Thanks guys

Monarch gets set to close out Stonebridge this fall

http://ottawacitizen.com/life/homes/...e-in-barrhaven

3,000+ homes over a 15-year period with majority of happy home owners/investors. My tip of the cap to Bruce and the Monarch team! Not an easy feat to pull!

Northside Development was supposed to build a condo in Bells Corners but the sign is gone and I am not seeing any progress (I take the same route into work every day)

http://www.northsidedevelopments.com/

School planning is key to building better Ottawa suburbs

Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: March 20, 2015, Last Updated: March 20, 2015 11:58 AM EDT

The trouble started when parking spots were painted onto what was once a drop-off lane outside St. Anne Catholic School.

Suddenly, parents who had been dropping their kids off in front of the school needed to try to find a place to park nearby. Some of them weren’t good neighbours, often blocking a homeowner’s driveway in the morning rush to make the 9:10 a.m. bell.

“There used to be two lanes in front of the school, one for buses and one for drop-offs,” says Kanata South Coun. Allan Hubley. “But now one of the lanes is parking for teachers, and that’s pushed cars into the neighbourhood, which has created a problem with the city.”

Hubley has ideas on how to help the situation — including rerouting the sidewalk onto an adjacent grassy knoll and turning the existing sidewalk into a drop-off area — but he points to the issue as one example of an area where the municipality and schools need to work together better.

Indeed, improving the partnership between the city and school was one of the major themes in the city’s report Building Better and Smarter Suburbs, which was tabled at planning committee last week.

A project launched back in 2013, the concept was to bring together residents, developers, school boards and others with an interest in planning the suburbs better. The group looked at everything from the best layout for roads to how to use storm water ponds to the communities’ best advantage.

Partnering with schools was seen as such an important issue that it is the subject of one of the three working groups looking at how to take the recommendations from the report and turn them into policies and guidelines (yes, this stuff takes years).

From a layperson’s point of view, the only thing to be said about the plan is that it’s about time.

How many parents have been stunned to find the local school’s playground locked on a weekend? Or found a schoolyard right beside a city-owned park (sometimes with a fence in between them!), when other parts of the community are starved for any green space?

That cities and school boards should come together to more efficiently use tax dollars — not to mention public land — is a no-brainer. It’s no surprise that the comments from the better-suburbs initiative indicate it would be “beneficial” to share parks and schoolyards and even libraries when possible.

It’s been done before. Perhaps the best example is John McCrae Secondary School, which is attached to both the Walter Baker Sports Complex and the public library. For new areas of the city in particular, combining these uses means more services earlier in these communities’ development.

At Adrienne Clarkson Elementary School, there are parking spots attached to the local park. School staff use the parking during weekday hours, leaving them free in the evenings and weekends for the public. Perfect.

People also want more sustainability from their schools, for the buildings themselves to take up less space — perhaps multi-level schools are in order — and for schools to be located in ways that make it easier to encourage so-called active modes of transportation (in English, that’s walking, biking and, by far the most fun, scootering).

Everyone is for better access to walking and cycling — but the development of a community hasn’t always unfolded in a way that makes sustainability planning easier to happen.

For one thing, we have four school boards, and they all want their schools to be in the centre of the community, reaching as many students as possible. This is why we end up with multiple schools on one street — which might be efficient for busing but terrible for providing neighbourhood schools to which children could walk. (More spread-out schools would be one of the bonuses of abolishing the publicly funded Catholic school board — a valid idea, but not part of this discussion.)

“There were times when we had a school site identified, and there was no road or sewer to that site yet,” explained Mike Carson, the chief financial officer and superintendent of facilities for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. Other times, he said, the board doesn’t have the money to build a school at the same time developers are building homes in a certain area.

Well, that’s what we need to change if we’re going to plan communities better.

We “front-end” community centres: Instead of saving up to build a rec centre, the city gets a developer to pay for and often build it and the municipality pays the company back. Why not do the same with schools?

