News

Reimagining Robertson Road

About the Project  

I am happy to share that I am working with City staff and the Bells Corners community and business community to take a hard look at Robertson Road. It’s a busy street that carries a lot of commuter traffic, but is also well-used by locals, including pedestrians and cyclists. How could it be made better? What can we do through our land and transportation planning to improve access to businesses, homes, and transit? These are the questions we’ll be exploring over the next few months. 

Why ‘Reimagining Robertson Road’? The act of reimagining and rethinking our current state and envisioning what could be is the first step in moving towards tangible change. I'm excited to do this together as a community! The goal of this project is to develop a community-informed vision for transforming Bells Corners into the “Village in the Greenbelt” that it strives to be – one with a vibrant main street, welcoming public spaces, and good connections within and beyond the community. 

With its existing diversity of services, community pride, and an all-round desire for change and improvement, the time is ripe to reimagine Robertson Road as a main street for the Bells Corners community, with vibrant public spaces where people come for a visit and decide to stay for a while.  

We are excited to have support for this project from our consultants at Mobycon, a consultancy group specializing in developing and implementing innovative and sustainable mobility solutions.   

 

Project Activities:  

The Reimagining Robertson Road project will have events and deliverables from Spring 2025 – Spring 2026.  

Below is some more information about the great activities we’ll be working on as part of this year-long project:

Phase 1: Spring – Summer 2025  Information Gathering and Public Survey
Background and Case Study Review	To start off the project, Mobycon conducted a review of existing policies and data as it relates to Bells Corners to develop a comprehensive understanding of the current state and plans for the community. They also gathered case study examples to inform the creation of engagement tools and options for the future narrative rendering of Robertson Road.
Robertson Road Walkshop	We recently led the Robertson Road Walkshop (walking-based workshop) on Robertson Road to learn more about resident priorities and dreams for this road. The goal of the Walkshop was to create a space for us to hear essential, community-grounded feedback and perspectives about how people currently navigate Robertson Road.
Public Survey	We will be sharing along a web-based survey to begin gathering input on a vision and ideas in reimagining Robertson Road. The survey is accessible below and is open until September 22nd, 2025.
Phase 2: Fall – Winter 2025  Design Rendering and Public Engagement
Design Rendering of ‘Reimagining’ Robertson Road	Mobycon will take the ideas gathered from the background review, workshop, and survey results to develop a narrative describing a vision for Robertson Road including visual examples of elements desired in the design.
Public Engagement and Consultations	We will conduct various public engagement sessions in partnership with community organizations and associations throughout Fall 2025 to gather thoughts on the design vision for Robertson Road.  If you are part of an organization, group, or community association, and would be interested in having us bring our engagement tools as part of this project to your group, please reach out to [email protected].
Phase 3: Winter – Spring 2026  Reimagining Robertson Road Action Plan
Reimagining Robertson Road Action Plan	All community feedback throughout this project will be brought into a report and action plan that summarizes the current problem, ideas presented from engagement, concepts for the corridor, and action items.

 

Events and Updates:   

Reimagining Robertson Road: Public Survey Results

Thank you to everyone who took the time to share your thoughts through the Reimagining Robertson Road survey! More than 300 residents and visitors participated in the survey, offering valuable ideas about ways that Robertson Road could be improved to better serve the community. 

The main takeaways from the survey results indicate that there is a strong community desire for safer spaces on Robertson Road to walk and bike, more greenery and places to gather, and a main street that feels vibrant and welcoming. 

The survey results, along with engagement with community members from the Robertson Road Walkshop as well as our upcoming community stakeholder engagement sessions, will help shape the creation of a visual rendering that brings the community's vision for the future of Robertson Road to life. 

We invite you to read the full report on the survey results, linked below.

 

Public Survey- We want to hear from you!

Do you have feedback and ideas for how Robertson Road could better serve the community? We want to hear them!  

