[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="599" caption="And not just any bus, either."][/caption] In a previous post here last May , I talked about the City’s plans to finally implement the powers granted by “Section 37” of the Ontario Planning Act, which have been on the books in Ottawa since 2003 but never put into practice. As described in the previous post: “The way it works is this:  A developer proposes to have a property rezoned, say from 6 to 12 stories.  Without Section 37, the increased value of the rezoned property goes to the developer alone. Instead, under [Section 37], the increase in value is calculated, and an agreement put in place for a percentage (usually about 20-30%) of the increase to be provided for benefits that must be in the nearby community. … Possible benefits include tangibles like renovating a park, public art, conserving a heritage building, public streetscape improvements, artist live-work space, affordable housing, daycare space, and specific projects listed in a Community Design Plan for the area.” At least, that’s the way it has worked for a decade in Toronto and was originally also proposed for Ottawa.

[caption id="attachment_7319" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Devonshire Public School in family-friendly Hintonburg"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_6770" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Condos coming on the market in Wellington Village: too much of the same, at too high a price?"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_6770" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Condos coming on the market in Wellington Village: too much of the same, at too high a price?"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Zig-zags: Doing a number on Sherwood "][/caption] Mixing traffic engineering and politics can have unintended consequences. Take Sherwood Drive, running from Carling Ave near Dow’s Lake to Parkdale Ave just south of the Queensway onramps. Sherwood is thoroughly residential, featuring large, gracious homes with deep lawns, mostly built in the first half of the 20th century when the Civic Hospital neighbourhood was developed. Wide, well-kept boulevards with mature trees separate the street from the sidewalks. In short, it is close to being an ideal urban residential street. Yet, Sherwood is the subject of continual complaints from residents about traffic, particularly its speed. One reason is that it provides a very convenient direct diagonal for traffic between the major commuter arterial of Carling and the 417, making it a desirable route indeed for those wanting to avoid the heavy traffic and signalized intersections on narrow Parkdale and other less direct routes. A look down Sherwood provides another clue. The street is enormously wide, with no barriers in the way of cars barreling between Parkdale and Carling except a few stop signs. Aiming your car down this road feels like being on a speedway.

[caption id="attachment_5712" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Bethany Hope Centre - a Hintonburg fixture since 1925"][/caption] About 150 people came to the Hintonburg Community centre on April 4 to hear about plans for the “Hintonburg Hub.” The Hub, still in the conceptual stage, would be a much-needed community health centre at ground level with about 100 units of affordable housing above. The partners involved in this proposal—Somerset West Community Health Centre (SWCHC), the non-profit affordable housing corporation CCOC, Family Services Ottawa, and Citizen Advocacy—have been discussing the purchase of the site of the former Bethany Hope Centre at 1140 Wellington St. West with the Salvation Army, who recently indicated they want to sell the property. The site would include the Bethany property and the adjacent parking lot at the corner of Wellington and Rosemount. Support for the concept appears pretty much universal so far. The community forum was widely publicized by both SWCHC and the Hintonburg Community Association. The large majority of the people attending the forum were from the community around the proposed site (confirmed by a show of hands). Nobody expressed opposition, while most who spoke were strongly supportive. The proposal for a health care centre is particularly welcome, since Hintonburg is on the edge of the SWCHC catchment and relatively distant from its main Eccles St. location. A heavily used walk-in medical clinic that had been on Rosemount closed several years ago, leaving the area without a nearby option. The pressing need for a healthcare centre was recognized by the City in the Hintonburg-Mechanicsville Neighbourhood Plan, approved by City Council, which explicitly makes it City policy to “encourage Somerset West Community Health Centre to open a health-care satellite office in Hintonburg.”

[caption id="attachment_5484" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Surely not the template for Ottawa's future LRT stations?"][/caption] Jay Baltz is a Hintonburg resident and member of the Hintonburg Community Association board, who has served on numerous advisory committees for City of Ottawa planning and zoning studies, and is past chair of the City’s Built Heritage Advisory Committee. This is the first installment of a new Spacing Ottawa feature where Jay will be looking at urban development and planning issues from the perspective of an involved resident, and examine practical alternatives to what he terms “Ottawa’s broken planning process.” -------------- Being consulted by the City of Ottawa could be a full time job. No fewer than eighty-seven current public consultations are listed on the City’s web site . One of these is the “Bayview-Carling Light Rail Transit Corridor Community Design Plan.” This obviously wasn’t named to produce a clever acronym, so Bayview-Carling CDP will have to do. The area it covers runs from the Ottawa River to Carling Avenue down each side of the current O-Train tracks, extending roughly east to Booth St and west to Fairmont Ave.