We’ve been talking about addressing these problems for years. Perhaps we’re on the cusp of doing something about it. After all, Ottawa Centre MPP and cabinet minister Yasir Naqvi is supportive of the city’s better suburbs initiative. And Premier Kathleen Wynne gave the education minister a mandate to, among other things, “consider how to improve interactions between school boards and municipalities to ensure effective land-use planning.”

The city is projecting 84,000 new homes will be built between now and 2031, along with 50 new schools. Although their timelines and financial resources might be different, the city, the school boards, developers and the residents all pretty much have the same goal — to get services to residents sooner rather than later. It’s about time we find better ways to get that done.

jchianello@ottawacitizen.com

http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/col...-col-chianello

Or, you know, parents just don't drop off kids at school and they take the bus instead. What is with Ottawa and every kid getting a ride with their folks? When I was in elementary school in Embrun, from 1997 to 2007, I don't think I ever got a ride to school in a car once, I took the yellow bus every single day.

Or the kids could walk?

Please don't get all logical on us here:cheers:

I think one of the points being made was that with multiple schoolboards operating they all want to be located in the same spot, with the result that the average distance to the school is increased.

And exactly, Stonehaven has basically three different school boards bunched up all together and parking is prohibited on most of Stonehaven itself. No wonder the congestion is ridiculous there. I think it is the same issue at all three of them. Whoever did the planning in this area should get a Razzie award. And keep mind they are still building new subdivisions around there which would make the problem worse until they finally twin the roadway.

Ste Anne's

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.28172...hNdBH-53Cw!2e0

Roch Carrier

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.28434...gtkg3bDXqg!2e0

Elizabeth Bruyere

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.28682...TqsDQIoa_g!2e0

This is one of the negative consequences of Ontario's insistence on maintaining the archaic separate school system.

Although, even within the same school board, there seems to be very little value placed on minimizing distance-to-school. I've seen one school board open two schools in the same area and leave another area school-free, and even have schools located outside of their catchment area.

It's like that everywhere these days; kids are bubble-wrapped.

Excellent point..you missed one though..St James..same street but closer to Eagleson.

The frabricland on stjoseph blvd in Orleans has been demolished. Hopefully something good will take its place.

A new Fabricland: http://app01.ottawa.ca/postingplans/...appId=__978RT5

Speaking of FabricLand, I was at the Merivale one with my mom today and it was pretty busy, lots of people coming and going and buying stuff.

This location has been around for a while and I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon.

http://metronews.ca/news/ottawa/1365...ark-477-homes/

Hundreds of homes, a new school and a park are on the planning books in a fast-developing area of southern Barrhaven.

Developer Minto Communities Inc. is proposing a 477-unit subdivision over 24 hectares of land off Greenbank Road. The project will be before a planning committee on Tuesday because it requires a zoning change from its current “sand and gravel resource area.”

Here’s the breakdown of the homes: 219 lots will be for single detached homes, plus 190 street townhouses and another 68 back-to-back townhouses. All are considered low-rise and geared for a mix of families. An elementary school and neighbourhood park are part of the plan.

The development neighbours Mattamy’s Half Moon Bay South, which is in construction, and the Monarch’s Stonebridge Community.

Barrhaven Coun. Jan Harder has previously said the ward is the fastest-growing community in the city. According to the 2006 Statistics Canada census, the suburb was home to more than 36,800 residents. By 2011, that number grew to almost 46,500.

There are five high schools in Barrhaven alone and the Longfields-Davidson Heights Secondary School is undergoing a $12-million expansion to accommodate all 2,100 students. It’s due to open in September.

If the planning committee approves Minto’s plan, it must then be sent to council for the final say.

MXI is moving from the east-end to Kanata

http://www.obj.ca/Technology/2015-05...t-end-office/1

Blair Road is a pretty poor visibility location... generally IT needs to be in clusters.

