Street design in Avalon (Orleans)

[Cre47]

I've noticed a new street design, that I haven't seen in the growing neighborhood south of Innes and Tenth Line in which there is one street looping as a large square with an another street inside doing a smaller square loop. On the Ottawa E-Map, there is a second incomplete design like this. Is this sort of street organization popular in Canada?

http://apps104.ottawa.ca/emap/?emapver=lite (go and zoom in to near the intersection) of Innes and Tenth Line)

[Acajack]

The Avalon area actually has a quite different feel from the rest of Orleans, even from the parts of Fallingbrook just across Innes Rd. The housing is mostly still single-detached, but it’s all much denser and the streetscapes “tighter”. Of course, there are still no walkable businesses to speak of in the entire huge Avalon area south of Innes or east of Tenth Line. Not even a dépanneur-type corner store. So everyone still drives.

But Orleans as a whole has gotten increasingly dense as it has developed, although in the initial densification phase they made some unfortunate errors in certain parts of Fallingbrook where the streets are walls of double garages (snout houses as they call them in the States) where the front entry door is actually hidden from street view, behind the garage.

In another thread, someone alluded to Gatineau’s “urban village” plans for the Plateau sector. Actually, it’s one of a series of 15 or so that cover pretty much the entire city outside of some industrial parks. Village urbain 5 - La Cité actually has a really interesting proposed street design right at the centre, in the area bounded by St-René, La Gappe, Boul. de l’Hôpital and Montée Paiement, featuring little square for each couple of streets:
http://www.ville.gatineau.qc.ca/Profilhabitation.htm

Nothing has been built in the area that has the small squares so far, but the plan eventually calls for low-rise apartments and townhouses. No single detached allowed in there if I recall.

The area south of there around L’Hôpital and La Gappe has built up however, and isn’t too bad on the design side. It’s got lots of condos and even some high-rise towers for seniors (5 or 6 at least I think), a health centre, a CEGEP college, a library, a theatre, a cinema-restaurant complex and other businesses that local residents can walk to. The city’s new $50M sports centre will also be built in this area, as will a new public square (Square de la Cité) with an outdoor amphitheatre.

[TransitZilla]

This actually won one of the City's 2007 Urban Design Awards:

http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/planning/design_awards/2007_award_en.html

Scroll down to #5: Lakeridge Square.

[Acajack]

Reviving the thread...

I was in this area recently because a family member has bought a property in this project.

I seized the opportunity to check out Lakeridge Square for myself. All in all, even though it was mostly covered in snow, it appears to be a modest step in the right direction. The apartments that surround it nicely frame the square, and the housing gets progressively less dense as you move away from the square (apartments, then townhomes, then single family...).

This will probably be a good community meeting place, though it’s still only one step above a traditional suburban neighbourhood park. I didn’t see any sign at all of future retail, so no coffee shops or even convenience stores are planned at all in this neighbourhood at this time (or ever). Even though this could easily be done as this example clearly shows: http://www.alaryconstruction.ca/realisations/rouville.htm

Bottom line: the hundreds of people (perhaps thousands - I saw the plans and tons of units are going in here, but with no retail of any kind!) that will eventually live in this area will still have to drive 2 km minimum to get to the closest businesses to them at the corner of Innes and Tenth Line for basically everything.

[Mille Sabords]

Even though this could easily be done as this example clearly shows: http://www.alaryconstruction.ca/realisations/rouville.htm

Talk about simple, uncomplicated, and yet totally attractive new building that does the job. Thanks for the link!

[Acajack]

Can someone please enlighten me as to why the City of Ottawa is still allowing huge single-use developments in the suburbs like the one I described in Orleans, when Ottawa is supposedly a signatory to a whole bunch of sustainable development principles (e.g. Agenda 21, etc.)?

We see the same thing in Gatineau, where a lot of the projects were approved by the former municipalities and are thus “grandfathered”. For example, and with apologies to our friends in Aylmer, all of the new developments in that part of Gatineau that are decried as “paving over Aylmer” by the anti-merger people there were actually approved by the former City of Aylmer, so they would have been built anyway without the merger.

So was the development in the southern part of Avalon I visited a few weeks ago approved by the former municipality of Cumberland (or perhaps the defunct Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, which also had a hand in planning)?

Does anyone know?

[Mille Sabords]

:previous: Generally speaking I'd say that's exactly the case. Mahogany (Manotick) is a good example, that thing started at least 15 years ago.

One thing, though, is that despite the best efforts the City or the former municipalities expend on creating design plans with grid street layouts, a smaller lot fabric, etc. (example, South Nepean), the industry pays no attention at all to these plans when they submit their applications, and the city does not reject them for not following the plans.

[Kitchissippi]

This is one of the reasons why I laugh when someone suggests that we should open the Greenbelt for development. I don't think this city and its developers are mature enough to be trusted to deal with any of the Greenbelt land in a smart manner. Just look at the whole Central Park development. What a waste of prime land so close to the core, squandered on single family homes.

[TransitZilla]

I didn’t see any sign at all of future retail, so no coffee shops or even convenience stores are planned at all in this neighbourhood at this time (or ever).

Bottom line: the hundreds of people (perhaps thousands - I saw the plans and tons of units are going in here, but with no retail of any kind!) that will eventually live in this area will still have to drive 2 km minimum to get to the closest businesses to them at the corner of Innes and Tenth Line for basically everything.

It is too bad that there won't be any retail right in the square, but it's not true that Innes & Tenth Line will be the closest retail: there is retail planned at Blackburn Bypass & Tenth Line and at Blackburn Bypass and Portobello. The city is also planning on building a new pool at Blackburn Bypass and Portobello.

[Acajack]

Good news. Thanks for pointing that out!