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What really killed a 360-unit housing project? | Opinion

Randy Boswell: Here's why Caivan’s 40-acre parcel of land just outside the urban boundary south of Stittsville wasn’t greenlit for development.

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Citizen columnist Randall Denley recently fumed that the City of Ottawa — planners and councillors alike — made an “indefensibly stupid” decision to reject a 360-unit housing project proposed by homebuilder Caivan at a site just outside the urban boundary south of Stittsville.

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At a time when Canadian cities are anxious to build as many new homes as possible, the condemnation might seem justified. But it isn’t.

There’s a backstory that explains why Caivan’s 40-acre parcel of land at the northwest corner of Flewellyn and Shea roads wasn’t greenlit for development, even though it’s located next to the company’s planned (and approved) 1,700-home Magnolia housing project to the west, and despite the fact that it meets key criteria for an eventual subdivision.

While the company’s appeal to the pro-development Ontario Land Tribunal may well overturn the city’s decision, it won’t change the fact that municipal planners and Ottawa councillors handled the case with a disciplined approach to city planning; a careful balancing of competing interests to build new homes and prevent chaotic urban sprawl; and a laudable commitment to upholding reasonable rules aimed at protecting the city’s natural heritage assets.

At the heart of the backstory is the unauthorized 2018 removal of a 35-acre “significant woodland” at the Flewellyn-Shea........

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