Bayview highrise proposal rebuffed by city
Ottawa developer dejected about project's prospects
http://www.ottawasun.com/news/ottawa.../13739356.html
By JON WILLING, CITY HALL BUREAU
Last Updated: April 28, 2010 9:27am
A city committee rejected this development near Lebreton Flats, citing concerns over city services running beneath the property. DCR Phoenix image
William Buchanan has been battling City Hall over his “labour of love” for about seven years.
“It’s been a problem. There’s always something that has come up, whether it deals with the planning aspect, or more specifically, with the construction approval,” Buchanan said Tuesday after a planning and environment committee meeting.
Buchanan, planning manager for DCR Phoenix Development Corp., was trying to warm councillors up to the company’s three-tower proposal for a prime piece of land beside the O-Train Bayview station, south of Lebreton Flats.
DCR Phoenix is pitching a 17-storey office tower, 24-storey condo tower and a four-storey mixed-use building on the triangular chunk of land.
The property was originally owned by the city, which sold it to the National Capital Commission. DCR Phoenix acquired the property from the NCC in 2004 and in 2005 the company submitted an unsolicited proposal to develop a new main branch for the Ottawa public library and some residential units. The city declined the offer.
Since then DCR Phoenix has been trying to come up with a development the city could stomach.
The site is challenging to develop since key municipal infrastructure, such as sewers and watermains, run under parts of the property.
The three-tower proposal is being rejected by city planning staff because a study on the water and sewer infrastructure isn’t complete and neither is a community design plan. On top of that, staff are chilly to the design.
Owners of the neighbouring City Centre complex are also cold to the three-tower plan.
City councillors on the planning and environment committee believed the development would disrupt city infrastructure.
Capital Coun. Clive Doucet openly questioned why the developer bought the land when it appears undevelopable.
The committee agreed there couldn’t be any development until the proper studies are complete and it refused the necessary zoning change. City council will be asked to confirm the committee’s decision Wednesday (today).
Buchanan argued the towers wouldn’t disrupt any infrastructure.
“For them to come forward and say that you can’t develop the property is ridiculous,” he said outside the committee room.
As for community concerns, Buchanan notes there’s not much of a neighbourhood there and City Centre is hardly eye-catching as it is.
Buchanan was asked if he has any idea what the city would like to see on his land.
“To be honest, no,” he said. “We’ll try to sit down with them.”
jon.willing@sunmedia.ca
Developer should be stopped: city committee
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/De...980/story.html
Buried infrastructure at risk from three towers proposed at City Centre, councillors say
BY KATE JAIMET, THE OTTAWA CITIZENAPRIL 27, 2010
OTTAWA — The city should fight a zoning application that could see three towers built on a piece of empty land criss-crossed by underground water and sewage mains, city council’s planning and environment committee resolved Tuesday.
The majority of councillors on the committee felt there was a risk that critical city infrastructure, including major sewers and water mains, could be jeopardized if the development goes ahead at 801 Albert St., next to the City Centre development on the west side of downtown.
“As far as I’m concerned this is about protecting the city and that trumps any development,” said Capital Councillor Clive Doucet. “The developer made his own choice (to buy the property) and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be part of a crew that puts the city’s infrastructure at risk … for no good reason.”
But William Buchanan, manager of planning for the development company DCR Phoenix, said the risk to infrastructure will be minimal because the three towers — ranging in height from four to 24 storeys — would not be built directly over top of the pipes.
“We are not touching in any way, shape or form any of the current infrastructure that crosses the property,” he said.
Buchanan later said that the condition of the sewage pipes was not known, and that DCR Phoenix would likely conduct its own risk assessment before building.
DCR Phoenix will go before the Ontario Municipal Board (which can overrule city planning decisions) to ask for changes to the zoning of the property, a wedge-shaped piece of land bounded by the O-Train tracks, the Transitway and the City Centre commercial building.
The changes would allow for greater density than is currently allowed on the site and would remove a condition stating that the land cannot be developed before a “master servicing study” looking at water and sewer impacts is completed.
Councillors were also concerned that the proposed development — consisting of a residential highrise, an office tower, and a low-rise, mixed-use building — doesn’t fit with the vision of developing the area as a dynamic, pedestrian-friendly urban community.
But Buchanan said his development shouldn’t be held up by nebulous visions of the future.
“They talk about a neighbourhood, but it’s not really a neighbourhood,” Buchanan argued. “You’ve got City Centre, which has been rated the ugliest building in the city for years, and there’s nothing else.”
City council is to discuss the issue today.
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