2023 City of Ottawa Community Improvement Plan Program Review

The recitals

• report ACS2023-PRE-GEN-0008 recommends that the revised criteria for both the Brownfield Redevelopment CIP and the Economic Development CIP (Montreal Road and Integrated Orleans) proposes to cap the maximum cumulative grant for each project to the lessor of $5M or 50% of total eligible costs
• the City of Ottawa has an annual budget of $6,967,000 per year for Community Improvement Plan grants which includes $3,900,000 per year for Development Charge exemptions, including non-statutory Development Charge exemptions
• on average the City of Ottawa has approved $18,500,000 annually in Community Improvement Plan grants over the last five years (2018-2022)
• the five-year average (2018-2022) includes approval of a Brownfield grant at 3 and 4 Booth Street (Zibi) not to exceed $60,863,014 over a phased development (each phase to be a maximum of 10 years)
• on average the City of Ottawa has spent $3,700,000 annually in Community Improvement Plan grants over the last five years
• multiple members of council campaigned on either reducing the money our city commits to CIP grants, or eliminating them entirely
• those successful campaigns led to the review to which this report is the result
• this report does not recommend eliminating, or reducing the amount of money the city commits through, these programs
• although changes proposed to these programs in the report can be said to improve upon the previous programs, the report nevertheless leaves the door open to the city committing more tax dollars annually to these programs than it has in the past
• a survey of Ottawa residents on their city budget priorities was recently conducted by my office, in concert with Councillor Troster’s and Councillor Leiper’s offices
• well over 2000 Ottawa residents responded to this survey, including hundreds of residents from outside the urban wards, with residents from every ward in the city having responded
• when respondents were asked what budget items they would choose to re-allocate funds from to pay for their top priorities, the number one response was “Property tax grants for developers,” with about 70% of respondents selecting this
• these survey results suggest that residents want to see less spending on property tax grants to developers, not more
• Council should, at minimum, put some limit in place to prevent this budget item from increasing year over year moving forward