Ottawa Election 2026: Wilson Lo, Barrhaven East Ward

So what is the single biggest reason housing costs so much in your ward? And what would you do about it in your first year in council?

Well, Barhaven, as you know, is a low-density suburb.

It was built mostly from about the 70s.

My half of Barhaven was built until about 2015.

Of course, Barhaven continues to expand.

The costs of urban expansion are high.

You have lots of roads, lots of pipes.

You need lots of services relative to the number of people that it does serve compared to places like downtown, like Westboro.

The good thing is that some of the newer suburbs, some of the newer suburbs are denser.

It's good in terms of that balance between services and people.

But it does also mean that the neighborhoods are tighter.

You have a lot more parking issues in these newer neighborhoods.

And, you know, I...

I have some newer neighborhoods, but most of my neighborhoods were built before 2000.

So it's interesting to see the difference in the newer and older neighborhoods.

In terms of why housing costs have gotten so expensive, that's partly why.

But a lot of it is also driven by the cost of material, the cost of labor, the market in general.

There are some initiatives by both the city, by the province to try to bring those costs down, whether it's development charge reductions or things like that.

But I also think we should try somehow, I don't know how, but somehow try and focus on the cost of resale homes.

I mean, that's very much a private market transaction, but if there's If there's some lever we can pull to help with that a little bit, because the focus has very much been on new

homes.

I think that's one lever that we can, at the very least, see if there's a way we can do anything about.

But if it is just that deep into the private market, then perhaps.

Perhaps there's a, then I guess that's, that's it.

Ottawa is committed to more homes inside existing neighborhoods.