Mid-Centretown Design Plan

[rakerman]

The final plan (now the Centretown CDP) is up

http://midcentretown.wordpress.com/

http://midcentretown.files.wordpress...ober-20121.pdf
http://midcentretown.files.wordpress...p_appendix.pdf

It goes to Planning Committee on Dec 11, 2012

There are also draft docs at http://ottawa.ca/midcentretown
http://ottawa.ca/en/city_hall/planni...ment/index.htm
http://ottawa.ca/en/city_hall/planni...ment/index.htm

[waterloowarrior]

Thanks for the links! 4-9 floors on Bank... makes sense given Central and some other recent development that fits in well. I'm not sure about the limit along the Queensway (25 floors proposed), but I guess maybe the south side would be more appropriate for "unlimited" height. I think this is the type of CDP that will really spur development in the area.

[waterloowarrior]

development industry's proposed revisions to the CDP
http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2012/...or-centretown/

[McC]

"the plan now includes a provision for “tall landmark buildings” along Kent, O’Connor and Metcalfe, albeit under tighter restrictions... If they meet those requirements, though, there’d be no limit on how tall they could be, other than a federal rule meant to keep buildings from looming over Parliament."

Centretown plan revised to allow taller ‘landmark’ buildings

BY DAVID REEVELY, OTTAWA CITIZENFEBRUARY 16, 2013

OTTAWA — An intervention from developers in the long-term plan for Centretown has brought them new rights to erect tall buildings in the downtown core.

The Mid-Centretown Community Design Plan has been in the works for three years and, as of Friday, it’s on its third final draft. Meant to guide redevelopment in the neighbourhood for decades, all along it’s called for:

— towers at the north end of Centretown near the business district and at the south along Catherine Street,

— shorter buildings along Bank and Elgin to emphasize them as commercial main streets,

— better east-west connections to make Bronson Avenue feel more a part of the district instead of a highway that cuts through it, and

—s mall parks and pedestrian-friendly features along car-oriented thoroughfares like Kent, O’Connor and Metcalfe streets.

What was supposed to be the really last draft of the plan was held up in late 2012 when a coalition of developers filed a major objection and asked the city to consider a wholesale replacement of the plan’s key chapter on urban design and building heights. The private urban planner they hired, Ted Fobert, argued that the city needed a grander vision for Centretown’s future and that builders needed rules with more flexibility if they’re to create the kind of downtown the city’s planners want.

The whole thing, which was due to be approved by city council by the end of last year, was knocked off the agenda while the city’s own consultant, George Dark, contemplated Fobert’s recommendations. And Dark’s latest final draft indicates he thinks Fobert had some worthwhile things to say.

Most significantly, the plan now includes a provision for “tall landmark buildings” along Kent, O’Connor and Metcalfe, albeit under tighter restrictions than Fobert wanted. They’d be considered if they could “provide and deliver a substantial, publicly accessible and publicly functioning open space and/or a significant public institutional use, such as a cultural or community facility, on the site,” they’d have to exhibit the highest design standards, and they’d have to be big, typically with frontages on at least three block faces.

If they meet those requirements, though, there’d be no limit on how tall they could be, other than a federal rule meant to keep buildings from looming over Parliament.

The new version of the plan also includes more room for mixing residential and commercial uses in the neighbourhood north of the Museum of Nature, which previous versions intended to keep more strictly residential. Centretown already has lots of jobs in it, the plan says, and its biggest challenge is in keeping housing.

Both Fobert and the area’s councillor, Diane Holmes, were off work on Friday. Holmes’s adviser on urban planning, Robert Smythe, said the changes aren’t significant enough to trigger full new public consultations on the plan.

“The changes are, I don’t want to say minor, but they aren’t enormous,” he said.

