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December was a big month due to the culmination of the city's budget process, and it was a reasonably good one for Barrhaven. Below you can find details on investments in specific infrastructure in our community, and details on improved city services.
The Barrhaven Civic Centre, which will be part of the heart of our community, received significant investments:
$32 million for the new Barrhaven Civic Centre. With already secured funding from the Province and Federal Government, the Barrhaven Civic Centre is now fully funded and we can start the hard work of designing and building a community centre that truly brings our community together. You can read more about the project here.
$4.9M to build a new Ottawa Public Library branch in Barrhaven, that will act as the foundation of our new Civic Centre.
Infrastructure was a major investment area for Barrhaven, including:
$10.86 million for developing the next phase of the Greenbank realignment. This is in addition to the funding I secured last year to begin phase 1 of the project. Construction on the first stage of the project is expected to start in 2026. There is still more work ahead of us to ensure Greenbank is built ahead of schedule, but this budget builds on the momentum we secured last year.
$1 million for an Environmental Assessment for improvements to Barnsdale road. This project will help set up the new 416 interchange for success, and ensures we learn the lessons from current Greenbank road and have the necessary infrastructure for new developments completed before people start moving in.
$1.04 million for Cambrian and Borrisokane intersection improvements, including the study and design of new intersection controls to help bring in needed safety, lighting and traffic flow support in the Half Moon Bay community.
$597,000 for Cambrian at Elevation/Apolune road, for preliminary review for potential intersection modifications.
$536,000 for resurfacing for Greenbank Road, specifically at the intersection of Greenbank and Jockvale Road, as well as Greenbank south of Kilbirnie Drive.
$150,000 for the Houlahan Path rehabilitation, to finally fix the goo pond on the path along the train tracks near Houlahan Park.
There were also investments in key community services, including:
A 4.4% increase to police funding that will go towards hiring an additional 22 new police officers for 2025. I have heard you loud and clear on your concerns about rising crime. This budget is the first step in a multi-year project to hire 100 new police officers by 2027. I will continue to work with the Ottawa Police Services Board to ensure Barrhaven gets the policing it needs.
23 new paramedics, to build on the over twenty paramedics we hired last year in response to a motion I passed with council colleagues. By working with our local hospitals and getting more resources for our paramedic services, this budget will represent a major step forward in reducing and preventing level zero events where no ambulances are on the roads when people need them.
$1.3M for the Dolan Antler Stormwater Pump Station rehabilitation, which will continue to protect Barrhaven properties from flooding.
$98,000 and $95,000 for improvements to community pools at Walter Baker Centre and Minto Recreation Complex, respectively.
From a citywide perspective of the budget, there was much discussion over the past few months on senior fares for transit – this was resolved on Wednesday with a resolution to remove the 120% increase to senior fares and instead introduce a slight increase to make seniors fares equal to the EquiPass program, which is the City’s $58.25/monthly pass for low income riders making less than $24,000 a year. I’m very happy that the original plan was modified to improve the final outcome. To be clear, we are investing an additional 11.4% in our transit budget this year while holding the overall municipal tax increase to 3.9%. I would have preferred a lower tax increase, but I know the Mayor moved mountains to prevent Ottawa from following the example set last year by Toronto (9.5%), Calgary (7.8%) and Vancouver (7.5%), in their nearly double digit tax increases. If you're interested in more comparison, Councillor David Brown's office created a graph to expand on and visualize the above, which can be found here. Part of the efforts to keep Ottawa’s tax increase low included finding $54.2 million in savings and efficiencies as part of this budget, the equivalent of another 2.5% tax increase. Since the start of this term of council, we have found over $200 million in operational and capital efficiencies, the equivalent of 10% in tax savings. There’s more to do in cutting red tape while improving both the quality of city services and their efficiency, but the last three budgets represent a good first step in fixing the city’s tough fiscal situation that LRT and some questionable decisions by the last term of council has put us in. You can find more details on the citywide budget here.