This will be approved, developed, completed and the new trees will have grown 20 feet before the Strandherd Bridge is complete.

Anyone know what's being built along Vanier Parkway between Montreal and MacArthur? It's fully in construction and must be like around 8 floors up right now... Do we have may renders for the finished building?

^ http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=176625

http://www.juteaujohnsoncomba.com/ne...June_Sales.pdf

Another notable residential land sale was the purchase of a site located between Russell Road and St. Laurent Boulevard for $3,840,000 or $1,613,445/acre. Theberge Developments purchased the site from 6553061 Canada Inc. for the development of 106 low rise apartment units. The site is part of a larger development site that is to developed with a total of 320 residential units in three townhouses blocks and nine low rise apartment
buildings.

from
http://www.groupeheafey.com/en/projdev.php

edit: this is an old plan. See below for a link to the new plan

http://www.groupeheafey.com/cms/plog...%20%281%29.jpg

Interesting. Guess that means we'll say goodbye to the Petro. The proposed buildings don't jive with what we're seeing from AV Ridge, though - I guess it was just hastily thrown together?

oh you're right this is AV Ridge... must be for the next phase?

The plan I posted is old... here is the new overall plan of subdivision/site plan

http://webcast.ottawa.ca/plan/All_Im...16-11-0021.PDF

here's the latest AV Ridge plan for Phase 3
http://www.avridge.com/pdfs/AV-siteplan3.pdf

I've been looking for this thread for months! Thanks Waterloowarrior!

Anyway, they've started rebuilding the roof of the building that caught fire in Sttitsville a month ago.

Picture of the building after the fire;
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/cms/binary/8908615.jpg

Prince of Wales eyesore to be demolished

By David Reevely, OTTAWA CITIZEN December 2, 2013 1:01 PM

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/ot...ry/9236742.jpg

OTTAWA — One of Ottawa’s most visible old eyesores is due to be demolished this week, now that its owners have a rough agreement with the city on plans to redevelop the land holding an old roadhouse on Prince of Wales Drive.

Numerous people nominated the abandoned Rideau Glen Little Village Inn when the Citizen asked for nominations for Ottawa’s worst derelict buildings in 2004 and then again early this year. On the Rideau River across from the airport, the joint was once a way station for travellers when Prince of Wales was the Prescott Highway, the main way into and out of the city from the south. But it’s fallen to ruin over the years. Thousands and thousands of people drive past it from Barrhaven every day.

Most recently, owners Gerry Lalonde and Doug Edwards have been wrangling with the city and the airport authority over redevelopment plans, which have been stymied by the property’s location under possible flight paths, where construction is restricted because of the noise. They wanted to build 19 houses, as many as they could, to defray the cost of extending city water and sewer pipes to the somewhat isolated property. The authorities said no. But now they’ve got a compromise, Lalonde said Monday morning.

“The proposal right now, the final application won’t go in till the end of March, but the proposal, subject to studies, is for 10 serviced lots. Subject to studies that are underway right now,” he said. “Planning agreements have been done with the city that give me more confidence to move forward with the plan. That was fairly recent, that ability to do that. I’ve been trying to organize it to get it torn down for about a month now.”

It’ll be a relief to have the main inn building taken down, he said. “When we first acquired the property, there was something like 15 cabins on there and a bunch of derelict stuff that we cleaned up pretty much immediately,” he said. But the inn itself is a more daunting (and expensive) prospect. “We didn’t want to go another winter with that building sitting up there.”

Coun. Steve Desroches, who represents the area, said he thinks the city bylaw department’s stepped-up enforcement of the city’s property standards, which began early in 2013, has something to do with the progress.

“Prince of Wales is a gateway to the city and this building really stood out like a sore thumb. I’m hopeful now that we will see a plan come forward that will renew is location next to the Rideau River,” he said.

dreevely@ottawacitizen.com

ottawacitizen.com/greaterottawa
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/ot...741/story.html

Ottawa’s "frontier of development"

The South Urban area is the fastest growing part of our City. Part 1 of a four-part series

By Maria Cook, Ottawa Citizen December 24, 2013 9:16 AM

OTTAWA - The fastest growing part of Ottawa, the south urban area, is like a jigsaw puzzle. There are sections where the picture is nearly complete, others still being assembled, and there are some missing pieces.

Established neighborhoods give onto fields stripped of soil and trees in preparation for development. Bungalows built on country lots forty years ago are now surrounded by new town houses laid out on small lots with reduced street widths. Occasional fragments of rural heritage survive: barns, sheds, stands of trees.

On the same street, there can be houses which are finished and occupied, while next door pink insulation covers house frames still waiting for windows. Furnished and curtained living rooms look onto digging equipment still excavating for foundations.

"When you’re on the frontier of development you have to accept that you live in a community that’s being built around you," says Steve Desroches, deputy-mayor of the City of Ottawa and councillor for Gloucester-South Nepean.

Together, Desroches and Barrhaven councillor Jan Harder represent the south urban community, among the most booming in Canada. Covering almost 15,000 acres, it lies south of the Greenbelt and straddles the Rideau River in the former cities of Nepean and Gloucester.

According to the City of Ottawa, the area accounted for more than 50 per cent of Ottawa’s population growth over the last five years, reaching about 95,000 residents in 2012. That’s roughly 10 per cent of the total city population.

In the next 20 years, the number of people is expected to almost double to 180,000.

