On the one side are city planners, who mandate that new communities have a minimum jobs-to-households ratio. But two local developers are pushing for a more liberal interpretation of that policy to allow employment nodes to develop close to homes naturally.
"The cost and complexity of getting back and forth to your place of employment, the cost of cars, the cost of gasoline, the time - it's those sorts of factors that I believe will alter the way our cities grow in the future," said John Herbert, executive director of the Greater Ottawa Home Builders' Association.
"Trying to force intensification down people's throats is a waste of time and is causing a lot of economic hardship. It's something that is going to happen naturally."
At issue is the city's planning requirement for new communities in Kanata, Barrhaven, Riverside South and other outlying areas to demonstrate developments will have 1.3 jobs for each household.
The policy came to the forefront last month when Riverside Development Corp., an entity made up of developers Urbandale and Richcraft, asked that jobs at the Ottawa International Airport - located within the Greenbelt, northeast of the residential area - be included in employment calculations in Riverside South.
Last month, councillors rejected that request.
"They felt that was unacceptable. However, there is an understanding ... that we can intensify without needing to demonstrate additional jobs," said Mary Jarvis, Urbandale's director of planning and land development.
The city is allowing greater residential density in the area given the "constrained" nature of the lands, she said. The area is bounded to the north by the Greenbelt and to the south by the urban boundary, the limit for residential development.
No employment survey has been conducted for the current residents in Riverside South, Ms. Jarvis added.
"We understand there is a large number of jobs existing (locally) and in the future, if you have an opportunity to work close to home, that may be a place to start."
A senior planner from the city said the objective of the ratio is not to "force the location of jobs," but to provide opportunities for residents to work close to home if they wish.
"We look at all jobs," said Ian Cross, the city's program manager for research and forecasting.
"We make a provision for home-based businesses, retail, schools, manufacturing. A job is a job is a job."
Kanata, the city's greatest suburban employment hub, shows a marked contrast due to an accident of history, added Mr. Herbert, who was the former municipality's commissioner of development at the time.
Around 1987, Mr. Herbert visited entrepreneur Terry Matthews in his Pinecrest-area office to ask if he would be willing to take his small company, Newbridge Networks, to Kanata.
"We helped him acquire a piece of property in the Kanata North Business park, and within a year and a half he was turning the sod and opening a new 30,000-square-foot building," Mr. Herbert recalled.
A few years later, Mr. Matthews was purchasing real estate for the suppliers of his now much larger company. The move encouraged spinoff suppliers to move in, creating a snowball effect, Mr. Herbert said.
Things worked out better than Mr. Herbert expected, but he said the lesson he took away was to do a "surgical approach" with potential businesses, rather than putting out an advertisement and hope for the best.
"You identify the strengths and weaknesses that you have, and you target companies that would benefit from those."
