[flickrslideshow acct_name="spacing" id="72157625888051187"] ----------------------------------------- Editor's note: Katherine Hobbs is the City Councilor for Kitchissippi Ward and is a member of the City of Ottawa's Planning Committee. She has authored the following piece as a contribution to our ongoing discussion around the City's "infill development" policies and practices. ----------------------------------------- At Planning Committee on Tuesday we approved an infill project at 73 Crichton Street in New Edinburgh (shown above) with my support. At the previous Planning Committee, we also approved an infill project at 71 Hopewell Avenue in Old Ottawa South, that time with my dissent. Why the differing vote? Both projects were contemporary additions to old streetscapes in established neighbourhoods and both were recommended for approval by city staff in accordance with the zoning by-law, though the latter only reluctantly so. In contrast, they present a study in what works and what doesn’t for small-scale residential infill. The Hopewell Avenue project was a study in what residents don’t like about infill residential construction. It was suburban contemporary with front garages, side doors and height above the norm for the street. Planning staff recommended approval in spite of it not following the Urban Design Guidelines for Infill development because the project met the requirements of the Zoning By-Law, and an appeal from the developer to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) would have almost certainly been a victory for the developer. It was clear that staff were heartbroken to recommend approval, but their hands were effectively tied.

[flickrslideshow acct_name="spacing" id="72157625825213585" padding="5"] ----------------------------------- Images by Old Ottawa South Community Association - first is of 71 Hopewell as it appeared last year; second is a photoshopped image of what it is expected to look like after re-development. ----------------------------------- Spacing Ottawa contributor Alain Miguelez is a planner with the City of Ottawa. In late 2009, the City's Planning Department received an application for site plan control approval to allow three townhouses to be developed in replacement of a small detached home at 71 Hopewell Ave., in Old Ottawa South. Coincidentally, on October 28th 2009 Council approved updates to the Urban Design Guidelines for Low-Medium Density Infill Housing. In the following piece Alain takes us behind the scenes to to find what actually happened with this application - and explains how it was that City staff made the recommendation they did. _____________________________ _____________________________ The proposal, at first glance, was one of those dime-a-dozen that we have processed in the past five years. As staff, we weren’t surprised by the front-garage approach – in fact, we were starting to notice how these new garage-front infills were starting to spread in old established neighbourhoods. On some streets there are even consolidated stretches of these. In this case, though, the lot was so narrow that the two edge units couldn’t get a front door facing the street – the front door was accessible by a narrow walkway along the side. We indicated to the proponent that we wanted to explore other options for parking, entrances and front doors. In our minds, the proposal did not meet the intent of the Design Guidelines, which state throughout its pages (among other things) that front doors, rather than garages, must be the predominant element on facades. In fact, front garages are to be avoided where possible.

Hintonburg resident Phil Castro writes about the intersection of urban development, architecture, and the artistic impulse. In this post he looks at a subject recently studied by the city: the effects of infill housing. This piece is cross-posted from Apartment 613 with their permission. At its most basic definition, infill housing is the addition of dwelling units in already existing and established communities. In Ottawa, infill housing typically means the construction of modern homes on vacant, abandoned or seemingly underutilized lots. And as a city, we're currently developing an international reputation for some cutting edge modern infill. The results can be fantastic, but - as many a comment in the blogosphere suggests - beauty is often in the eye of the beholder. The city has formally stated that infill development proposed within the interior of established neighbourhoods should be designed to complement the area’s pattern of built form and its desirable characteristics. However, according to the city’s website, in the spring of 2010 a number of community associations and individual community members expressed their concerns that recent small-scale infill housing projects were incompatible with the character of the neighbourhood. Moreover, those projects were allegedly contributing negatively to the community. The associations asked what the city could do to prevent this pattern from continuing. As a result, 400 properties were studied during the summer of 2010, the purpose of which was to: