An Open Letter to the City of Ottawa

I recently wrote a letter to the author of a City of Ottawa white paper that I deemed encouraged development of the city's greenbelt - a ring of green space that dinstinguishes the "old city" from the terribly planned former suburban municipalities of the now amalgamated metropolis. Needless to say, it was not received well, and despite a carefully worded apology I provided following the initial letter, I got no feedback on the content of either letters. What follows is only the first letter I wrote, since it was quite long, but let me reiterate the general message of the second letter:

I don't presume to make an authoritative claim as to the cause (though I have my suspicions), but the city of Ottawa has been, and is, poorly planned from the standpoint of sustainable development. The city has encouraged low-density suburban sprawl, a continuation of the capital-attraction strategies of the old suburban muncipalities. This has led to a whole host of problems, such as budgetary deficits on the account of snow removal, inability to maintain the downtown core landscape, and considerable shortcomings in the maintenance and reproduction of the city's rental housing stock, to name only a meagre few.

Anyway, let me get right to the meat:

I am thoroughly unimpressed with your one-sided white paper that - though it presents the semblance of some balance - favours development of the greenbelt. Many of the arguments you presented in favour of developing the greenbelt are either factually inaccurate, or have another side to them which are not considered in the arguments against developing the greenbelt.

1. Destroying the greenbelt in whole or part will actually have a negative impact on air quality, since the current greenspace acts as giant sink for exhaust fumes, convertering carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen. Hence, reducing a major absorption source of air pollution will undoubtedly result in its increase. This could easily transform Ottawa from a large city with excellent air quality to a much smaller (and less attractive) Toronto. Instead of biting the hand that feeds us, we should be working to improve this feature of our city's landscape. One suggestion to amplify the positive effect of the greenbelt on our city's environment would be to look into certain climate-sensitive trees or shrubs that absorb carbon dioxide with high efficiency and begin planting them in the 'unused' scrubland.

2. It is also highly dubious whether or not destroying the greenbelt will reduce vehicle trips and subsequently emissions. New residential development would mean that public transit to the downtown core would be more effective than from former municipalities such as Kanata or Nepean - providing that these future residents do not simply find employment outside of "acceptable" public transit commute zones (e.g.: that new residents in proposed zone "1" do not find employment in Orleans or Riverside South). Thus, while new residential development in the greenbelt areas would be more efficient than simply promoting urban sprawl in Stittsvile or South Nepean (as is currently happening) it is by no means "sustainable". Non-residential development (excepting some mixed zoning) again would do very little, unless the city were to propose some kind of highly complicated property tax credit rewarding residents who work near their homes.

So the whole 'environmental' argument for developing the greenbelt is a fabrication. Economically it might make sense, in the sense that with the city's current planning model, it will have to provide services increasingly further out in the hinterlands, thereby significantly raising budgetary costs, but there is nothing environmentally sustainable about destroying green space well within city bounds. This is something, as I'm sure you have discovered continually at planning conferences, that other cities are dying to have.

Your principle framing of the purpose of the greenbelt is also highly misleading. Its purpose was never primarily to preserve a rural identity - this was always the secondary function of the Gréber plan. Rather, its primary aim was to limit urban sprawl, to make the city beautiful, something we have failed in miserably in the subsequent decades. The rural identity was a corollary that never made its way into the minds of the people (and I grew up on the inside edge of the greenbelt in the 1980s and 90s) largely in part to the opposing message that the city and the local media have been striving towards: Ottawa as a 'big, serious, city'.

I am not an urban planner, a geographer, or an environmentalist, nor am I necessarily against limited, strategic and thoughtful development of certain parts of the greenbelt. But any plan that proposes this must be balanced with competent urban planning and a political will that encourages high density development in interior regions of the city and places much higher demands and restrictions on developers eager to make the biggest profit possible via suburban housing. Because of the past ineptitude of politicians and city officials, we have failed the spirit of the greenbelt. It is absolutely unfair to deal the death blow to the plan simply because we are unable and unwilling to take our city's future more seriously, because we feel it is expedient to pass the buck as past generations have done.

You can read the white paper in question at the following link where you can, as a resident of the Ottawa area, or simply as an interested advocate of responsible, environmentally sustainable urban planning, contact the author and the city's representative on the issue.
http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/beyond_2020/papers/greenbelt_white_paper/index_en.html

Tragedy for the Commons

There's nothing quite like a brisk walk through the forest in autumn. The leaves displaying every hue of green, yellow, orange and red, and the crisp air make September through November the best time of year in Ottawa, in my opinion. But imagine my surprise when, in trying to access a particular entry point to Pinhey Forest off of Slack Road, I found the path barred and closed indefinitely. Now, this particular entry point happens to be on leased property, at the back of a Church to be precise, and I had a sneaking suspicion that the relatively new tenants of the building, Living Waters Christian Assembly, had something to do with it.

