Deachman: Ottawa’s rural population, often neglected by city hall, plans to make its voice heard

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The word I wrote in my notebook looked something like “DoHiles,” so I tried writing it again, knowing I’d be unable to later decipher that particular scrawl. The second effort was only marginally clearer, resembling either “pet hales” or “pet holes,” depending on how you squinted.

I was not inebriated or having a stroke. The word I was attempting to write was “potholes,” but the condition of Fourth Line Road in North Gower, on which I was riding shotgun with Rideau-Jock Coun. David Brown, made writing legibly out of the question. And Brown’s truck, it should be noted, has great suspension.

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That was my first impression of the ward when Brown took me on a recent three-hour tour: many of the roads and shoulders are in terrible condition. It’s the complaint Brown — Farmer Brown to friends and city hall colleagues — hears most often from his roughly 34,000 constituents, far more frequently than some of the other big-ticket issues, such as LRT or Lansdowne, that elsewhere plague city residents. Light rail? Please. There’s barely bus service in much of Brown’s ward.

“People are more interested in getting the potholes fixed,” he said.

The second, more lasting, impression was of the utter enormity of the ward. At 1,461 sq. km., Rideau-Jock is Ottawa’s second-largest ward (West Carleton-March, at 1,550 sq. km., is slightly bigger). It includes the communities of Manotick, Richmond, Munster, North Gower, Kars, Fallowfield and Burritts Rapids, as well as part of Ashton, and, in terms of area, is more than one-third larger than Ottawa’s 19 urban and suburban wards combined. Overall, the ward comprises about one-quarter of Ottawa’s area. You could fit three Islands of Montreal in the ward, with room to spare.

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And some of the ward is very far from council chambers. The southwestern-most tip, for example, near Burritts Rapids, is about a 65-km drive from city hall (only 48 km, according to Google Maps, if you walk). It’s actually only a few kilometres further in the opposite direction to reach Kingston’s municipal boundary.

But Rideau-Jock and Ottawa’s four other rural wards — West Carleton-March, Osgoode, Orléans South-Navan and Orléans East-Cumberland — aren’t simply geographically distant from Ottawa’s centre. There’s also a geopolitical chasm that often leaves them feeling forgotten when the city’s priorities are announced.

Brown and his rural brethren (and sistren) on council — George Darouze, Clarke Kelly, Catherine Kitts and Matt Luloff — are hoping that Saturday’s rural summit at Sir Robert Borden High School will begin to turn the tables on that inequity by identifying and prioritizing the top concerns of rural residents, finding solutions for them, then getting the city to adopt them.

“It’s an opportunity for the city to get back on track,” said Brown, “and for rural Ottawa to regain some of the recognition it lost.”

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The summit is actually the culmination of work that has been taking place all year in the five wards, with individual ward workshops meeting to determine what the main local issues are. On Saturday, the public is invited to help further narrow the list down to the items of greatest concern to residents.

Brown shared some of those concerns during our drive. Snow removal, for example, was better before amalgamation, he said, when townships provided the service. “Townships do what they do well,” said Brown, “especially core services.”

I asked him whether many residents in his ward view the city’s amalgamation in 2001 as having benefited them. “There might be some,” he replied, “but I wouldn’t be able to pick them out at a party.”

Part of the province’s plan to reduce the number of municipal governments by about half, amalgamation saw Ottawa swallow 10 surrounding municipalities to create one super city. But many residents, especially rural ones, believe that the “harmonization” of 11 different sets of bylaws, fees, regulations and service levels simply led to a one-size-fits-all mentality that more often than not ignores their particular needs.

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“It has not led to harmony,” said Brown.

Shane Mowat, a farmer in Brown’s ward, said a major downside of amalgamation is that most bureaucrats and officials simply don’t have an attachment to, or an understanding of, rural concerns. “Just like there are issues for someone who lives at Lansdowne that we wouldn’t understand, there are issues out here that people who are running city programs don’t understand.”

Mowat cites the difficulty in convincing the city to allow farmers to use manure draglines as one example. He wants to install culverts under city roads so he can pump manure directly to his fields through flexible hoses, rather than delivering it via tankers. It’s popular in other jurisdictions, and among the direct benefits to the city is that it eliminates the need to have 80-ton tankers using and degrading public roads. What’s more, Mowat is willing to pay the expense of installing the culverts himself, which he said can be done without disturbing the roads.

“It’s a win-win for everybody. It’s better for the roads, there are less odour complaints, way less compaction, way less fuel used. But nobody has done it here before and so the city can’t get its head around it.”

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Other differences between urban and rural life are revealed during the tour. Many of the city-owned rural facilities, such as the Kars Community Centre, are operated by volunteers. Brown is proud of that community spirit, but it is an extra challenge that urban and suburban centres don’t have to deal with.

Among other rural concerns identified by the ward workshops are the dearth of public transportation and affordable housing, including rentals and seniors’ housing; strategies to manage beaver dams, ticks and coyotes; the need to increase police patrolling and ambulance response times; strategic rezoning to encourage economic development while preserving residential areas; improved recreational facilities and better access to them; and better advocacy for rural issues at both the municipal and provincial levels.

The tour, meanwhile, took us through the Richmond roundabout, a traffic circle built at the intersection of Perth Street and Meynell Road. It’s part of Caivan Communities’ Fox Run housing development in Richmond. Richmond and Manotick, Brown noted, are Ottawa’s fastest-growing rural villages, accounting for much of the 25 per cent increase in population in his ward over the last three years.

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The traffic-calming roundabout seemed to me about as emblematic of the clash between rural and suburban perspectives as it gets. Construction of the roundabout, which is not a city project but the responsibility of Caivan and Canvanagh Construction, was supposed to be completed by mid-September. That schedule was upended when it became clear that the roundabout couldn’t adequately accommodate farm equipment and other large vehicles, which had to drive over its curbs to navigate the tight circle. Modifications are underway, with completion expected near the end of November.

And as ridiculous as it was, the fact that the problem was recognized and solved is at least a start. “City staff,” says Brown, “have indicated that, as a result of the rural summit process, it will be creating different design standards for rural infrastructure to accommodate high growth, like we’re seeing in Richmond and Manotick.”

Now if they can just do something about these damned DoHiles.

bdeachman@postmedia.com

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