website www.ottawa.ca and at City Hall).
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Thursday December 1st at 7:00 p.m. I will host the Capital Ward public consultation on the 2006 budget at the Glebe Community Centre.
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Starting on Monday December 5th full City Council will begin budget deliberations with public delegations at City Hall.