The city has apparently rezoned Stittsville Main Street as Traditional Mainstreet and the CDP for the area is proposing a walkable mixed use street, by building on its existing 'bones' as a former rural town subsumed by sprawl.

This is a big step. One of my best friends lives in Stittsville; it's a surprisingly nice place. There's a lot of businesses along the main streets, and all the neighbourhoods generally surround them. As a result its a surprisingly walkable place. My friend has a large variety of stores and restaurants within walking distance of her suburban cul-de-sac home. The neighbourhoods were all bit piece by piece so it's street network is relatively straightforward and there's decent variety. It's actually a pretty okay suburb.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...-neighbourhood

Still hope for Dickinson House, carriage shed
$400,000 outstanding to recoup city costs

By Emma Jackson
Manotick News, August 30 2015

http://media.zuza.com/f/3/f36c5ac6-a...___Content.jpg

The city has to find about $400,000 more to meet its goal of recouping the $2.15 million it spent purchasing six properties in Dickinson Square eight years ago.

The Manotick Mill Quarter Community Development Corporation, a city-owned corporation tasked with redeveloping and protecting Manotick’s heritage square, recently sold the Ayres building to ROSSS, a rural senior support group that has rented the heritage building since the city bought it from the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority in 2007.

At the time of the bulk-property purchase, city council stipulated that the money spent acquiring the properties from the conservation authority had to be regained through sale or lease. It created the mill quarter corporation to make it happen.

While the Ayres building sale price was not made public, Rideau-Goulbourn Coun. Scott Moffatt said the corporation has so far recouped about $1.75 million of the $2.15 million it originally spent on four heritage buildings and two other properties that make up the bulk of Dickinson Square around Watson’s Mill.

The remaining money, if the city chooses to pursue it, would have to come from the sale of Dickinson House and the carriage shed, arguably the two most important buildings in the square.

Community opinion on the fate of these properties has been clear from the start: keep them in the public’s hands, or at least available for public use.

MILL LINK

There’s much to lose if they are sold for redevelopment. The carriage shed, for example, serves as office and programming space for the staff at Watson’s Mill. With no electricity, heat or washrooms in the mill itself, losing the carriage shed could mean programming would not be able to continue in the same way, staff have warned in the past.

Dickinson House is also prominent as a community-run museum commemorating Manotick’s founding family. There are rumours the house was once the campaign headquarters for Sir John A. Macdonald – at the very least, he came to visit once.

The museum hosts regular public concerts, exhibits and high teas, and is open for tours every day in the summer.

But Maureen McPhee, an active volunteer at Dickinson House, said she feels confident Moffatt will support the community’s desire to keep the two buildings in the hands of the public.

“(A sale) hasn’t happened yet so I just remain hopeful,” she said.

McPhee added Moffatt’s recent column on the topic “seemed encouraging.”

“I will continue to work toward a solution that can be supported by the community and makes the most sense going forward,” Moffatt wrote on Aug. 17. “We’ve listened to the community every step of the way and I look forward to continuing that working relationship on the two remaining, and most significant, Dickinson Square properties.”

The two buildings are not officially up for sale at the moment, but McPhee said she and her fellow volunteers continue to work hard to keep Dickinson House relevant and valued in the village.

“We’re just hanging in there and doing what we can to demonstrate the value of the square to the community,” she said. “I think we have strong community support, so the decisions are in the city’s hands.”

SLOW PROCESS

So far the city has sold Weaver House, a once-vacant and decrepit heritage home which is now under renovations to become a day spa, and the property on Clapp Lane on which developer Joe Princiotta plans to build a seniors’ living centre.

The Ayres building, a former bank and library, was also on Princiotta’s radar, but when that sale fell through ROSSS was able to make a successful bid instead.

A property east of Dickinson Street, known as the Holloway property, can’t be sold because it’s too complicated to develop so close to the Rideau River. It is being turned into a city-owned Remembrance Park instead.

http://www.ottawacommunitynews.com/n...carriage-shed/