Ed McKenna
The Year Ahead
The Dalhousie Community Association doesn’t convene a regular meeting in December. Instead, we gather for a holiday dinner, held again this year at the accommodating Vietnam Palace on Somerset Street West.
Our first regular meeting of 2024 will take place January 25, nearly two months after our last regular meeting in November. The break gives everyone a chance to reflect on the new year ahead.
The DCA bylaws tell us that we must “determine, reflect, and actively promote the concerns, aspirations and opinions” of those who live, work, or own property in the Dalhousie community – that is, in Somerset Ward, west of Bay Street, in Chinatown, Little Italy, and LeBreton Flats.
How will we meet this challenge in 2024?
Messaging Out
The DCA achieves its objectives through the work of its committees. For the Messaging Out Committee, that work is communications.
The DCA website, ottawadalhousie.ca, recently upgraded, proved its worth in the #saveplouffepark campaign. More improvements to the website are on the way, including an updated DCA logo!
Committee members also support the important work of this newspaper and sit on its editorial board.
Mobility
Streets, sidewalks and pathways. Transit riders, pedestrians, cyclists, car and truck drivers. The Mobility Committee advocates for measures that will allow all these forms of transportation to co-exist in Dalhousie safely.
Our community is where passage on the Ottawa River is interrupted by the Chaudière Falls. And so the Dalhousie area has been a transportation hub since prehistoric times. This legacy persists today in the form of two light rail lines (including four stations), three interprovincial bridges, the Queensway, and one of Ottawa’s two interprovincial routes for heavy trucks.
Some of the largest developments in the city are occurring in Dalhousie, from the Ottawa Hospital on our southern edge, to the 34-acre Zibi development on the Ottawa River. Between them are the NCC’s Building LeBreton project, the Gladstone Village subdivision, Rochester Heights, and the Canada Lands Company’s Booth Street redevelopment.
Motor vehicle traffic is intensifying. At the same time, local residents need to move in and out of our neighbourhoods conveniently and safely.
Several new developments are expected to release transportation impact assessments this year, and the committee will participate in the upcoming planning process to decide whether Preston Street should be extended north to Wellington.
Peaceable Neighbourhoods
The Peaceable Neighbourhoods Committee “focuses on what brings us all together and how we can support each other.” Everyone should feel safe in our neighbourhoods.
The committee supports the work of the Somerset West Community Health Centre, which in 2024 will include the new “Safe Alternative Response” program.
And watch for the Eccles Street Block Party again this summer.
Plan Our Neighbourhood
Planning and development in our neighbourhoods are the concerns of this committee. Members work with developers and the city to ensure the community voice is heard in the complex development approval process.
In addition to rebuilding entire neighbourhoods, developers in Dalhousie are advancing other major projects in 2024, including Ādisōke and Dream LeBreton on Albert, and Claridge Homes’ East Flats on Lett Street.
Virtually all infill development in Dalhousie involves applications from developers for “relief” from city zoning bylaws limiting massing and height on traditional main streets and in established residential areas. The committee provides the city a community perspective on these applications.
At last count (September 2023), more than 10,000 new residential units were in the planning stages for Dalhousie! How many will provide some of the building-blocks for community, be “affordable,” and accommodate families?
And in 2024, according to recent provincial legislative changes, hundreds of properties in Dalhousie listed on the city’s heritage register must be formally designated, or be removed altogether. The committee is supporting the city’s effort to designate heritage properties in Dalhousie this year.
Public Realm
A “healthy environment and safe places to play for all ages” – these are the goals of DCA’s Public Realm Committee.
The public realm is our public space. It includes our streets, sidewalks, and parks. The committee works for a sustainable and healthy public realm in Dalhousie, on which the livability of our neighbourhoods depends.
And has the committee saved Plouffe Park? In 2024 we’ll have the answer and hopefully have a say in its design as part of the city’s re-development of 1010 Somerset Street West.
The push continues for the implementation of plans for the new Norman/Rochester and Aqueduct parks.
Many new developments in Dalhousie do not meet the requirement for parkland. Developers pay cash to the city instead. These funds are accumulating, while the need for parks and greenspace grows.
The Public Realm Committee will be advocating for the immediate use of “cash-in-lieu of parkland funds” in Dalhousie in 2024.
The search for a new community garden, and the “Walk the Block for Trees,” and “Adopt a Public Planter” programs, continue this year.
Become a DCA member!
If you’ve read this far you should be a DCA member! Be informed and get involved in all that’s happening in Dalhousie in 2024! Contact us and get on the members’ mailing list.
And join us at our next regular meeting on Thursday, January 25, at 7:30 p.m.
Contact: president@ottawadalhousie.ca, and check out our website: ottawadalhousie.ca