The final — really final, supposedly — plan is due to be considered at a March 26 meeting of city council’s planning committee, at which any member of the public can speak.

dreevely@ottawacitizen.com

ottawacitizen.com/greaterottawa

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by McC

"the plan now includes a provision for “tall landmark buildings” along Kent, O’Connor and Metcalfe, albeit under tighter restrictions... If they meet those requirements, though, there’d be no limit on how tall they could be, other than a federal rule meant to keep buildings from looming over Parliament."

If the new rules are that restrictive limiting the number of projects that meet the criteria, won't that lead to a Metropole kind of situation where we have random tall buildings standing by themselves instead of in clusters?

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

If the new rules are that restrictive limiting the number of projects that meet the criteria, won't that lead to a Metropole kind of situation where we have random tall buildings standing by themselves instead of in clusters?

A modicum of a varied skyline wouldn't kill this city.

[McC]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

If the new rules are that restrictive limiting the number of projects that meet the criteria, won't that lead to a Metropole kind of situation where we have random tall buildings standing by themselves instead of in clusters?

we're talking about Centretown, so these hypothetical tall buildings shouldn't be standing all by themselves.

The City's ongoing inability to apply and enforce its existing criteria in real world applications should be cause for concern, though. The City has all kinds of guidelines and rules already, but then you read something like the Planning Department report for 111 Parkdale (which should be publicly accessible soon, if it's not already, or think back to SoHo Italia), which just says things like "High rise buildings are contemplated for Parkdale Avenue" and "the architecture is of a high quality," without ever properly addressing why a 32-storey 112-metre building, specifically, should be approved on this site, or why this particular building design from this developer (with architecture that is anything but "high quality") should get a taller building with higher density, and therefore, a heck of a lot more value from their investment than the City had approved just a few months ago immediately next door at 99 Parkdale (only 28 storeys and 84 metres).

This question isn't just relevant to communities not wanting tall buildings in their backyard, it's also about developers and landowners getting fair expectations on the returns for their investment. Urbandale gets shafted if a few months later a rival gets approval for a much more profitable development immediately next door; it means their rival will have more money in their pocket and more prestige in hand next time a choice redevelopment property comes on the market, in competing to hire the best contractors and attracting investment, when ultimately going to market, etc. But the City doesn't require TEGA to justify why they should get this leg up, and it treats the proposal in near-isolation, the same way it did Urbandale's.

I imagine the same thing will happen at Carling-Preston when The Icon gets approved, and then Richcraft will probably try to one-up Claridge at the Dow Honda site -- why wouldn't they? -- CDP be damned! The worst they can do is get approved for 40-some storeys, but Hey! maybe they get 50? all it costs is a couple of $100K in professional services, and the potential payoff is huge. Meanwhile, it's up to "NIMBY" community associations to fight endlessly with their own time and money to try and get the City to actually pay lip service to its own rules and policies. What a mess!

I think the only way anything will change is if the Chair of the Planning Committee starts rejecting proposals (and Staff reports) from even appearing on the agenda before they are properly justified: "No. This isn't ready for Council. Don't come back until it is. No, seriously. Buzz off." But that'll be the day.

[Capital Shaun]

Originally Posted by McC

...and it treats the proposal in near-isolation...

Lots of our development/infrastructure/transportation planning seems to occur in isolation.

[Luker]

Very interesting news and discussion. It could potentially be a good thing if the regualations are observed properly. It will be intriguing to see how the new guidelines and rules of the MCDP and OP will be respected.

[AuxTown]

I'm thinking 55 storeys up and down O'Connor and Kent to the 417
Wouldn't that give Holmes and aneurysm!
If this passes, it is going to open up some interesting development potential; including my current place of work. Might make my life complicated in the near future.

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

Wouldn't that give Holmes and aneurysm!

Can we all make an effort to skip this kind of remark? It's cruel and makes us look like amateur hour.

[umbria27]

Some comments from George Dark, in an interview with Reevely, on what Dark considers the criterea would be for tall landmark buildings.

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2013/...h-george-dark/

Plain extra height or density wouldn’t be enough, under Dark’s strictures: there’d have to be this major public amenity at ground level.

