Ottawa city council rejects proposed nine-storey building for Sandy Hill
By Matthew Pearson, OTTAWA CITIZEN March 26, 2014 8:47 PM
OTTAWA — City council shocked developers and residents alike on Wednesday when it overturned a plan to build a nine-storey, privately owned student residence in Sandy Hill, with Mayor Jim Watson taking a hard line against the proposal.
The planning committee had approved the proposed mixed-use building at Laurier Avenue East and Friel Street at a Feb. 26 meeting, despite vocal opposition from some Sandy Hill residents and Rideau-Vanier Coun. Mathieu Fleury.
The 180-unit complex east of the University of Ottawa, proposed by developer Viner Assets, would have housed an estimated 630 students, replacing six existing buildings that the company says are almost wholly rented to students.
The proposal required rezoning approval from the city and an amendment to the Sandy Hill Secondary Plan to allow for the additional height. The secondary plan calls for buildings limited to four storeys, but the developer argued that the 20-year-old document does not meet new intensification policies that encourage development near transit.
Despite that, the mayor said the proposed building wasn’t compatible with Sandy Hill’s status as a heritage district and failed to address the area’s student housing shortage by providing affordable units.
“I just didn’t feel comfortable with the proposal that was before us, and I think you saw a number of members of council felt the same way,” Watson said.
He was among the 14 who voted against the plan. Nine councillors supported it, almost entirely from councillors who sit on the planning committee. College Coun. Rick Chiarelli dissented at committee and was on the no side again Wednesday.
Fleury, who lobbied planning committee members and his council colleagues to defeat the proposal, tried to emphasize that it was the proposed structure’s built form — and not its potential student tenants — that was at issue.
“I’m pleased and surprised,” he said of council’s decision.
Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Peter Clark agreed the proposal didn’t fit the neighbourhood’s character and said he was concerned about the precedent that might be set had it been approved.
“This is not the thin edge of the wedge,” Clark said. “It’s the thick edge of the wedge.”
Most councillors seemed to believe they had also approved an expedited review of the Sandy Hill Secondary Plan, but it emerged later in the day that because the review was technically an amendment to a motion that ultimately failed, the review would not be going ahead at this time.
Fleury said he is considering his options regarding that review.
Kathryn Hendrick, a spokeswoman for Viner Assets, said in an email that the council’s decision came as “quite a shock given the green light from the planning committee and the 18 months of careful design and functional planning” to ensure that the project made “good sense for the community.”
“Our team is trying to determine what next steps should be taken,” she wrote.
If those next steps include an appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board, that should come as no surprise, said Peter Hume, who chairs the planning committee and supported the proposal.
“Whether I think it’s the right move or not is irrelevant,” he said. “The person who is going to decide whether what council did was right or wrong now is the Ontario Municipal Board.”
It’s unlikely those behind the project would invest as much as they have so far and not exercise their right to an OMB appeal, Hume said. “If the applicant appeals, the city will be hiring external resources to advance city council’s position and that always doesn’t work out favourably for council’s positions,” Hume said.
Action Sandy Hill’s Chad Rollins, who watched the council meeting online while he was working, said he was “ecstatic.”
“I don’t think we expected that decision,” Rollins said. “We were certainly hoping for it.”
Rollins said he expected that the fight might not be over but that at least now if the issue does end up at the OMB, his group won’t have to fight both the city and the developer.
Action Sandy Hill’s primary concern was around preserving the pedestrian-level connection to the existing buildings, but Rollins said the developer seemed set on the additional height, which required a zoning bylaw amendment.
The bottom line, he added, is that new development should reflect the existing character of the streetscape — a notion reflected in the infill guidelines approved in principle by the planning committee on Tuesday.
“That’s basically what we want,” he said.
During the debate and in media scrums afterward, Watson and several councillors suggested OC Transpo’s extensive bus network means students don’t all need to live a stone’s throw from campus any more.
And the $2.1-billion light rail system currently under construction, which includes a campus stop, will make it even easier for them to live in other parts of the city.
“There’s no longer the need for everyone who goes to Ottawa U to live within Sandy Hill. Those students can be dispersed to different parts of the city with the Transitway right at their front door,” Watson said.
But that’s not necessarily so, said the president of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa.
Ottawa’s universal bus pass for students is the most expensive of its kind in Canada, and many students choose to live close to campus due to security concerns and a desire to be close to school, said Anne-Marie Roy.
“Students are looking for homes close to campus, regardless of light rail,” she said.
mpearson@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/mpearson78
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Ot...079/story.html
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