As part of the Reimagining Robertson Road Project, we’ve put together a survey to gather community feedback and ideas to better understand how residents would reimagine Robertson Road. Feedback from this survey will help in the creation of a digital rendering of Robertson Road, including ideas from the community on what changes they would want to see made on Robertson Road. 

Your feedback will support our team in better understanding community visions and ideas for how this corridor could be safer, greener, and more welcoming for everyone. The survey is open to all people who live, work, and travel to Bells Corners.

You can access the survey linked here: Reimagining Robertson Road - Public Survey (https://form.typeform.com/to/yprfCpZl?typeform-source=cac-word-edit.officeapps.live.com) 

The survey will be open until September 22nd, 2025.

 

Robertson Road Walkshop  

We hosted the Robertson Road Walkshop on Saturday, June 28th. We are incredibly appreciative to all community members who came out to this event and contributed to the great discussions.  

Our consultants from Mobycon led different groups for a 1 – 1.5 km walk along Robertson Road, stretching from Old Richmond Road to Moodie Drive. The walk had many stops for the group to observe and discuss the current state of Robertson Road through multiple lenses and perspectives.  

Residents who participated in the Walkshop filled out a "Rate the Place" scorecard where they ranked various factors impacting the street environment. If you want to read more about the final results of the scorecards filled out at this event and insights from the Robertson Road Walkshop, please read the Robertson Road Walkshop Report below. 

Here are some images below from the event. 

    

   

Stay up to date on project!  

We are looking forward to listening and hearing from you on how Robertson Road could better serve the community! 

If you want to receive email updates as the Reimagining Robertson Road project moves forward, please sign up for our mailing list for the project here.  

If you have any questions about this project, please feel free to reach out to [email protected].  

Let's shine a light on Ottawa's public engagement strategy

You may or may not know this about me, but before I ran for office I worked in community engagement. I had the honour of working for two non-profit organizations that believed that people care deeply about where they live but may be missing the information and connections they need to get things done for their neighbourhood. I have been consistently inspired by neighbourhood leadership and ingenuity and felt that if I worked as an elected official, I could create more opportunities for community leadership and passion to shine through.

That’s why I was so motivated to get involved in policy work like Emergency Preparedness, the Community Partnership Insurance Program, the Public Notification System for development applications, and the Right-of-Way gardening permissions. I think the City could do so much more (and for less!) by creating the conditions for neighbours to help neighbours and advance residents’ priorities.

When I learned two years ago that the City’s public engagement strategy, developed in 2013, was up for a refresh, I started nosing around and asked for regular updates on the City’s progress. I’ve become increasingly concerned with the tone and tenor of public engagement initiatives at the City. Whether in the rural, urban or suburban wards, I’ve noted confusion: the public isn’t always familiar with the differences between an “open house”, an “information session”, or a full consultation. The City (and councillors) don’t always do a great job of making sure people know what to expect.

If residents don’t know on what parts of the decision-making the City is consulting or the scope of feedback to which the City will listen, that can often lead to feelings of disappointment and frustration. City staff may feel overwhelmed by resident reaction and be underprepared.

If we don’t work to make this better, I worry that there will be a mutual disillusionment and pulling away from the City’s engagement with the public. Policies and programs will be less relevant, maybe even less frequently used by residents. It’s a vicious cycle that could erode the trust in our City as an institution. We’ve seen in other cities that when the relationship between city government and its residents is damaged, ill-intentioned actors can come in and use social media or other public platforms to divide communities. That’s not the democratic system I’m fighting for.

So on Wednesday, I’m moving a motion that would require the City to make public its documentation on the Public Engagement Strategy refresh. They have developed a guidebook for staff already, and I think residents should see the direction that the City is taking with public engagement and what tools residents can expect in different kinds of engagements. After all, the public is the primary stakeholder! If we can offer the public a better understanding of what kind of conversation they are entering into with the City, my hope is that temperatures can come down, and better outcomes can be achieved – maybe even trust restored.

