A rainbow crosswalk, Uber Eats, Starbucks, a biryani restaurant and a French elementary school. These are five things Arnprior has now that weren’t there a decade ago.
Ottawa-area towns like Arnprior, Carleton and Kemptville were among Canada’s
fastest-growing small municipalities since the pandemic began
. They were growing even before that, fuelled by speedy commutes on four-lane highways, lower real estate prices and the appeal of small-town living.
The question is whether the exodus from city to small town will stagnate or reverse should
federal workers return to working full-time in the office
. Rumours have swirled that the Treasury Board
will be sending public servants back to the office
for five days a week, starting in 2027. They currently are required to be on site for three days a week.
“People made a commitment to live outside the city. It was a gamble. People weighed the risks and rewards. The reward was lower-cost housing. The risk was that you would give up more time than you wanted,” says Barry Wellar, a retired professional planner and academic.
Arnprior grew 9.5 per cent between the 2016 and 2021 census, to 9,629 residents. The burst of growth predated the pandemic. After a downtown revitalization project in 2017-18, businesses were clamouring for space in Arnprior’s historic downtown, says Mayor Lisa McGee.
Mississippi Mills, which includes Almonte, grew by 12 per cent between 2016 and 2021 to 14,740 residents.
North Grenville, which includes Kemptville, grew by 9.2 per cent to 17,964.
Carleton Place’s population exploded by 17.6 per cent in the same time period. According to Lanark County projections, Carleton Place, Mississippi Mills and Perth have an estimated combined intensification potential of 2,360 units.
Russell Township, which includes Russell and Embrun, grew by 18.6 per cent between 2016 and 2021. Russell has a current population of about 22,685, and it is projected to grow to 34,000 by 2046. The municipality is building a $105-million recreational complex.
Russell Township Mayor Mike Tarnowski is not expecting that many new residents will return to the city.
“We’re still in the growth mode, but there was a bit of dip since the pandemic,” said Tarnowski, who moved to Embrun in 1995 and has worked at Algonquin College’s Woodroffe campus until his retirement in May 2024, a one-way commute of about 50 kilometres.
He always calculated extra time for traffic. “If there was snow or rain, all bets were off. But for me, it was still worth it,” he said.
North Grenville has projected growth of between nine and 25 per cent over the next five years. In June 2024, ground was broken for a development that will see between 1,500 and 2,000 housing units built on 110 acres. A former elementary school is being converted into housing.
But commuting time has had a “chilling effect,” says Mayor Nancy Peckford. Some residents have reported a one-way
commute of up to an hour and a half to downtown Ottawa
. It’s also had an impact on small town life when the people counted upon to be community volunteers
have found themselves spending more time on the road
and less time at home.
“It’s not a reasonable commute anymore,” says Peckford. “We’re rivalling Toronto commuting times. It’s challenging for people to do anything else in their lives. I’ve spoken to people who are looking to get out of town. It’s not as tenable as it was before.”
Jamie and Stacy Campbell were among those who made the decision to leave Ottawa, moving from Orléans to Arnprior in 2020 to be close to Stacy’s family. Lower real estate prices were a nice side benefit, says Jamie Campbell.
The average resale house in Arnprior sold for about $223,000 in 2015, climbing to about $290,000 in 2020. By 2024, Arnprior resale house prices had jumped to an average of just over $500,000. But at the same time, house prices have also increased in Ottawa. In November, the average resale detached house sold for about $775,000, with an average of $437,000 for a condo.
“There’s no way you could sell a home here, despite the prices that are happening here in Arnprior, and be able to buy anything even remotely similar in Ottawa, even if you went lower and smaller,” says Campbell.
Working from the office more frequently has hit the Campbells’ budget. Campbell, a public servant, was a fan of public transit while he lived in Orléans, but has grown skeptical of the system’s reliability. He was originally commuting to work in downtown Ottawa one day a week, then three days, in a leased vehicle. But the added days on the road meant the lease was getting close to the mileage limit. The Campbells paid the lease penalty and bought a pickup truck.
“We’re paying higher payments than we were in the lease, of course. But we own it now, and that’s just a better way to go,” said Campbell. “But it’s still more money than has to be spent than originally we thought we’d have to (spend).”
