Canada’s Capital Region

Every day, the National Capital Commission (NCC) works to ensure that Canada’s Capital Region is a dynamic and inspiring source of pride for all Canadians, and a legacy for generations to come.

The NCC is the federal urban planner and approval agency in Canada’s Capital Region. In this role, the NCC looks decades ahead to ensure that the planning, development, conservation, and improvement of the Nation’s Capital reflects its significance as Canada’s seat of national government. The NCC fulfills its mandate through the following areas of activity:

• setting the long-term planning directions for federal lands;
• guiding and controlling the use and development of federal lands;
• managing, conserving and protecting NCC assets (including Gatineau Park, the Greenbelt, riverfront parks, real property, and other assets such as interprovincial bridges, pathways and parkways); and
• maintaining heritage sites such as the official residences and national commemorative sites.

Design excellence

Planning for a capital city must highlight government and parliamentary functions, and must embrace the aspirations of nation building, belonging, memory, ritual and visual quality. Every effort is made to ensure that the Canadian capital is a distinctive, vibrant and sustainable city.

The NCC promotes excellence in the planning and design of federal projects, in accordance with the character and significance of Canada’s Capital.

Here is the NCC’s Planning Framework:

NCC plans

Plans and policies are used by NCC staff to guide the decision-making process. To view these plans, click here.

Plan for Canada’s Capital

The overarching planning document is the Plan for Canada’s Capital. This is the highest-level document, providing long-term, strategic direction and policies for the use, management and design of federal lands in the Capital. The policies of this plan are reviewed approximately every 10 years.

Impact Assessment Act

The Impact Assessment Act (IAA) is an important decision-making tool for projects on federal lands which aims to avoid and/or minimize impacts to the environment, and to promote environmental compliance with other acts and regulations.

Conservation of federal heritage buildings and sites

The NCC provides policy direction and a planning framework to all federal departments and agencies in Canada’s Capital Region, including the NCC itself, for the responsible planning and management of heritage assets. This function is delivered in collaboration with the Parks Canada Agency, especially the Federal Heritage Buildings Review Office (FHBRO).

Archaeological resources

Archaeological resources are an integral part of the region’s heritage, and are taken into account in the planning phase of projects. These resources may either be pre-contact in nature, consisting of the physical evidence of land use and occupation by Indigenous peoples prior to the arrival of Europeans, or relate to the history of settlement and occupation of the region by Euro-Canadians. Archaeological resources are non-renewable, and are protected in federal jurisdictions. The NCC works closely with the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg and Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation through its Protocol for the Co-Management of Archaeological Resources (2017).

NCC Approval Process

The approval responsibilities of the NCC are fundamental to its mandate as the federal planning and coordinating agency within Canada’s Capital Region.

The approval process has the following objectives:

• to coordinate land use, development and other works on federal lands in order to reinforce and positively contribute to the unique character, identity and quality of the Capital “in accordance with its national significance”;
• to ensure that federal properties and buildings are effectively planned and developed to standards and criteria appropriate to their location and context in the Capital; and
• to implement federal legislation and NCC approved plans, and other environmental and heritage policies.

For more information please visit:

• National Capital Commission
• City of Ottawa
• Ville de Gatineau
• Ottawa Tourism
• Tourisme Outaouais