If my motion passes, staff would be directed in eight months’ time to share with Council what lessons have been learned both from staff and the public using the engagement framework. It would further require staff to highlight what changes have been made in response to the feedback they’ve heard.

Pushing the City to some public accountability for the work they have already undertaken to refresh this strategy could go a long way to create transparency. The City would benefit from translating their internal documents for public use. Residents would know what kind of consultation the City is holding, what decisions have already been made going in, and which are up for grabs, and why the consultation has taken the form that it has.

Sometimes we need to say out loud that certain decisions are not up for public consultation, and that some engagements are purely for information. Emergency housing solutions are not for public debate. Health service locations are not up for public debate. There are certain citywide benefits, both based on the City’s strategic priorities as well as directions from other levels of governments, that aren’t helpful to debate at a hyperlocal level. This is an uncomfortable thing to say. But in my experience, greater transparency both on what will be up for consultation and what won’t goes a long way to increase trust and mutual understanding.

There’s a difference between information-sharing and consultation. Residents deserve to know what’s being asked of them when they attend an open house, complete an online form, or email a planner. Residents further deserve to know how they can most usefully and meaningfully contribute to City decision-making, and to know transparently why the scope of consultation on any given issue is as expansive or limited as it is. Residents are generous and hard-working when they provide the City their feedback. Wasting those efforts because the City has been opaque in its consultation choices does not serve the public interest well. My motion is an important step to avoid that.

The Big Picture: Ottawa's Zoning By-law Review (Part 1)

In January 2021, City Council approved the new Zoning By-Law project to bring zoning by-laws into alignment with Ottawa’s new Official Plan, approved by the Province of Ontario in 2022. The Official Plan lays out a broad framework about where growth should happen in the city until 2046 and beyond. The new Zoning By-law will implement the policies and directions of the Official Plan.

Ottawa is expected to grow from about 1-million people in 2021 to nearly 1.5-mllion people in 2046. The Official Plan seeks to allow growth, but limit sprawl, with the balance being achieved through more infill development. This policy decision is consistent with subsequent Provincial Housing Bills that made every serviced lot in Ottawa be zoned for three units as-of-right.  Every part of Ottawa will see development and change. The height and density will tend to be higher the closer you are to urban areas and major transit stations and lower the closer you are to the rural areas, and in the centre of established neighbourhoods.

A Zoning By-law governs:

• how land and buildings may be used (e.g. residential, retail store, light industrial use)
• the height and massing of buildings and other structures, and their location on the lot
• the density of development and land use
• lot sizes and dimensions
• permissions, requirements and standards for on-site parking
• some aspects of the character of buildings and development

Why are we doing an update?

The current version of Ottawa’s Zoning By-law, officially known as “Zoning By-law 2008-250”, is a conglomeration of rules consolidated from older zoning by-laws, dating back more than 50 years. It’s out of sync with current priorities like housing affordability, transportation needs, and climate change. And it’s not aligned to Ottawa’s new Official Plan (2022), which means it is constantly receiving amendment requests from developers and creating uncertainty for residents. The lack of harmonization in our zoning regulations is creating additional costs, barriers to housing, and overall frustration.

Thankfully this process is well under way. City Staff released Draft 2 (https://engage.ottawa.ca/zoning) earlier this Spring and are now accepting feedback.

I’m encouraging residents to review the draft zoning provisions and share any comments or questions at [email protected]. Comments received before June 30 will be reviewed and considered by staff and may inform changes in the final Zoning By-law presented to Council.

This version of the draft includes hundreds of pages of text spanning multiple documents, along with maps and interactive features. It’s a huge amount of information! Ultimately, I hope these posts will allow College Ward residents to share feedback more effectively with staff.

In this series of I’m aiming to:

• Provide a simplified guide to help residents understand the process
• Explain how the proposed updates may affect your property and neighbourhood
• Get residents engaged to “crowdsource” a review of the new zoning map, to identify any errors or issues.

