Public Health and Planning Collaborate to Create 15-Minute City in Ottawa

Written by Kim Perrotta

Ottawa has become one of the first communities in Canada, perhaps in North America, to enshrine the 15-minute neighbourhood in its Official Plan.

“In Ottawa Public Health (OPH), our goal was to have the City’s new Official Plan built on a framework that creates communities that are healthy, inclusive, sustainable and resilient,” offers Inge Roosendaal, Healthy Communities Planner with Ottawa Public Health. “We were using our ‘Five C’s – compact, connected, convivial, complete and cool’ to describe our vision of neighbourhoods that would support these goals, but found we needed a more cohesive concept to communicate to the public and planners. So, we pitched the idea of the ‘15-minute neighbourhood’ and it resonated` with our communities.”  

Process

The concept of the 15-minute neighbourhood was captured in a high-level policy directions report called the “5 Big Moves” that was approved by Ottawa City Council in September 2019 and it became a framework around which the Official Plan was built.

To meet its goals, Ottawa Public Health  co-located two of its staff to the Planning Department for the three years that it took to develop the new Official Plan.

“It was seminal to the achievement of public health’s goals that public health staff were assigned to work with the Planning Department for the duration of the process. In the past, we were participants who were consulted.  This time, we collaborated as fully engaged partners at every stage of the Official Plan process,” explained Inge. “This gave us the time to engage in many conversations with our colleagues in other departments. It allowed us to pull together the health evidence needed to support the policies we were promoting. We prepared one of the background papers that informed the development of the Official Plan – called “Healthy Ottawa by Design.”  And we subsequently informed the discussions for the many sections the Official Plan.”

It was actually helpful that we were engaging in this process during the COVID-19 pandemic because Ottawa residents – who were in lockdown for some of the time – were really feeling the impact that their neighbourhoods have on their lives,” noted Birgit Isernhagen, Program Planning and Evaluation Officer in Ottawa Public Health. “Those who lived in well-designed neighbourhoods could walk and cycle, access essential services, and enjoy parks and green space, while those who lived in poorly designed neighbourhoods were really feeling the effects of isolation on their physical and mental health. We started referring to the ‘15-minute neighbourhood’ as a pandemic-resilient neighbourhood and that resonated with the public.”        

Outcomes

Approved by City Council in November 2021, the new Official Plan will guide development in Ottawa for the next 25 years – until 2046. It identifies five broad policy directions as “the foundation to becoming the most livable mid-sized city in North America over the next century.”  Those policies articulate the need to:

  • Accommodate more growth by intensification of existing neighbourhoods rather than by greenfield development;
  • Ensure that the majority of trips in 2046 will be made by sustainable modes of transportation such as walking, cycling, transit or carpooling;
  • Use sophisticated urban and community design principles to create stronger, more inclusive and vibrant neighbourhoods and villages that also reflect and integrate Ottawa’s economic, racial and gender diversity;
  • Embed environmental, climate and health resiliency and energy into the framework of planning policies to support walkable 15-minute neighbourhoods with a diverse mix of land uses, and mature trees, greenspaces and pathways, that help the City achieve its net zero climate commitment for 2050, its 40% urban forest canopy cover target, and increase the City’s resiliency to the effects of climate change.
  • Embed economic development into the framework of the planning policies.

The Official Plan identifies six cross-cutting strategic policy directions that are advanced through implementation policies in multiple sections of the Plan. The Healthy and Inclusive Communities, the Climate Change and Energy, and Gender and Racial Equity policies are included in this list.

“While the broad Healthy and Inclusive Communities policies address sustainability, health equity, the need for age-friendly and inclusive communities, the cornerstone framework that pulls these elements together is the 15-minute neighbourhood” explains Inge. “We describe the 15-minute neighbourhood through policy as one that is well-connected to a diverse mix of land uses, includes a range of housing types and affordabilities, provides easy access to shops, services, schools and childcare, employment, greenspaces, parks and pathways, and is well serviced by active transportation and transit.”

“Public health staff were not responsible for developing the broad Climate Change and Energy policies, but we worked closely with our Planning colleagues to ensure that the Official Plan policies addressed the actions needed to increase community resiliency and protect the public from the impacts of the changing climate,” offered Birgit. “For example, it includes commitments to reduce the urban heat island effect, improve access to shade, preserve nature, support community gardens and food production, and enable active transportation, transit use and outdoor recreation in all weather conditions. It also notes the need to employ an equity and inclusion lens when implementing climate policies.”