Ottawa’s had some experience with this before. Under construction at Nepean and Metcalfe streets is a big condo project by Claridge, one that city council approved on condition that it include a new national portrait gallery on the ground floor. Then the feds scrapped plans for the portrait gallery and Claridge went to the Ontario Municipal Board and got permission to build its condos anyway. (Last I heard, the ground floor is now supposed to have a supermarket, which Centretown can probably use, but it’s not the major cultural institution people had in mind.)

How, I asked Dark, do you keep that from happening again?

“What you want to do is bind these things up exquisitely so they can’t come apart,” he said. He’s not intimately familiar with the Claridge case, he said, but it seems to him that the gallery planning and the building planning were on separate tracks, so the second could continue even after the first was aborted. Procedurally, you have to make sure the two parts are inseparably fused.

He gave the example of Toronto’s new headquarters for the Toronto International Film Festival, the Bell Lightbox.

If this is the case, it would seem to me that the city should start to make a list of significant public amenities that it would consider proposals for. New central library would be one. What else? A downtown recreation complex? Art gallery? Concert Hall. Better to start with a prioritized list of what we want or else we'll never get it.

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by McC

I think the only way anything will change is if the Chair of the Planning Committee starts rejecting proposals (and Staff reports) from even appearing on the agenda before they are properly justified: "No. This isn't ready for Council. Don't come back until it is. No, seriously. Buzz off." But that'll be the day.

I don't think this will work as the developers would then appeal straight to the OMB and by-pass the public process.

Many residents have said they have a problem with the city's more flexible rules that state a range of heights in the OP but allow many exceptions. Perhaps the policy for signature/taller buildings could envision them with a cultural/public facility but should still require an amendment to the CDP/OP, which would have more stringent requirements than a regular rezoning (the Lightbox project did require an OPA)

[waterloowarrior]

staff report
http://app05.ottawa.ca/sirepub/view....s&fileid=49937

OPA
http://app05.ottawa.ca/sirepub/view....s&fileid=49938

[kevinbottawa]

Community, developers come together to propose changes to Centretown development plan

By Joanne Chianello, OTTAWA CITIZEN March 25, 2013 8:04 PM

OTTAWA — When the developers and community association members met with the city on Feb. 11 to review the final draft of the long-term growth strategy for Centretown, neither side was completely satisfied.

That’s bound to happen. Even though it’s been three years in the making, the Centretown Community Design Plan — or CDP, as these kinds of planning blueprints are known — is unlikely to grant all the wishes of landowners, developers and the residents who actually live there.

But this time, something a little different happened.

The folks from Centretown Citizens’ Community Association, which is a major voice for the community, looked across the room at the folks from Fotenn, who are acting as consultants for most of the city’s major developers, and they decided that the city’s final proposal wasn’t quite good enough.

So the two sides have spent the past month hashing out a compromise that addresses changes each side wanted to the plan. Together, the community association and the developers were to present a proposal for changes to the CDP at Tuesday morning’s planning committee meeting.

Councillor Peter Hume, who’s the planning chairman, says he’s not very surprised that the two sides came to an agreement.

Perhaps after you’ve been in politics as long as Hume, nothing shocks you.

For the rest of us, the fact that developers and community representatives can forge a compromise about community growth is nothing short of historic.

Now, that doesn’t mean that coming to some sort of understanding was easy, or that everyone else in the process — other residents, city officials — is about to fall in line with what the two groups have cooked up. (More on that in a moment.)

A skeptic might say that this alliance was born out of 11th-hour desperation. After a number of delays, the CDP was to be finally voted on by the planning committee on Tuesday. If there was ever a time the two sides were ever going to attempt to forge a deal, it was now or never.

Still, the fact that two groups who are supposed to be enemies can sit down and come up with a plan (interestingly, without city “help”) is surely some sort of turning point in our transformation into a big city. We’re maturing in the way we handle intensification in Ottawa. We’re finally getting past the if and concentrating on the how.

