Regional Group to confirm Oblates land sale
Company plans to build withing community design plan limits
By Laura Mueller
Ottawa East News, MON, JUN 02, 2014
Nine hundred new homes are set to become a reality in the downtown community of Old Ottawa East as an Ottawa developer agrees to buy the Oblate lands.
Regional Group has drafted plans for how it would build the 10.5 hectares of mostly-vacant prime land, the development of which will nearly double the population of the community. The mostly-vacant institutional lands next to St. Paul University are currently occupied by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate religious order and provide likely the largest redevelopment opportunity in the city's core.
The land sale will be finalized in June, said Regional vice president of development, David Kardish.
Kardish said he sees no need to redraw a concept for the area because he likes the community design plan that was a “labour of love” for local residents.
“If you look at our stuff, we realize the community invested a lot of time and effort,” Kardish said. “There is no good reason for us to deviate from that.
“We wanted to respect their issues to the extent possible,” Kardish said. “We didn’t see the need to go with high rises. We want to develop a very intimate community.”
Regional intends to add more single-family homes into the development than was contemplated in the city’s plan. That reduces the total number of units by about 35 units to a total of 900, Kardish said.
Meeting with community members throughout the process will be a priority, Kardish said, and he’ll take a lot of guidance from them. Kardish even refused to allow graphics of the proposed development plan to be published until community leaders OK’ed it.
Community association president John Dance was heartened by Regional’s approach and excited about its impact on the community.
“I'm sure that the planning and construction will require considerable effort on our part but we have the potential here of building a superb new neighbourhood in a strengthened Old Ottawa East community , part of a more dynamic and liveable Capital Ward,” Dance wrote in an email.
From what the Old Ottawa East Community Association has seen so far, Kardish’s proposal is actually an improvement on the community design plan adopted in 2012, said the head of the groups’ planning committee, Stephen Pope.
“The new draft master plan created by Regional to confirm the potential economics of the development represents an improvement over the initial plan as it has more elements consistent with the surrounding neighbourhoods than its predecessor (the community design plan),” Pope wrote in an email. “Plans are never finished until the last building is built, but good plans can absorb change over time without compromising the initial vision.”
The site is a brownfield and will require soil cleanup but Kardish says he’s aware of that and wouldn’t have purchased the property if he didn’t think it was financially viable to develop within the city’s guidelines.
The plan calls for the historical Deschâtelets Building to be preserved, as well as the “grande allée” tree-lined driveway leading up to it.
Kardish said that road will likely become something like a “woonerf” – a type of street popularized in the Netherlands, where pedestrians and cyclists have legal priority over cars, but where vehicles and delivery trucks are allowed to pull up.
There are plans for commercial space at the ground level along main street and up a portion of the allée, Kardish said. He is reserving a 3,250 square metre commercial footprint in hopes of attracting a new grocery store. He hopes things like a coffee shop and restaurant would occupy the smaller retail spaces.
The Deschâtelets Building could become housing for seniors or students, Kardish said, or it might become something else. But the building will remain and be renovated, as per the city’s heritage rules.
The semi-circular open space in front of the building will remain as a public space, hopefully for the Main Farmers’ Market in the future, Kardish said, or for other public events.
“We see that very much as programming space,” he said.
Affordable housing is also on Kardish’s mind. He’s on the board of the Centretown Affordable Housing Coalition and that had led him to launch prelimary discussions with the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation about including some affordable units.
If all goes to plan, Regional Group will apply for the rezoning required under the secondary plan for the area, as well as a plan of subdivision, in the fall. Kardish wants to start selling units by fall of 2015, with people moving in the fall of 2016.
Kardish said Regional is still working out whether it wants to partner with other builders to construct sections of the new community, or do it themselves. That will affect the phasing of the project, but the whole site likely won’t be built for a decade, Kardish said. The residential components would be built first.
Sustainability plan
As Regional Group gears up to develop the site, a proposal to make the new community environmentally sustainable is wrapping up.
Residents are invited to come hear and share ideas for reducing the environmental footprint of the future Oblate lands community during the Old Ottawa East Community Association’s board meeting on Tuesday, June 10 at 7:15 p.m. The meeting will be held at the Church of the Ascension, 253 Echo Dr.
In addition to a stakeholder consultation held in March, Sustainable Loving Ottawa East (SLOE) has partnered with Carleton University to base the proposed sustainability plan on research conducted by the university’s research project on community engagement.
The resulting “Deep Green” plan has four themes: affordable housing, water and stormwater management, connectivity and community amenities and on-site green innovations. Each theme is tied to a business case in the hopes of convincing developers to adopt those principles.
“What a property, what an opportunity, what a responsibility,” said Rebecca Aird of SLOE, noting that the development opportunity has never had more tools or systems available to support sustainable design and construction.
Kardish said he’s open to hearing ideas that would make the community more sustainable and more livable. But when it comes to cutting-edge technologies, like a district energy system proposed in the Deep Green plan, Kardish said it would need to be marketable and economically feasible.
A district energy system is a centralized heating and cooling system that serves many buildings in a defined area. The systems are intended to reduce energy consumption and are able to make more use of environmentally friendly energy sources.
Aird said SLOE is looking forward to collaborating with Regional Group.
“Regional Group has clearly indicated a willingness to try to take some of the ideas on board,” she wrote in an email. “Working constructively and collaboratively, and building further on the work SLOE and its partners have already done, community residents can be part of an exciting evolution in sustainable community building in Ottawa.”
This demonstration plan shows the built form that's possible on the largely vacant institutional lands occupied by religious orders and Saint Paul University. Regional Group confirmed it plans to buy the land owned by the Oblate fathers, mostly east of and including the 'grande allée'.
http://www.ottawacommunitynews.com/n...tes-land-sale/