Specific recommendations for these cross-cutting policies have been integrated throughout the Official Plan to ensure that the strategic goals are actually implemented. They will also be supported by other policies and plans that have been, or will be, developed by the City. For example, in September 2021, the City released a 15-Minute Neighbourhoods Baseline Report that analyses existing neighbourhoods across Ottawa against the criteria for the 15-minute neighbourhood and identifies the next steps for implementing the policy goals enshrined in the Official Plan.

All images courtesy of Ottawa Public Health.

Toronto Introduces Equity Lens to Cycling Infrastructure

Written by Kim Perrotta

The Challenge

Historical practices have resulted in the inequitable delivery of services to some areas of Toronto. The unequal burden of COVID-19 among residents revealed the economic, racial, health and social disparities that exist in some neighbourhoods. 

But even before the pandemic, the City recognized the need to transform many of its systems, including how transportation projects are planned and implemented, to address those inequities. This applies to cycling infrastructure as well as other modes of transportation.  

“Historically, there has been much more investment in on-street cycling infrastructure in the downtown core of Toronto, than in the suburbs. This has meant that a number of lower income neighbourhoods in the City’s suburbs have not been well served by cycling investments,” offered Katie Wittmann, Project Lead, Capital Projects and Program, Transportation Services. “In 2019, we developed a Cycling Network Plan that applied an equity lens for the first time to give greater priority to underserved neighbourhoods in the city. A similar equity-based approach is being applied to other modes of transportation as well.”  

The Process

The equity lens applied to the 2019 Cycling Network Plan was grounded in the Neighbourhood Improvement Areas (NIAs) that were identified by the City in 2014. Toronto’s 140 neighbourhoods were scored using 15 indicators of neighbourhood inequity with statistics related to issues such as income levels, education, the walkability of neighbourhoods, voter turnout, and health risks such as diabetes. The results were used to score neighbourhoods on a Neighbourhood Equity Index. Neighbourhoods that passed a certain threshold were identified as NIAs that would receive additional staff support and funding to address inequities. The 2019 Cycling Network Plan added NIAs to the prioritization process for future cycling investments.  

The 2021 Cycling Network Plan Update, which was approved by City Council in December 2021, applies an expanded equity-based approach.  This time, staff combined a neighbourhood analysis of cycling infrastructure with a neighbourhood analysis of equity to create a Neighbourhood Cycling and Equity Map that combines both ratings and their overlap to prioritize investments. The 2021 Cycling Network Plan Update also shares analyses of other equity-related variables, such as crowded transit routes and areas that need more parkland, which are also considered in the expanded prioritization process

“We engaged with some advocacy, academic, and community groups on the revised approach but were limited in our ability to consult because of the pandemic,” noted Katie. “There was overall support for the updated analyses and approach, but we would like to do more consultation on the broader transportation programming process in the coming years, in addition to the project-specific consultations that already take place for each cycling route.” 

The Outcome

The installation of cycling infrastructure over the last three years has been unprecedented in Toronto’s history. From 2019 to 2021, 65 km of new bikeways were installed and 47 km of existing cycling routes were upgraded or enhanced. This work has accelerated progress towards the City’s goal of making cycling infrastructure accessible (i.e. within 250 to 500 metres) to all of the City’s population and jobs. The percentage of people and jobs that have access to cycling infrastructure has increased from 62.8% to 67.1% over the last three years. This means that about 180,000 more people are living or working within close proximity of a cycling route today than in 2018.   

“We have also seen some concrete improvements in underserved neighbourhoods over the last few years. For example, many cycling routes have been installed in Thorncliffe Park & Flemingdon Park (#55 and #44 on the map) and near York University and Downsview (#27 and #26 on the map), and there are more routes in these and other NIAs planned for the near-term” said Katie. 

The 2021 Cycling Network Plan identifies the need to increase the cycling budget to enhance public consultations, hire more staff to support design, consultation and delivery of cycling infrastructure, and for an increase in the capital budget from $16 million per year to $20 million per year.

