Westboro residents jam hall to oppose high-rise condos
BY ZEV SINGER, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN SEPTEMBER 28, 2011
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Westbor...329/story.html
OTTAWA — It’s the type of meeting that happens all of over the city, with increasing regularity: a developer presents plans for two condo towers where something much smaller used to be and the surrounding community doesn’t like it.
This time it was in Westboro, at 335 Roosevelt Ave., where Uniform Developments wants to build a pair of buildings, 14 and 16 storeys. Neighbouring residents say the city should deny the company’s application to rezone the land to allow buildings that tall. The condos will change the character of the neighbourhood, block out the sun for nearby homes and increase traffic, they say.
Hundreds of people crowded the upstairs meeting room at the Churchill Senior Recreation Centre. Kitchissippi ward councillor Katherine Hobbs told the crowd to keep calm so that nobody would faint in the heat.
“They’re a little concerned downstairs that we’re over the fire code,” she said. Yasir Naqvi, running for re-election as the provincial Liberal candidate in Ottawa Centre, was there handing out water bottles to help people keep cool.
The crowd was vocal in its opposition to the plan, arguing that the developer’s traffic study was not realistic and that the community did not believe the towers were at all appropriate for the location.
According to the position statement of the Westboro Beach Community Association, the group feels that the proposed development “will change the character of the neighbourhood and will reduce the use and enjoyment of our properties, and therefore the value of our properties.”
Specifically, they said the new towers would “dominate the skyline” and “dwarf” surrounding homes; darken the surrounding homes that would now be in shadow most of the day, increasing heating bills and decreasing the sunshine available causing ill effects for health and happiness; providing vantage points within the towers for those wishing to invade the privacy of surrounding home owners; and increasing neighbourhood traffic.
The developer and the architect, Barry Hobin, told the crowd that the current zoning at the site allows for apartments, although the height cap is at 19 metres. That would permit a maximum of 220,000 square feet of space. The proposed 198-unit plan, they said, calls for the same number of square feet, just arranged more vertically, with a maximum height of 53 metres. They said that would make for a more appealing form and one that better fit the city’s planning priorities.
About an-hour-and-a-half into the two-hour meeting, someone at the back of the room challenged the developers on the comparison, saying that the short version of the 220,000-square-foot building was not a real option. While allowed by current zoning and theoretically possible, he said, such a building would be too awful to actually build.
“Barry Hobin would never put his name on it,” the man stated.
Hobin didn’t respond directly, but after the meeting, he conceded the point.
“I don’t like that option, I find it too squat,” he said. “I’d have problems with it.”
That would likely mean Uniform wouldn’t be willing to do it, either, since they have been working exclusively with Hobin for the past 13 years.
George Georgaras, Uniform’s general manager, said after the meeting that his company didn’t like the squat option.
“Architecture is one of our primary focuses,” he said, “and we were not happy with the form we would get with the permitted zoning bylaw.”
At the same time, Georgaras rejected the idea that squat building could not happen.
“It’s a real option,” he said.
If they don’t get the height changed, will they hire a different architect and build the squat one after all?
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Georgaras said.
For many of the residents at the meeting, the increased traffic in the neighbourhood was the biggest issue. Traffic is already a serious problem in the area, they said.
Hobbs, who told the crowd, to a response of boos, that she was still keeping an open mind on the project, said she certainly had issues with the way cars would flow to and from the new development.
“I’m not happy about that,” she said. “I think that we should be routing it in a way that takes these people out onto a collector instead of onto residential streets that have been cut off from this kind of traffic.”
Georgaras said Uniform will give consideration the ideas expressed by the residents.
“We’ll go away from here and take into account the comments that we heard,” he said. “If there is an opportunity for us to improve our scheme prior to it going to planning committee, we’ll do that.”
Hobin, who has been through many such meetings said after the meeting that quite a few people in the crowd were “rude.” Yet, it’s the type of scene that is playing out more and more often.
The meeting is just the latest evidence of a change happening across the city as developers shift increasingly toward condos rather than single-family homes.
According to the city’s annual development report, released earlier this month, the 44 per cent of the new homes started in 2010 in Ottawa’s urban area fit the criteria for “intensification.”
In just one year, from 2009 to 2010, the percentage of new dwellings that are single-family homes fell from about 40 per cent to about 34 per cent; the percentage that are apartments climbed from 20 per cent to 30 per cent.
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