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The city must “get creative” if it wants to bring the O-Train all the way to Riverside South, planning boss Steve Willis said Thursday.

Tweaking the proposed extension of the north-south Trillium Line to bring trains almost a kilometre closer to the fast-growing suburb can be done as part of the $3-billion Stage 2 transit program. The future station would move south from a rural area along Bowesville Road to Earl Armstrong Road.

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But a further three-kilometre extension to the community’s future town centre at the corner of Earl Armstrong and Limebank roads — which would cost roughly $40 million, including $8 million to $10 million for an additional train — is beyond what the city can afford.

That creates, in the words of Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, an “opportunity to work with the development community,” although what exactly that would look like still needs to be hammered out.

The city could explore using development charges to raise the cash it needs, though Willis said city officials have only begun to figure out how this might work and whether the charges, which would be applied to cost of building every new home in a specific geographic area, could cover all or part of the cost.