“Since 2016, we have not increased the cycling budget to meet our equity goals; we have simply re-allocated existing funds for those goals,” explained Katie. “However, the pandemic brought a huge demand for cycling infrastructure from residents and Councillors alike which resulted in increased spending in 2020 to meet that demand, and we don’t see that demand changing in the future.”

All photos courtesy of Kanchan Maharaj.

Planting Trees to Attenuate Heat Waves in Montreal

Written by Kim Perrotta

Goals

A new project is aiming to turn down the temperature in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in MontrealVert le Nord aims to green urban spaces to reduce the urban heat island effect and improve the quality of life and work in the north end of Montreal.

Inspired by the ILEAU campaign run by the Montreal Regional Environmental Council (CRE-Montreal), this project is led by the non-profit organization, Ville en vert, in collaboration with the non-profit organization, VertCité. The Vert le Nord project is directed at neighborhoods in Montreal that rate high both as urban heat islands and for social deprivation.

“One of our goals is to create green, cool spaces in neighbourhoods that can experience extreme heat because they have too few trees, too little shade, and too much pavement, that are also home to socially disadvantaged populations,” offered Clementine Mosdale, Project Manager for Vert le Nord. “These populations can be more sensitive to extreme heat because social disadvantages – such as low incomes and poor working conditions – can put these populations at greater risk for negative health outcomes.  These populations can also be more vulnerable to extreme heat because they are less likely to have access to air conditioning, cool parks or swimming pools that offer relief from high temperatures.”

“We also want to raise awareness about environmental issues in the City and the actions that people can take to address them,” noted Tiphanie Lebeaupin, the Communications Officer for both Vert le Nord and Ville en vert. “With the Vert le Nord project, we particularly want to increase public awareness about both, the negative health impacts that can result from extreme heat, and the health benefits that can be provided by trees.”

Process

The project is funded for three years (2020-2022) by the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ), which put out an open call for proposals from organizations to “combat” the urban heat island effects in Montreal. This funding is part of Quebec’s 2013-20 Climate Change Action Plan.

Vert le Nord is focused on, and supported by, three administrative boroughs – Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Saint-Laurent, and Villeray—Saint-Michel—Parc-Extension. These are high-density boroughs that are characterized by heat islands.

“We want to work with municipalities, schools, residents and some local businesses to identify the projects that can green their neighbourhoods while meeting other needs they have identified for themselves,” explains Clémentine.“We want to find synergies with them; see if we can meet more than one need at a time. For example, green places that create social spaces where people can meet and interact, while also reducing the urban heat island effect and the hazards it presents.” 

“We really work to educate and mobilize the community. We want to engage them in the decisions that affect their neighbourhoods and in the planting of trees,” noted Tiphanie.

Outcomes

The project began in 2020. While constrained by the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the project team was still able to accomplish a great deal. That first year was spent contacting local residents and organizations, identifying potential locations for projects, and convening meetings with partners to discuss project ideas.

There was more “on the ground” work in the second year. The Vert le Nord team completed 10 projects in 2021: one with a non-profit organization, one with an early childhood center, two with businesses, four green alley projects with the municipality, and two that involved planting trees on private property. In 2021, Vert le Nord removed 51 square metres of pavement and supported the planting of 40 trees and 316 shrubs and perennial plants.

“We are eager to do work on school properties because children are particularly sensitive to heat and school yards often have a lot of pavement, very few trees, and little shade,” noted Clémentine. “We were unable to complete any school projects in 2021 but plan to do so in 2022.”

Learn More

To find out more about the project, visit the vertlenord.ca website, or watch their videos:

Photos courtesy of Vert le Nord.

Pathways Between Transportation and Health – February 4th | 2022

VIDEO AVAILABLE

Transportation is an integral part of our daily lives, giving us access to people, education, jobs, services, and goods. Our transportation choices and behaviours are influenced by four interrelated factors: the land use and built environment, infrastructure, available modes, and emerging technologies/disruptors. These factors influence how we move ourselves and goods, and are modifiable. In turn, these factors impact various exposures, lifestyles and health outcomes. Understanding how transportation can be both beneficial and detrimental to health is crucial for policy- and decision-makers aiming to prioritize and improve public health in their cities.

