Alayne McGregor
A three-story, six-unit apartment building on Nepean Street is facing demolition, in order to put up a parking lot.
This would force six tenants to move. Several of them joined with Ottawa ACORN to hold a protest on January 6 in front of the building at 142 Nepean.
About 25 people participated, waving signs and chanting against the loss of affordable housing. MPP Joel Harden and Councillor Catherine McKenney attended and spoke against the proposal. McKenney told the crowd they would oppose the demolition and the parking lot.
“There’s absolutely no reason to tear down a rental building in this city. For every affordable unit that your tax dollars build, we lose seven as a result of renovictions. It has to stop,” McKenney said.
At the demonstration, tenant Anna Meurot said she only learned of the proposal when a sign was posted last summer in the vacant lot next door. It said that the city had received a request for a zoning bylaw amendment to create a surface parking lot with 30 spaces at 142, 144, and 148 Nepean.
144 and 148 Nepean Street formerly contained residential properties, but they have been demolished and the lots are now vacant.
According to the application to the city by Fotenn Planning + Design, the surface parking lot would serve an existing office building at 190 O’Connor Street, around the corner from the apartment building.
Currently, the parking for 190 O’Connor (44 spots) is located at 108 Nepean. That site is scheduled to be redeveloped for a 27-storey mixed-use building, and Fotenn partner Miguel Tremblay said the parking must be relocated to meet lease requirements. The application said 142 Nepean would be demolished once construction started at 108 Nepean.
Several surface parking lots currently exist on this street within view of 142 Nepean: two lots on the same side to the west which serve adjacent apartment blocks, and a smaller lot across the street. Nowhere in the application’s planning rationale did it consider renting the parking spaces in an existing parking lot or garage, or only using the two currently-vacant lots.
The parking lot will require three approvals from the city, all of which have been applied for and are under technical review by city staff.
According to Stephen Willis, the city’s General Manager, Planning, the city’s demolition bylaw requires that someone wanting to demolish a current building in the urban area must ordinarily first get building permits for a replacement building. The city’s by-law, however, does not require an owner to rebuild with a similar or greater number of units or to meet affordability requirements for rent of those units.
The application’s planning rationale argues that the new parking lot at 142-148 Nepean will allow the building of high-density housing at 108 Nepean.
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The rationale said the tenants would be given the option to rent at a neighbouring rental apartment “operated by an affiliate of the proponent.” Meurot, who has lived at 142 Nepean since last May, said she and her partner Teke were offered two possible nearby apartments.
“We’ve seen the units they’re offering. One of them is very small – way smaller than this one. The other is in a building which has bedbug reviews online, so we’re not very happy about that. We’d much rather stay here.”
They currently pay $1300/month for a two-bedroom, 800 sq. ft. apartment, lower than average rent for Centretown. Under the relocation offer, they would pay the same rent for the next two years, but with no guarantees after that, which Meurot said was not long enough.
While their current apartment has some maintenance issues, “we’ve been pretty happy in there since we moved in.”
She said she was “outraged” at the idea of the building being razed for a parking lot. “There are so many parking lots around us. Why our house? There’s a parking lot right in front of me as I’m talking. There’s a vacant lot that could be a parking lot if they wanted. They have to take our house on top of that?”
At the demonstration, tenant Lionel Njeukam called for more protections for tenants facing renovictions, including space for displaced tenants in the new building at the same rent and same size apartment, temporary accommodation at the same rent, and help with moving costs to and from.
Ottawa ACORN is currently asking for signatures on an online petition to the mayor, city staff, and the city Planning Committee opposing the demolition.