I recently had the pleasure of finishing the 2nd of the 2 Primer courses that the city of Ottawa puts on for free for their citizens. The two courses are offered a couple times throughout the year, you can subscribe to their newsletter HERE for updates. They are about 3 hours long and you go to the Colonel By room on a Saturday or a Monday morning. It is presented by actual planners from the city that are very kind and knowledgeable and will take the time to talk to you after the class. After you finish the two Primer courses, you are free to take any of the sporadic elective courses that can be offered at anytime. The next one is about the OMB (Ontario Municipal Board) and will be in June 2015.
Primer I goes over such topics as:
– What is Land Use Planning?
– The planning act & provincial policy statement
– The Official Plan (Where do we do secondary plans or CDPs?)
– Zoning By-Law (This is very interesting and covers what they regulate & what they don’t, how they work, and a couple zoning reviews)
You can access the course notes HERE
In Primer II, they go over topics such as:
– Development applications (Costs, what is needed to proceed, how to do so)
– Who the decision makers are and how they make them
– What is the Committee of Adjustment and what do they do? What is the OMB?
– Pre-consultation and submission
– The consultations and reviews (Meeting with file leads, time-frames, they went over a great example of
– Issue resolution & report writing
– Who comprises the Urban Design Review Panel and what do they do?
You can access the documents for Primer II HERE
I really recommend that if you have questions for planners or know of people that do, that you go out and participate in this course. If you are in the real estate industry, this is a must. You have to be able to answer all of your client’s questions (or at least know how to point them in the right direction) regarding buying in certain areas. Your realtors should be able to know how to contact planning employees or councillors in case of problems.
Have any questions, ask away!
