Submit your comments on Draft 2 of the New Zoning By-law!

This is a reprint of an article published June 10, 2025 by Ecology Ottawa, an Ottawa-based organization that works to create a mobilized constituency of Ottawans who demand action and leadership on the environment. (see original post here. And pour la version française, cliquez ici!). It is reprinted in the PEN with the permission of the organization. You can learn more about Ecology Ottawa—and sign up for their newsletter—at their website, here.

[editor’s note: the deadline to submit public feedback will pass shortly after publication of the June PEN newsletter. However, the following information on how the Zoning By-law will affect Ottawa residents will be relevant.]

Ottawa is undergoing a major planning update, and the comment period for the second draft of the New Zoning By-law could be your last opportunity to make a meaningful difference. Residents only have until June 30th to make their thoughts known before City staff work to incorporate public feedback into the final draft of the New Zoning By-law that City Council will vote on. 

The New Zoning By-law directly affects each and every resident of Ottawa and it represents a crucial pathway to creating healthy, walkable 15-minute neighbourhoods and a more sustainable, affordable city. Ottawans need to know what’s happening. Let’s unpack some of the big changes that have been proposed and how they will affect the liveability and sustainability of our city. We’ll also go over how you can still get involved – and why your involvement matters for the environment and livability of our city.

Understanding How the Second Draft New Zoning By-law Affects You

Learning about the proposed changes is easy – even fun! Understanding how the Zoning By-law will affect your community involves looking at a map to determine how a property is zoned and then looking at the text of the zoning by-law to determine what rules apply. As part of the New Zoning By-law Process, the City has provided an interactive 3D Digital Twin Map where you can plug in any Ottawa address and see the Draft 2 zoning in a 3D view of the neighbourhood. This intuitive new tool also allows you to compare the current zoning to the proposed Draft 2 zoning, all while a 3D rendering of the city provides you with a unique perspective that allows you to better understand the context of the community. After you determine what the proposed and current zoning of a property is, you can also compare how the specific rules that apply to that property and zone have changed between the current Zoning By-law and what’s been proposed in Draft 2. 

While you explore the interactive 3D digital model of your community, I encourage you to consider how Draft 2 of the New Zoning By-law sets your community up for future success. Ask yourself the following questions: 

• Does the New Zoning By-law give my community the potential to become greener, more vibrant, and more walkable? 

• Does it allow for the amenities and services that you need to be located within walking distances to where you live? 

• Does it give your community room to grow and to adapt to the need for affordable and attainable housing? 

• Does it allow you and your neighbours to raise young families and support aging loved ones without leaving the community? 

If you spot something concerning, now is the time to raise it. Conversely, if you love a change you see, that’s worth voicing support for too! If you find the Zoning By-law overwhelming to navigate, don’t worry. Figuring out how the Zoning By-law works can be a great community building opportunity. Talk to your friends and neighbours about the Zoning By-law. Plus, you can always reach out to City staff via email at [email protected], or to your local City Councillor, if you get stumped. 

City-Wide Changes Worth Paying Attention To

Height and Density Changes

Draft 2 revisits how tall buildings can be in low-rise Neighbourhood zones N1 and N2. Initially, Draft 1 had capped heights at 8.5 metres (two storeys), even in areas where current zoning allowed three storeys. This would have effectively downzoned many properties. Although the City responded to these concerns in Draft 2, the increased height cap does not apply city-wide; instead, it appears to be limited to neighbourhoods in the suburbs outside of the Greenbelt. Centrally located urban neighbourhoods still face 8.5 metre height limits in the draft. Housing advocates such as Professor Mike Moffat raised alarms that the City was placing the stringent restrictions on densification on the central, amenity rich, transit connected neighbourhoods where people want to live. 

Ottawans can and should push to ensure our most transit-accessible areas aren’t left frozen in low density, but instead can grow in a way that provides more family-friendly homes and support local businesses. Community advocacy works. With continued engagement, we can make sure the final by-law truly supports walkable, sustainable and people-centric density citywide.

Parking Changes

One exciting parking change in Draft 2 is to allow some communal parking lots in all neighbourhood zones (N1–N6 zones). In Draft 1, shared parking lots were only allowed in multi-building developments, but following the advocacy of organizations like Walkable Ottawa and Ecology Ottawa, residents and councillors signaled interest in expanding these permissions. Embracing interim offsite parking is a promising shift away from every home having its own driveway and excess asphalt. More refinements to the zoning are needed to fully support this initiative. Interim parking lots are parking solutions that balance infill housing needs with green space and walkability; they are crucial to supporting vibrant, sustainable neighbourhoods (you can read Ecology Ottawa's and Walkable Ottawa’s explainer on interim offsite parking lots). By treating parking more as a shared utility, we can reduce the total paved area, minimize stormwater runoff, and create more room for people-oriented design. This approach helps Ottawa move past car dependency and towards the 15-minute neighbourhood model where daily needs can be met easily on foot or bike.

Draft 2 continues to require no minimum parking rates citywide, leaving it to builders to decide how much parking makes sense. For Draft 2, the removal of the minimum parking rates gets extended to rural villages. Mandatory parking minimums often result in vast paved surfaces and car-oriented design, even where they’re not needed. By eliminating these rules, Ottawa can encourage more compact, people-focused development. In rural villages, this flexibility can help revitalize mainstreets – allowing charming cafes or shops to open without needing a huge lot, for example – and make it easier to walk between destinations. It aligns with the Official Plan’s vision that villages become more complete, “15-minute” communities. Research by CMHC has shown that removing parking minimums not only lowers housing costs but also reduces environmental impacts of development. Fewer unnecessary parking lots mean less asphalt contributing to heat islands and stormwater runoff—and more room for trees, gardens, homes, businesses, or anything else—and it nudges us away from default car use. 

The New Zoning By-law has also expanded the areas where parking maximums apply. Parking maximums limit how many parking spaces can be provided for certain kinds of developments. By introducing more parking maximums, we can reduce the prevalence of expansive asphalt parking lots that encourage car dependence, undermine transit, and siphon life from local storefronts. Although the parking maximums in Draft 2 are a move in the right direction, the proposed maximums in Draft 2 do not go far enough. This means that sprawling lots can still be developed all across our city. Ecology Ottawa, with their partner Walkable Ottawa, has advocated for lower caps on huge parking lots for big-box stores and malls. By speaking up during the New Zoning By-law consultations, we can work together to urge the City to make our communities healthier and greener by lowering these caps and scaling them to each area’s context (e.g. stricter limits where density and transit access are higher). 

Make Sure to Have Your Say

The City is collecting feedback on Draft 2 until June 30 – and comments sent in before June 30 will be reviewed and considered by staff for potential inclusion in the final draft that they release in September and that City Council will vote on in January. Submitting comments to the City is not just for those who have concerns about what’s proposed or those who don’t like what’s proposed. If you see something that you think makes sense for your community, or something that you think will make Ottawa greener and more liveable, it is equally important for City planners and City Councillors to know that they are on the right track. 

You can submit your input through the Engage Ottawa website or by emailing your thoughts to [email protected]. You can also reach out directly to your local City Councillor, to make your opinions known. This is one of the most important opportunities for Ottawans to shape our city’s future. By engaging constructively in this by-law process, we can help shape a city that prioritizes green space over parking space, homes over height limits, and people over cars.

Jeffrey Ren is a law student, an urban planner, and a former board member with Ecology Ottawa.