This webinar will:

  • Summarize pathways that link transportation to health
  • Review how pathways between transportation and health intersect with equity
  • Show quantitative health impact assessments of these pathways from cities across the world
  • Overview data and methodological gaps in health impact assessments of transportation decisions
  • Discuss how understanding the pathways, health impacts and co-benefits can inform decision making about transportation and public health

About the speaker:

Haneen Khreis is a Senior Research Associate in the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge and is an Associate Scientist with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. She is a cross-disciplinary researcher broadly studying the health impacts of transport planning and policy with a special interest in cities. She is trained in transport planning and engineering, vehicle emissions and air quality monitoring and modelling, systematic reviews, health impact and burden of disease assessment. She also has expertise in policy options generation and the science-policy link. Haneen has worked extensively with air pollution and asthma in particular, doing epidemiological, burden of disease assessment and monetization studies.

She has published over 70 peer-reviewed papers, chapters and technical reports, with a large media impact, and edited three books on integrating human health into planning, transport and health, and traffic-related air pollution and health. Haneen recently developed a cross-disciplinary course titled “Traffic-Related Air Pollution: Emissions, Human Exposures, and Health.”. She is dedicated to improving human health and equity through supporting relevant education, workforce development, and evidence-based healthy and just planning.

Creating Healthy, Age-Friendly Communities in Rural Canada-Grey County

Written by Kim Perrotta

Tucked under the scenic southern shore of Georgian Bay in Ontario, Grey County is home to nearly 100,000 people who live in dispersed housing across 4,500 square kilometres of rural areas and small urban centres. Owen Sound, with a population of 22,000 people, is the County’s largest urban centre. 

“About 10 years ago, the Health Unit began cultivating relationships with our municipal partners, in particular the Planning Departments in Grey and Bruce Counties, because our counties have high rates of obesity and chronic disease. For example, the rate of cardiovascular disease deaths is 27% higher in Grey and Bruce Counties than the provincial average,” said Jason Weppler, Program Manager, Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention, Grey Bruce Health Unit. “To some extent, these health statistics reflect the fact that both rural counties have older populations.” 

About 24% of the people in Grey and Bruce Counties are over 65 compared with 17% of Ontarians. And that difference is not expected to change over the next 20 years. But other factors also contribute to higher rates of chronic disease. 

“With no transit, dispersed housing, and small urban centres that were not developed with “walkability” in mind, people in these counties have had fewer opportunities to maintain the levels of physical activity needed for good health. These are issues that can only be addressed by looking at how we design and develop our communities,” Weppler said.

In light of these trends, the County and Health Unit have been collaborating to create healthy, age-friendly communities. In the early years, the planners and public health professionals worked to understand one another’s goals and processes. More recently, they have cultivated relationships with engineers and developers in the County, particularly around issues related to transportation systems.  

“As Planners, we don’t necessarily have training in the social and environmental indicators of health so we didn’t understand how community design might influence physical and mental health in our communities. It has been helpful to work with the health unit to understand their goals and to get their help shaping our policies,” offers Scott Taylor, Manager of Planning Services, Grey County. “It has been particularly useful that these conversations are also happening at all levels of staff in our organizations and at the Board of Health where the Medical Officer of Health has been working to educate the mayors and deputy mayors about the links between community design and public health.” 

Grey County’s new Official Plan, approved by the Province in 2019, reflects the inter-sectoral collaboration that has occurred in Grey County. It includes a number of over-arching policies, and many very specific policies, that aim to encourage the development of age-friendly, healthy communities. It identifies the need to promote active transportation infrastructure including pedestrian furniture, safe and accessible public open spaces, access to green space, access to healthy affordable local foods, and development for all ages and abilities, and residential intensification, while limiting exposure to environmental hazards. 

To achieve these goals, the Official Plan commits the County to considering a wide variety of transportation modes when designing its roads. It indicates, for example, that the County will consider paved shoulders for all County roads to support cyclists and other alternate modes of travel. It also considers the connection of existing and future trails, sidewalks, and paved shoulders throughout the County, acknowledging the health benefits of a connected active transportation network.

Wanting to see these recommendations implemented in each new build, the two Counties and the Health Unit provide a Healthy Development Checklist to developers at the front end of the development process so they can integrate healthy community designs into their projects. It recommends supporting mixed land use by integrating a variety of residential development within 800 metres of retail, recreational centres, parks and public spaces; preserving urban forests and dedicating no less than 5% of the total proposed land area to outdoor public spaces; and designing neighbourhood blocks that are less than 250 meters in length.

