Ottawa facing stiff competition in search for next chief planner

Ontario's three biggest cities are all on the hunt for a top bureaucrat who can lead them through the challenge of meeting aggressive housing targets, during a time when experts say hiring and retaining top talent is keeping municipal leaders up at night. 

Ottawa began its search for a new general manager of planning at the end of 2022, but failed to find a good fit in its first national search. Now it's trying again. 

Between scouting efforts, the city shook up its bureaucracy with a new strategic initiative department that's meant to relieve some of the pressure heaped on planning chiefs from higher levels of government. 

But with Toronto and Hamilton embarking on their own searches, experts say competition will be stiff — and the pressure on interim chiefs nearly unbearable. 

The chief planner bears the weight of meeting mandated growth targets while ensuring a sustainable approach.

That has meant tense and time-consuming negotiations with both provincial and federal governments, along with a proposed major overhaul to the rules that govern development. 

"It's such an important position right now when you think about mandates from the province around local governments needing to do their part and building more homes," explained Stacy Hushion, vice-president of consultancy firm StrategyCorp's government relations and management consulting division.

"But at the same time, there's a limited pool of talent." 

Wendy Stephanson, Ottawa's city manager, is keenly aware of that challenge and said municipalities and private companies share the same pressures. 

"It's everywhere," she told reporters earlier this year. "Everybody has to look at how they're recruiting." 

Freed from the need to lead strategic negotiations, Ottawa's newly reshaped planning department is now "laser focused" on traditional city building, Stephanson said. 

The city's planners have not only faced intense public scrutiny on major developments, including a subdivision planned far from the urban boundary and the second phase of the struggling Lansdowne Park public-private partnership, but must also navigate a constantly shifting policy environment.  

Stephanson describes an environment where housing directives change almost weekly — or what Lindsay Jones, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario's director of policy and government relations, calls a "perfect storm." 

It "says a lot" that Ottawa and other cities have had to reorganize departments to meet external demands, she said.