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Dec 5, 2024 | 
ottawacitizen.com | Neil Saravanamuttoo
Advertisement 1While transit is getting all the attention in Ottawa’s proposed 2025 budget, the real story is how we’ll pay to replace aging infrastructure. • • You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account. Article contentThe 2025 City of Ottawa budget is set to spend over $6,300 for each Ottawa resident, across its operations and capital projects. Article contentArticle contentDo you know what the biggest spending item is for your tax dollars?
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
the613.substack.com | Neil Saravanamuttoo
Last week, the City of Ottawa released its draft 2025 budget. That budget includes a tax increase that is about the level of inflation, so little room for any new initiatives, plus an adjustment to fill the transit funding gap. The OC Transpo budget is going up by $88 million, an 11% increase. That is not the City reinvesting in transit to turn around a failing system. Rather, it is OC Transpo shifting to a higher cost model, as light rail line 2 comes on stream.
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Aug 14, 2024 | 
fixyourcity.substack.com | Neil Saravanamuttoo
There is no shortage of armchair experts who can tell you why housing is not getting built. Zoning. Development Charges. NIMBYs. The list goes on. These are valid concerns. But they are likely not telling the whole story. There is a lot of local intelligence about why more home building is not happening that often does not get heard. Builders can tell you first hand about the regulatory, technical and financial barriers that prevent them from building.
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May 30, 2024 | 
fixyourcity.substack.com | Neil Saravanamuttoo
Fewer and fewer North American cities seem to be doing a good job delivering the basics expected of a municipal government. Emptying trash cans in parks. Filling potholes in the roads. Ambulances available in an emergency. Not the complex stuff, like a reliable public transit system. Or housing that people can afford. Just the basics. Cities are failing on the providing these core services for a simple reason. Urban sprawl is quietly eating up city budgets.
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May 23, 2024 | 
the613.substack.com | Neil Saravanamuttoo
As community members, we often feel powerless to address the crises hitting our city. For the housing affordability crisis, there is something we can do. Be a part of the Ottawa Community Land Trust. A land trust is simply an organization that owns real estate for a specific purpose —other than the usual reason of having a place to live or a place to invest money. Land trusts exist across the country, and indeed around the world.
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May 1, 2024 | 
fixyourcity.substack.com | Neil Saravanamuttoo
Excessive noise in cities is mostly caused by cars. Honking, but primarily modified mufflers on cars and motorcycles. Chronic noise is a public health issue. It affects sleep and stress, which in turn contributes to high blood pressure and an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. It is also a road safety issue. Excessive noise makes others feel unsafe, particularly pedestrians, cyclists and wheelchair users. Unfortunately, that may be the objective of modified mufflers.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
cityshapes.ca | Neil Saravanamuttoo
It’s your tax dollars. Imagine if your city actually gave you a meaningful say in how those tax dollars are spent. Some cities do! Through a process called participatory budgeting. Most cities provide public consultations around the annual budget. But this is not participatory budgeting. It’s theatre. The budget barely changes between the initial and final drafts. Best case scenario is that Councillors gleam some local priorities through these consultations that they can advocate for in future years.
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Apr 10, 2024 | 
monitormag.ca | Stuart Trew |Claude Vaillancourt |Catherine McKenney |Neil Saravanamuttoo
Gabriel Attal and Justin Trudeau will have much to talk about during the French prime minister’s trip to Ottawa this week. Though their agenda covers a number of issues, the French Senate's awkward rejection of CETA—the Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement—on March 21 will be prominent. These two great defenders of the agreement will no doubt ask themselves what it all means, and how CETA’s survival might be salvaged. Should we care about the French vote?
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Apr 3, 2024 | 
cityshapes.ca | Neil Saravanamuttoo
Addressing climate change boils down to 4 words. STOP BURNING FOSSIL FUELS. Coal, oil and gas fuelled the growth of modern industrial societies. But they did so at a steep environmental cost, creating a blanket of pollution in the atmosphere that is rapidly warming the planet. Burning fossil fuels accounts for three-quarters of all carbon emissions. Eventually, the fossil fuel era will end. Renewables are quickly becoming the cheapest form of energy.
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Apr 2, 2024 | 
monitormag.ca | Jon Milton |Catherine McKenney |Neil Saravanamuttoo |Craig Pickthorne
When I was living in Edmonton, I managed to snag one of the (relatively) rare apartments in that city where you could walk to the grocery store within a few minutes. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant walk—it meant trudging through an enormous, desolate parking lot after crossing a high-speed, six-lane collector road. I was, generally, one of only a small handful of pedestrians—in the city’s densest neighborhood, only a few blocks from downtown.