One result of the County’s focus on transportation is that infrastructure will be dramatically expanded in the coming decades. A new Cycling and Trails Master Plan was created in 2020 to complement the Official Plan and recommends developing 733 km of cycling and trail facilities over 20 years with 120 km in paved shoulders and 249 km in signed routes to be developed over the first 10 years. 

In partnership with students from the Urban and Rural Planning program at the University of Guelph, Grey County also developed Healthy Community and Residential Guidelines to encourage planning and development stakeholders to create connected, pedestrian-friendly, healthy communities that support physical activity. For example, it recommends a 400 metre walking radius to parks.   

“The years of education and collaboration are paying off,” notes Scott. “We have seen a change in the attitudes of elected representatives. When projects are proposed now, they are consistently asking important questions such as: ‘where are the parks? Where are the trails/sidewalks?’. There is a feeling across the County now that we are all working towards similar goals.”

Increasing Vegetation to Improve Health in Low-Income Neighbourhoods in Montreal

Written by Kim Perrotta

For six years, the Local Interventions in Environment and Urban Planning (ILEAU) program has been working to green the east side of Montreal.

“Many of the residents in the east end of Montreal are disadvantaged populations; they are people with lower incomes or newcomers to the country for example,” said Nilson Zepeda, Campaign Coordinator for ILEAU. “They have a life expectancy that is 10 years shorter than the average for the city.  This makes them more vulnerable to extreme events such as heat waves. In addition, these neighbourhoods get hotter and stay hotter longer than other neighbourhoods in Montreal because there are fewer trees, less vegetation and more pavement and concrete.” 

The ILEAU program is run by the non-profit organization, Montreal Regional Environmental Council (CRE-Montréal). Since it began in 2015, it has received $1.2 million from the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) which it uses to employ 2.5 staff and support a wide range of interventions by collaborating with local and regional organizations.

“We are interested in funding projects that address the health and social needs of our partners as well as our green objectives”, explained Béatrice Viens Côté, the Communications and Marketing Officer for ILEAU. “For example, we funded a project at a housing co-op that involved lifting pavement, planting trees, and creating a space where residents can meet and socialize.  This intervention promises to foster social engagement and a sense of community which can improve the mental and physical health of the residents, while also providing shade and reducing the temperature in and around the buildings.”

One initiative ILEAU funded aims to create two major links between the St. Lawrence River and the Rivière des Prairies to provide both an ecological corridor that can strengthen biological diversity and an active mobility corridor that increases neighbourhood resiliency and access to green space. Another project aims to develop safe and user-friendly bus stops and transportation access points by organizing participatory urban planning activities such as exploratory walks and community workshops. ILEAU is also supporting the development of cycling infrastructure to provide an alternate transportation option where residents are poorly served by public transit.

Evaluating a project such as ILEAU is difficult because it may take many years to see the full impact of planted trees and connected nature corridors on the physical environment, local ecosystems, and the health of local residents. However, the benefits of these actions will be felt for decades. In the short-term, ILEAU has documented its impact with measurable actions. Over the last six years, its staff have:

  •  Convened 450 meetings with stakeholders
  •  Cultivated 60 local and regional partners
  • Collaborated on projects with 26 schools and daycares, 71 companies, and 200 property owners
  • Completed 202 field projects
  • Removed 3,058 square meters of asphalt
  • Planted 31,840 trees and other plants
  • Engaged 206 citizens in seven citizen campaigns
  • Leveraged almost $1.2 in cash and in-kind contributions from partners and owners
  • Organized 15 exploratory walks (foot + bicycle) in collaboration with local stakeholders around public transport hubs, health establishments and greenspaces
  • Co-produced and launched the Guide “Reinventing the wait for the bus” with the University of Montreal and Concordia University
  • Produced 50 newsletters, 40 press releases, and generated 150 media reports (television, radio, newspapers, etc.)

“With all of the projects funded, we have worked closely with our partners who know their needs better than us, to find interventions that meet their needs as well as ours.  We are particularly interested in interventions that address social inequities that contribute to poor health in these neighbourhoods” noted Nilson. “With this collaborative approach, we have also been able to match our funding with $1.4 million in cash, and some in-kind funding, from our partners over the last six years.” 

All photos courtesy of ILEAU.