Capital Ward: Menard — Ottawa council must act in first 100 days with purpose and vision

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The Citizen invited the candidates for the municipal elections on October 24 to share their thoughts:

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A better city is possible. In the first 100 days, the council must collaborate on the big issues we have left, and in doing so, make sure we have a vision for Ottawa. This is the vision of our team.

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With at least 50% new council members and a new mayor, we must move quickly to weave a vision into the very overwhelming files we will have to deal with: bus and LRT service, homelessness and affordable housing, weather and health emergencies. .

I have been serving residents for four years as a city councilman; By working together, we have laid the groundwork for change at City Hall.

We declare a climate emergency, enacting policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation. We need to accelerate the modernization of buildings for residential housing. We can achieve savings with city retrofits, phase out gas-powered lawn equipment, and better divert organic waste from our landfill.

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We need to end suburban sprawl, a financially and environmentally destructive practice. We must build more multi-unit housing facing the ground floor in the middle that are missing. We can incentivize this by changing the city’s initial development charges. Ottawa has one of the lowest charges in the province among large municipalities for single-unit housing, and we would do well to incentivize low- and mid-rise multi-unit infill.

With that new home construction, affordable housing needs to be a priority. We should increase the city’s investment from $15 million to $50 million annually to build new affordable housing, leveraging matching funds from other levels of government.

Residents should be able to easily move around our city. With public transit ridership declining year over year since the 2011 service outages, we need to improve and increase local bus routes by working with riders and bus operators to reorient routes to better serve urban communities. , suburban and rural.

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Our bus fares are some of the highest in North America. We should freeze fares immediately and pilot free transit (under 18s and clogged corridors like Bank Street) citywide. We need to champion Bus Rapid Transit as a cost effective transit solution on roadways like Carling and Baseline.

Our streets must be safe and welcoming for everyone, whether you walk, roll or drive. We can plug potholes, repave streets, improve sidewalks, and build a bike network for our city. And we can get creative, with canal entrances, shuttles in congested areas, and even urban cable cars.

We can improve our quality of life by investing in parks, extending children’s pool season, providing more public restrooms, installing more drinking fountains, and planting more trees.

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Our city can be healthier financially if it stops expensive road widening projects that only increase congestion, eliminates long-term P3 projects that generate huge debt with poor results, eliminates corporate and development subsidies and spends taxpayers’ money efficiently and effectively.

Shawn Menard is running for re-election in Ward 17, Capital Ward. Learn more about Shawn at www.menard2022.ca.

ALSO: What is the biggest problem with the municipal elections in Ward 17 – Capital?

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