City planners back Salvation Army’s 350-bed Vanier facility proposal in Ottawa, Ontario

The City of Ottawa’s planning department has formally backed a controversial Salvation Army proposal to build a 350-bed facility in Vanier, including a 140-bed emergency shelter. The recommendation appears in an 83-page report made public more than a week before a three-day planning committee meeting scheduled to begin Nov. 14. The report was posted online on a Friday afternoon so that the public would have more time to review it, since committee agendas and reports are required to be released a week in advance.

Staff support for the project was widely expected. Mayor Jim Watson indicated his backing for the new facility as early as this summer. The report notes that a mayor publicly taking a position on a planning item so far in advance is unusual, and that city staff recommending against the mayor’s stated views would also be unusual.

The proposed complex would include a café open to the public, which would serve as the entrance to community and family services, along with a thrift store. The project does not include a supervised consumption site. If the plan is approved, the Salvation Army intends to sell its property on George Street, which the article describes as having had considerable security issues, including a stabbing over the weekend.

The project faces strong opposition. According to the city report, about 800 people contacted the city about the proposal, the overwhelming majority either opposed outright or expressing concern. Opposition includes the group SOS Vanier. Under the city’s official plan, shelters are not permitted on traditional main streets, including Montreal Road, and the Montreal Road secondary plan, a council-approved document, does not allow shelters or residential care programs.

Coun. Mathieu Fleury has written a nine-page response opposing the staff recommendation. He points to a 2008 council decision that no additional shelters be built in the Rideau-Vanier ward. Staff argue that the new complex would not be “new,” because the George Street location would close. A city policy holds that no ward should have more than four shelters, which staff say is currently the case for Rideau-Vanier. Fleury’s response lists nine additional locations in his ward that operate as de facto shelters, though staff do not count them. He has asked staff for “a clear explanation from both a zoning and social services perspective for each location.”

Because of expected turnout, the planning committee has set aside three days for the item and moved the meeting to council chambers from its usual, smaller Champlain Room. Much of the controversy concerns social impacts and whether the Salvation Army’s approach to homelessness is the right one, but those issues will not be discussed at the planning committee, according to the article.

The Salvation Army is expected to argue that it should receive the official plan and zoning changes because, in the words of its planning consultant, the facility is “a critical public service facility.” The article notes that this position may be difficult to reconcile with residents’ wish to discuss broader social impacts.

Source: Read the original report