For now, I would like to share some key terms:

“Main Street Corridors” are major roads like Baseline, Robertson, Greenbank, and Clyde that will also see a mix of employment, retail, amenities, and housing, including apartments. Streets and properties adjacent to them will also see a higher level of development.

“Minor Corridors” are roads like Meadowlands, Iris, and parts of Centrepointe Drive. More height and density are allowed along these roads, but less than along Main Street Corridors.

And then there are “Evolving Neighbourhoods” which include these Hubs and Corridors, and areas immediately adjacent to them, that are anticipated to see more change and growth as a result of their proximity to transportation corridors.

“Transects and urban expansion areas” There are two other concepts in the Official Plan that are relevant to understanding  how staff are creating the New Zoning By-Law: transects. The Official Plan divides the city into six areas known as “transects”, from the most urban (“The Downtown”) to the least urban (“Rural”).  College Ward is in the “Outer Urban” transect.

So that’s a very quick overview. In the next few posts, we’ll dive into how these policies and concepts are being translated into a new Zoning By-law. Stay tuned!

We need clearer accounting for photo radar revenues

Video of Laine asking questions about Red Light Camera and ASE revenues

 

Recent media reports have highlighted the Ottawa Auditor General’s findings that describe the redirection of red-light camera revenue since 2019 to the City’s general revenues and to the Ottawa Police Service.

I have to say I’m feeling disappointed that we repeated this same decision-making, despite my best efforts, even as recently as four months ago.

I spoke out during the 2025 budget deliberations in December because we voted again to redirect revenue from road safety measures, this time from automated speed enforcement (ASE) revenues, collected now and moving forward.

That’s right. This isn’t just a 2019 decision under the last term of Council: this Council voted to make the same decision in 2024!

Transportation Master Plan: Mapping Ottawa's Future

On March 31, 2025 the City of Ottawa launched the consultation on the Transportation Master Plan (TMP) Capital Infrastructure Plan, and we want to hear from you! Have your say on the future of transportation in Ottawa and share your input by completing the online surveys available on the Transportation Master Plan project page.

The draft Capital Infrastructure Plan identifies the transit and road projects that are needed to accommodate planned growth to the year 2046 and achieve the City’s mobility objectives. It also identifies a subset of projects that should be prioritized for implementation. This phase of TMP consultation also includes prioritization of the active transportation projects that were approved by Council in April 2023.

Ottawa has grown into a city of one million residents. Over the next two decades, Ottawa will gain approximately 400,000 new residents and 160,000 new jobs. With that kind of growth, we need to plan for a flexible, dependable, safe and efficient transportation network. 

Get involved!

• Complete the surveys on the recommended road and transit projects, the prioritized list of active transportation projects, and other components of the Capital Infrastructure Plan
• Attend a public engagement session – virtual and in-person events will run from April 8 to May 6
• Sign up for updates and stay informed on the TMP process

Surveys will be open until May 12. To participate and learn more, visit the Transportation Master Plan project page.

Your input matters! Transportation decisions impact everyone, no matter how you move through the city.

Proposed pedestrian projects in College Ward

Proposed cycling projects in College Ward

Nazi symbols ban

On March 26, 2025, I will table a motion at Council which calls on the federal government to ban Nazi symbols.  

College Ward is home to Ottawa’s largest Jewish community and we have seen a sharp rise in antisemitism here. Groups and individuals now brashly displaying this terrible symbol of hate on their vehicles, clothing, and signs.  

18 countries have banned this symbol and I believe it is time for Canadians to do so as well. 

I have been working with B'nai Brith Canada, who currently have a campaign to encourage the federal government to ban Nazi symbols such as the Nazi hooked cross (Hakenkreuz). It is sometimes called a swastika, which is a Sanskrit word we're not using out of respect to the Hindu community, where this has been an ancient holy symbol for hundreds of years. 

My motion, which Mayor Sutcliffe has kindly seconded, calls on Council to write to the federal government in support of B'nai Brith Canada's campaign. It also calls on the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (where I'm a member of the National Board of Directors) to consider a similar motion. 

