Longtime readers of this blog will probably read this headline and be able to guess what the article is about. While I’ve talked a lot about mixed-use (mixed residential and commercial) zoning in passing across various articles on my site since the beginning, I’ve never actually sat down to address it head-on as the topic of its own article. With municipal elections coming up in about five weeks, and the City officially looking at how commercial zoning fits into our residential areas, now feels like the right time to lay this all out.
Here’s the Situation
Right now in Ottawa, there are a lot of places, even in the suburbs, where you can feel safe walking or even biking in parks and around your community. But if your neighbourhood lacks destinations, places that you can walk or bike to, it defeats almost the whole purpose of being able to walk. In most places in Ottawa’s suburbs, odds are you’re going to be walking, biking, or most likely driving more than a kilometre just to get to the closest commercial space. And in that strip mall or shopping plaza, you likely don’t have much variety in terms of shopping and amenity options. It’s basically random chance there will be something you need. Almost everywhere you look outside the core, residential and commercial uses are strictly split up, there is almost no mixed-use whatsoever.
Outside of the core of Ottawa and some older inner suburbs, our current zoning rules (updated just this year!) only allow mixed-use by default in designated “Main Street corridors”. However, sometimes the way these corridors have been chosen feels fairly random and strange. Take Jeanne d’Arc Blvd north of the 174 as an example. The city zoned part of it as a Main Street corridor, yet if you take a look at it, the boulevard is literally the narrowest definition of a road. There are no houses or actual properties fronting the corridor itself, it’s clearly just for transportation. It is a really weird place to put that zoning, while the entire rest of the neighbourhood surrounding it remains around 99% residential. Any other local streets would be far more accessible by local residents on foot or using other active transportation modes, but these places remain strictly off-limits to small shops or services.
If you look at the city’s desire (below) for the area from 2022, when our ‘Official Plan’ was completed, you can see that the area around Jeanne d’Arc and a significant area around St. Joseph and near major corridors is intended to be part of an ‘Evolving Neighbourhood’.
If we want to help suburban neighbourhoods expand their potential to be self-sustaining, liveable places, the simplest thing we can do is allow a whole bunch of mixed-use commercial zoning right inside residential areas.
What We’re Actually Talking About
Now, don’t misunderstand me here. We aren’t talking about putting a Costco or Walmart on your quiet residential street. We’re talking about small independent shops: coffee shops, bakeries, boutique gyms, local restaurants, and hardware stores. These are places where someone can make a living running a business, hire local (including older kids), and let people live and work in the same community. Combined with low-rise density, think small 3- to 4-storey apartment buildings with ground-floor retail, this could transform how our suburbs function.
We don’t even need to overcomplicate how we start. If the city wants to take a small step to start, look at corner lots first. Allowing the quintessential corner store on any lot on a corner (and perhaps lots with nothing directly across from them) is such a no-brainer that you don’t even really need a pilot project for it. I’m not saying every house has to turn into a restaurant or bakery, but why should it be illegal without applying and fighting for an exception?
I even heard a suggestion from a neighbour just this past weekend that I love. If we seed slightly denser zoning and mixed-use like this in pockets across our suburbs, we could allow this to grow organically with one simple rule change. A new zoning rule that says you can automatically inherit more permissive zoning rules from an adjacent property if you want, redevelopment and infill could naturally and organically grow walkable and sustainable communities all across the city.
Some Things To Consider
Some people wrongly assume urbanism is somehow opposed to small business success, but in my experience the exact opposite tends to be true. Many urbanists want to live and shop as local as possible a lot of the time, handling everyday errands within a 5- to 15-minute walk tops. Allowing local shops in every community city-wide means a far more diverse and resilient economy, and one that keeps money you spend in your neighbourhood. This doesn’t stop you from driving to a larger grocery or big box store further away if you want or need to, but it does mean that driving is no longer required for every single errand.
Of course, any change like this, no matter how gradual, faces pushback. People will and do worry about noise, parking, loss of privacy, or traffic congestion, even from a small restaurant with six tables. But here’s the thing: any complaint you can make about a small neighbourhood shop or a compact 3-4 storey apartment building is something you could already experience with single-family homes. A neighbour living in a regular single-family home can make a lot of noise, invade your privacy, or create parking headaches. The issue here isn’t local commercial activity, it’s that people are resistant to change.
That all said, city staff are set to report back to the new city council in 2027 (we’re voting on October 26th) on how the recent changes to permissions for small-scale, low-impact commercial uses are working. We’ve already waited on this long enough, continuing to delay and block mixed-use or limit options to a short list of designated spots will only delay the inevitable. Allowing low-impact commercial space everywhere, including in the suburbs, is a simple pitch, and it’s the best way to make Ottawa’s neighbourhoods truly lively, walkable, and livable.
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