Campbell doesn’t see Arnprior losing its growth momentum. “As the population of the city continues to grow — and it’s always going to push its way out — we are quite literally the border town,” he says.
He has no intention of moving, but if he had known five years ago he might be returning to work in downtown Ottawa five days a week, he might have considered moving to the west end of Ottawa.
“I love living here. This is my home now. My wife was born and raised here. She wanted to come home, I was happy that we had an opportunity to do that.”
For some, there has also been the opportunity cost of more time spent on the road.
Neil Hirsch and his family moved to Arnprior in 2022 after they found they could get more house there than in Kanata or Orléans.
“Working from home made moving to a community like this plausible. We liked all of the parts of living in a small community,” he says.
He still works mostly from home, but now his wife, Kat, commutes five days a week. The couple has two young sons and had to buy a second car. The commuting time has also changed the family dynamic. Their boys don’t see their mother as much as they see Neil, who works from home.
“I feel a part of this community. I think we’ve been intentional about making ourselves part of this community, and the maintenance of that is harder for (Kat) now,” says Hirsch. “She was involved in a lot of different things, and she has had to scale that back because she has lost time.”
Commuting has been particularly draining for families with young children and two parents who work downtown, he says.
“I know people who are now second-guessing their choice to move here. I have friends who are two federal employees and have two kids, and it’s a tough juggle,” he says.
Some are counting on the rumoured full return to office for public servants being ameliorated with measures such as flexible hours for families with childcare responsibilities, resulting in a minimal impact on the growth of Ottawa’s satellite towns.
Carleton Place-based realtor Kevin Cosgrove opened a coffee bar and co-working space in February 2023 with his wife, Kaitey. The working space has two closed-door offices that are always solidly booked, while the open space office is usually has about 50 per cent capacity, says Cosgrove.
Carleton Place is still in the “Goldilocks zone” of being near enough to the west-end of Ottawa. A new townhouse in Carleton Place is about $500,000 for a 1,200-square-foot unit, he says.
“The only people I’ve seen returning to the city are people who bought hobby farms in the middle of nowhere,” he says.
A new home in small town development can cost up to $200,000 less than its counterpart in the Ottawa suburbs because of factors such as the cost of land, lower development charges and quicker timelines, says Pierre Dufresne, the senior vice president at Cavanagh Communities, which has active developments in Ottawa, Stittsville, Carp and Carleton Place and land holdings in Almonte, Arnprior and Carleton Place.
“We still expect that young middle-income earners will want to continue to migrate to the rural villages because of the affordability factor.”
But under-forecasted population growth is threatening low-cost housing in small towns, economist Mike Moffatt has argued in a report on for the Missing Middle Initiative.
In Lanark County, almost all population growth has come from people moving in from other parts of the province, mostly Ottawa, rather than through immigration or a local baby boom. New residents are disproportionately young families looking for affordable family-sized housing as well as late-career professionals who are “cashing out” of more expensive urban properties, Moffatt wrote.
The “drive until you qualify exodus” will not only continue, but accelerate, he contends.
“An influx of young families can be incredibly beneficial, bringing new energy and new customers to local businesses. But communities also must be prepared for that growth, as those incoming families require a host of services,” says Moffatt.
He points out that Lanark also had pre-existing housing shortages. If shortages of family-sized housing continue in Ottawa and the population rises faster than Lanark municipalities anticipate, more people will want to live on the same limited pieces of land. Development charges will increase, and the cost will be passed on to homebuyers, Moffatt argues.
Wellar says he has been warning for several decades that commuters who pay taxes in a satellite community but use Ottawa infrastructure have been getting a “free ride” from Ottawa taxpayers who foot the bills.
He argues that workers who live outside the city should pay an additional tax to Ottawa. Employers, he points out, know where their workers live and would be in a position to deduct that tax.
“Someone has to fix the potholes. The roads have to be plowed,” he says. “It’s a matter of fairness. If you see the flow of cars going east and west, you know there are a lot of services being used and people aren’t paying for them.”
Others say the allure of country living for many public servants may be less enticing, as a full return to office could be lurking around the corner.
“I think it really cancels out a lot of the positivity of being in a place like this. It’s a serious inconvenience to have to do that every day,” says Hirsch.
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