I expect the motion to be debated and voted on at the following Council meeting on April 16, 2025.

 

Motion to ban Nazi symbols

Press release

Countries where Nazi symbols are banned

Non-governmental organizations that support the ban

Canadian jurisdictions that have endorsed the B’nai Brith Canada campaign to ban Nazi symbols

Province of Saskatchewan

Region of Durham

City of Pickering

Town of Whitby

X and Public Engagement: who should control the City’s relationship with our residents?

Today, the Finance and Corporate Services Committee voted down Councillor Dudas’ motion to move away from social media platform X  as a City communications tool (you can read the motion here). I am grateful to Councillor Dudas for her leadership on this.

The prevailing argument against the motion was that since the City had over 250, 000 followers on X (how many active accounts, how many live people, how many residents of the City, not known or questioned) it would be unwise to pivot to a different platform and risk losing contact.

Another argument that was given suggested that, with the evolution of X as an unsafe place for civic discourse, any new platform could evolve in kind, meaning the City might be always in a state of trying to find the new best place to share its updates.

Priorities! Priorities! Priorities! The tradeoffs that we're facing today

I’ve been reflecting about the next chapter of my serving College Ward as your Councillor.  

My aim was, for the first year or two, to prioritize the relationship with residents. I wanted people to know that they could find me, they could count on me to listen, and they could have confidence that I was always serving them with honesty and integrity.  

Although that journey is never complete, residents’ familiarity with me at this year’s Skating Party and your response to our Annual Progress Report have done a great deal to confirm that we in the College Ward office have been on the right track. It’s meaningful to me, after 3 years, to recognize familiar faces and to remember details about residents’ families, their stories, and to share memories.  

Moving into the latter half of my term, I am considering some of the big-ticket policy items, both in terms of finances but also residential impact. Without question, I will continue to communicate regularly, have annual events, and be present in the ward. My interests lay more on some tradeoffs that I think we are facing as a city, ones that I think aren’t being positioned in a clear enough way for residents to weigh in. I’ll offer up a few.

Ontario election - your questions, answered by the candidates

At the beginning of the Ontario Provincial election, I asked residents for municipal-related questions they'd like candidates to answer. My team gathered the questions and sent them to each of the campaigns for the Green Party, Liberal Party, NDP, and PC Party candidates in the ridings of Nepean and Ottawa West-Nepean.

Only two candidates responded. You can read their responses below.

Please remember to vote on February 27, 2025!

Response from Chandra Pasma, Ontario NDP candidate, Ottawa West-Nepean

Response from Brett Szmul, Ontario Liberal candidate, Ottawa West-Nepean

 

Year Two in Review: A Progress Report for College Ward Residents

As part of my commitment to transparency and accountability to College Ward residents, I am pleased to provide a summary of the progressive we've made in our Ward over the past year, as well as a look ahead at the things I hope to accomplish.

Many thanks to residents, Community Associations, small businesses, City staff and my own team for getting all of this done.

 

Read the Progress Report

LRT Stage 2 West webinar

Councillor Laine Johnson hosted a webinar on January 23, 2025 where staff presented updates on the Ottawa LRT Stage 2 West project and answered questions from residents.

Watch the video

Review the presentation

Visit the LRT Stage 2 website

Stay informed by subscribing to [email protected]

Why the Baseline BRT should be Ottawa's next big transit expansion (and the LRT 3 shouldn't be)

By Laine Johnson

With the O-Train service now running south to the airport, the east and west expansions a year or two from service, and Line 1 rail service serving downtown, City Council will soon be turning its attention to – and making funding decisions about – the next stage of public transit expansion.

No one is happy with the state of transit in Ottawa right now. Years of underfunding have reduced the frequency, reach, and reliability of our bus service. The City, on its own, has no way of rebuilding OC Transpo (and the public’s faith in it) without either senior government financing or untenable property tax increases.

It’s a shameful situation of which no member of Council is proud, but for which we haven’t found a reasonable solution.

There is a way.