Let me say from the outset that I have no particular vendetta with any religious organization, except a general disdain for the hypocrisy of rhetoric and reality that the vast majority of these institutions perpetrate. I would like to say that evangelical groups do not make this list, led defiantly in the west by the Catholic Church, but unfortunately, those that I have observed are certainly card-carrying instigators of social oppression. In retrospect, my mistake was prejudging Living Waters, a faith I had hitherto heard nothing about, for rabid antisocial and exclusionary behavior. Nevertheless, I was certainly not incorrect in my rash presuppositions, and what follows is an account and analysis of a tragedy for the commons.

So, after finishing my walk via an access located 300m or so down Slack Road (which, repaved and speed limit increased, is living up to its earlier drag strip title - this safety reference just a nod to all those affronted by any deviation from legal orthodoxy), I returned home and decided I would finally follow through on some long-hidden and unknown interest in investigative journalism. I called up Ottawa's good friends, the NCC (National Capital Commission), to ask two questions: 1) when was this access point closed? and 2) why? The poor young girl who answered the phone on Thanksgiving Sunday afternoon clearly had no idea what I was talking about and told me about the temporary Greenbelt closures easily found on the website. I thanked her, and she told me to call the NCC corporate office on Tuesday to find out more.

I diligently did so, only to find that my poking around had already made it to the head of the Greenbelt, whom I was transferred to when I called. I reiterated my questions, and this time got an answer. The access was closed in September of 2006 in response to "off-hours access and illegal activity" that Living Waters brought to NCC's attention. As Lessee's of the land leading to the access point, Living Waters clearly had some weight to throw around in dictating NCC policies. When I asked whether or not any legal challenges were threatened if NCC did not act, the spokesperson became defensive arguing that "We responded to the demands because they were reasonable. Other community members raised questions and when we told them this they agreed with our decision" ... I was almost waiting for him to say "now why won't you?". Of course, I wasn't arguing against the decision on the phone, knowing just what good that would bring, but I could clearly sense some tension around this decision. So I left it at that, hung up, and started writing this entry.

Really, the quibble over the actual access itself is a moot point. Unless you have young children, or are afraid of cars speeding by you at 90km/h as you walk alongside the road, the 300m hike to the next entry point is not the end of the world (though the safety concern does indeed loom for parents with young children, or dogs). Rather my point of contention is over the espoused values and rhetoric of religious institutions in general, and specifically Living Waters, that are clearly out of sync with their daily practices. I quibble with the fact that this access point has been open at least (but more likely longer) for the past 20 years, with no complaints from the previous church tenant (maybe Anglican?), but has suddenly closed within two years of the new lessee taking up tenancy. I have a problem when the access of the majority is restricted due to the minority imposition of private proprietorship.

Are kids going and drinking in this forest after hours? Yes, of course. Many spots in that forest are hallowed grounds for the rites of passage of local youths who have been using it for at least 20 years. Will closing off that particular access point stop them from doing so? No, closing ALL access points will not stop them, and beyond recognizing that criminalizing major aspects of youth culture is both futile and regressive, and working to understand why this culture manifests itself in our society, there is not a whole lot about underage drinking that we can do. Religious institutions that preach community, love, respect and encourage diversity would do well to implement their rhetoric in practice, instead of engaging in xenophobia and religious jingoism while slowly pinching pennies from the in-group.

The main issue is that, in preaching to profess the words of Jesus (what happened to 'Love thy Neighbor' and 'Do Unto Others'?), Living Waters is actually engaging in belligerently antisocial and certainly anti-neighborly behavior. Even if these "off-hour" visitors were leaving beer bottles in their parking lot, does it make sense to barricade the property, mistakenly believing you can keep the infidels away from your flock? Wouldn't it be better to start a constructive dialogue with the community and invite local kids to alternative events on church property? Even a sign that says, 'please do not litter' might go a long way in reaching the eco-consciousness of suburban kids. In any event, there is no evidence that these people were doing anything of the sort anyway.

It is a tragedy for the commons, for the community, when the civic tone is changed for little purpose other than to assert private property rights and paranoid isolationism. If good communities are about trust, as Robert Putnam roughly argues, then this particular "assembly" is like the thief in the night. True, we may only lose a small amount in tangible terms - 300m along a barren road is not the worst inconvenience one could suffer, especially in light of the NCC's general plan to plow over the Greenbelt in favor of suburban housing - but the long term loss in active "community", in opportunities for relationships, dialogue, friendliness etc., will trickle down for years to come.