Ed McKenna
Last touches for design of Norman Rochester Park
The Dalhousie Community Association’s (DCA) Public Realm Committee met July 26 with city planners to discuss the final design for the new public park at the corner of Norman and Rochester Streets.
“Norman Rochester Park” will occupy the southwest corner of the Canada Lands Company’s Booth Street Development, and will add 2,280 square metres of much-needed greenspace to the neighbourhood.
The DCA has written to the city with a dozen suggestions to enhance the current design, including the addition of a public washroom and a water fountain.
Traffic Calming on Eccles
Residents on Eccles Street petitioned the city at the end of July requesting that the street be closed to through traffic between Booth and Rochester.
Councillor McKenney supports the petition, funding has been identified, and the city is ready to implement a plan to create a dead end on Eccles.
Speeding, cut-through traffic has been a long-time major concern for local residences. Many are families with young children. Traffic calming measures including “bulb-outs,” speed bumps, and temporary barriers haven’t been effective.
200 Bronson? Or Is it Cambridge Street North?
The DCA has written to the city to oppose an application for a zoning by-law amendment that would allow a nine-storey building to be constructed on Cambridge Street North, an established residential area.
Bronson Ridge Apartment Inc. wants to build behind the existing apartment building at 200 Bronson Avenue, where the “traditional mainstreet” zoning permits mid-rise apartments. But the building will front on Cambridge Street North, where the recently-revised zoning bylaw does not permit nine-storey buildings.
The DCA letter notes that the recently completed apartment building next door at 192 Bronson, “The Beckett,” also occupies a lot that extends through to Cambridge North. But this development respects the different zoning on each street. Rising to 19 storeys on Bronson, “The Beckett” on Cambridge North presents as three-storey, red brick townhouses with entrances at ground-level.
In contrast, writes the DCA, the proposal for 200 Bronson “constitutes overdevelopment of the site. In its present configuration we are opposed to it.”
Preston Hardware Employee Parking
Preston Hardware has applied to the city for permission to replace residential properties on Larch and Balsam Streets with a 21-space parking lot for its employees. In three years, the application states, the parking lot will in turn be replaced by a proposed six-storey residential building.
Preston Hardware already has permission to demolish the buildings, but on condition that the property is fenced and landscaped. Other uses of the property, including parking, are prohibited. Now it proposes that this condition be removed.
The DCA is opposed to new parking lots in the community, and to this application.
Preston Hardware says that in the future, employee parking will be provided underground, beneath the proposed six-storey residential building. Why then, build a large surface parking lot on the site, and in the midst of a residential neighbourhood?
The Library Parcel
The “Library Parcel” is how the National Capital Commission describes the property at the northeast corner of Albert and Booth Streets. It will be sold to Dream LeBreton and developed as a mixed-use property, with 601 residential rental units in two towers, including 247 units of affordable housing.
The DCA supports Dream’s application to the city for a zoning bylaw amendment to allow it to proceed with this development. In most ways, this development aligns with DCA’s goals for the neighbourhood. We said so in a public meeting, described on page 3 of this BUZZ.
Summer’s End
We’re taking a break in August, but regular DCA monthly meetings resume September 7, when committee activities also will ramp up.
Join us. More info: president@ottawadalhousie.ca.