Developers and the community association are suggesting 13 changes to the CDP for Centretown, which encompasses the inner-city area bounded by Gloucester and Lisgar streets to the north, the Rideau Canal to the east, the Queensway to the south, and Bronson Avenue to the west.

Of the proposed changes, the most important has to do with the compromise both sides made when it comes to “tall landmark buildings” and “small moments.”

The former was an idea floated by developers late last year that called for a grander vision of Centretown. What the city came back with last month was a provision for iconic towers — but with so many restrictions that developers worried they’d never be able to construct a so-called landmark building. And yet, if a developer somewhere did meet the stiff requirements, there was to be no limit on the height of one of these theoretical beacons of design, a fact that worried the community group.

So the two sides compromised: the developers would agree to nix the entire “tall landmark buildings” idea in exchange for community support on including the “small moments policy” in the city’s official planning policy.

Why is this important? Builders imagine that small open spaces — whether they’re pocket parks or plazas or terraces or street-level patios — can provide a number of mini-public meeting places, giving residents an opportunity to share so-called “small moments.”

It’s a lovely idea, but there’s a hitch. Developers need to carve out space in their project, not to mention raise money, to provide those small moments. So in order to provide the small spaces, developers are asking for more height.

And here’s where it gets controversial.

The community association agreed to support a 25-per-cent increase in density for projects in the middle part of Centretown that would deliver these mini-meeting spaces. Centretown is desperate for parkland and the community association sees the policy as a way to ensure more meeting spots for residents.

But allowing an additional 25 per cent in density will mean taller buildings. How tall? Perhaps as high as 24 storeys. That’s a far cry from the nine storeys that the CDP currently proposes, let alone the fact that most buildings in the area now max out at four storeys.

Diane Holmes, the councillor who represents Centretown, says it’s great that the community association and the developers sat down to talk through the issues.

“But in order to get a few small parks, they have increased the height in that central area,” says Holmes. “And, the people who live there know nothing about this. That’s part of the problem — there’s been no public consultation.”

Holmes is right, of course. This change to the proposed CDP has to be taken back to the community, as well as city planners and lawyers, before anyone can or should pass it. (Hume indicated that something along those lines would be ordered up at planning committee Tuesday morning.)

So the discussions between developers and community members is a positive move forward in our quest to build — and re-build — this great city of ours. We’ll just have to figure out how to start those productive dialogues earlier in the process.

jchianello@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/jchianello
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/fa...228/story.html

[waterloowarrior]

the deal is off
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Ce...772/story.html

[NOWINYOW]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

the deal is off
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Ce...772/story.html

Great! Build out, then. Stretch the city boundaries. Eat up more farmland. Build more highways and bridges. Spend more on stretching out further the transit routes.

I'll say one good thing about this lazy-assed-can't-build-a-bridge-if-their-life-depended-on-it-short-sighted-lack-of-vision-losers-who-deem-themselves-leaders; they don't disappoint me because I don't expect anything logical from them.

[m0nkyman]

Oddly enough the deal got shot down by a combination of height haters and also people who want really tall buildings. The deal would have created stump city with a lot of crappy middies of ten to twenty stories, all of which would have been forced to skimp on quality. The city proposal was for fewer really good but taller buildings. I wasn't a fan of 'the deal', and spoke out against it.

[NOWINYOW]

Originally Posted by m0nkyman

Oddly enough the deal got shot down by a combination of height haters and also people who want really tall buildings. The deal would have created stump city with a lot of crappy middies of ten to twenty stories, all of which would have been forced to skimp on quality. The city proposal was for fewer really good but taller buildings. I wasn't a fan of 'the deal', and spoke out against it.

City council is elected to make decisions. Sounds to me they made a decision to not proceed with whatever they had envisioned. Weak as water!

[m0nkyman]

The deal was between the community association and the developers, not anything to do with city hall.