"The city is now growing primarily to the south," says Carleton University architecture professor Ben Gianni. "It’s the equivalent of what Kanata and Orleans were a few decades ago."

Yet the expansion is "out of sight, out of mind," says Gianni. "Unless you live out there, you are not aware of how much construction is going on. "

The Gloucester-South Nepean ward experienced the city’s largest recent increase in population. According to the 2011 census, it grew almost 55 per cent from 26,895 in 2006 to 41,620 in 2011.

The ward includes Riverside South and Leitrim as well as a portion of Barrhaven. It is bounded by Strandherd Road and Leitrim Road to the north; Rideau Road and Earl Armstrong Road to the south; Woodroffe Avenue, Greenbank Road and Jockvale Road to the west and Bank Street to the east.

During the same period, the population of Barrhaven ward grew from 36,815 in 2006 to 46,475 in 2011 - an increase of more than 26 per cent.

Barrhaven’s boundaries follow Fallowfield Road to the north; Cambrian Road and Strandherd Road to the south; Highway 416 to the west; Woodroffe Avenue and Jockvale Road to the east.

"There are still people that have never been to Barrhaven," says Harder. "They call it Far-haven. We are no longer a bedroom community. We have evolved and grown."

In the 1970s, the former regional municipality of Ottawa Carleton designated Kanata, Orleans and the "south urban community" as places for Ottawa to grow. They called them satellite cities.

Development in Kanata, Orleans and Barrhaven began in the1960s. The south end, however, lagged behind the west and east, because it lacked infrastructure such as roads, sewers and water mains.

The first houses in Riverside South were completed in 1996. In Barrhaven, housing activity accelerated in 2001, after the local economy recovered from the slowdown of the 1990s.

In Leitrim, services had to be extended down Bank Street before urban development could start. The first houses in the subdivision of Findlay Creek Village were completed in 2003.

"Development south of the city was both predictable and inevitable," says Gianni, noting the area is close to employment centres such the RCMP headquarters (located in the former JDS Uniphase complex in Barrhaven), Carleton University, Algonquin College, Confederation Heights, the old Nortel Campus and Kanata.

It is also near the Ottawa International Airport. "Most cities spawn edge cities adjacent to the airport," he says.

David Wise, the City of Ottawa’s program manager, development review, notes that about 20,000 people a year move to the region. Some are new immigrants, others migrate from other parts of Canada.

"Ottawa is an attractive place to live, work and retire," says Wise. "They have to be accommodated."

Desroches often hears people say they don’t see themselves living in the suburbs. "But when get married and want to raise a family they just can’t afford to live in the core and they quickly find themselves looking in the suburbs.

"That’s part of the Canadian dream, to own your own home," he says. "One of the things that stands out is the youthfulness of the communities. You have a lot of young families, many just starting out."

The built landscape is starting to reflect Barrhaven’s growing diversity. The South Nepean Muslim Community (SNMC) is building a $4.5-million community and prayer centre topped with domes on Woodroffe Avenue, between Longfields and Claridge Drives.

The SNMC estimates there are about 10,000 Muslims in the south end, up from about 1,000 in the year 2000.

"There’s this perception that it’s uncontrolled sprawl; that suburbs are contributing to the environmental demise of our city," says Desroches.

"This is growth that we have planned," he says. "We are working to build sustainable communities with employment, with retail and residential. We are not building the traditional sprawling bedroom community."

A 165,000-square foot recreation complex opens next fall in Barrhaven South. The city recently approved a new 100-hectare business park in Barrhaven at Highway 416. The owners hope to start building an auto mall and retail plaza in 2015. The South Merivale Business Park is expected to grow, and employment lands have been set aside south of the Jock River.

The city’s official plan projects 70,000 jobs by the year 2021 in the area.

Infrastructure is still the biggest issue. North-south routes such as Greenbank Road, Woodroffe Avenue, Limebank Road and Prince of Wales Drive are bumper-to-bumper during rush hour. Buses are jammed. Park and rides are full. Schools sprout portables as soon as they’re built.

Two councils ago, then-Mayor Bob Chiarelli both anticipated and attempted to plan for the development boom south of the city with his proposal to push rail-based transit south into the area.

It would have served both Riverside South and Barrhaven. When the north-south light rail project was cancelled in 2006, bus rapid transit was extended to Barrhaven instead.

"Unfortunately, it does not serve Riverside South, nor does it serve the RCMP employment center along Prince of Wales," points out Gianni.

"For better or worse, the development is happening without the benefit of efficient transit," he says.

"While the lack of rail-based transit has not affected the desirability of the area, it has certainly affected its form and density. By extension, it has affected how people commute to and from the area."

Since 2008, millions have been spent on roads and transit, including the Strandherd-Armstrong Bridge, which opens next year, the extension of the Southwest Transitway and three new park and rides. Segments of Limebank and Earl Armstrong Roads have been widened and a new Strandherd Drive built between Woodroffe Avenue and Prince of Wales.

Other road projects are scheduled. Wise says development charges pay for anywhere from 20 to 95 per cent of new infrastructure.

Driving along the new roads, one sees a surprising number of townhouses, stacked townhouses and semi-detached houses. Lot sizes tend to be smaller than in subdivisions developed even 10 years earlier. A grid street-pattern occasionally replaces the more familiar curving and winding pattern of suburban streets.

The thrust of the city’s official plan is for greater density in suburbs as well as the core. For example, the new Half Moon Bay subdivision in Barrhaven is developed at 34 units per hectare, compared to the 20 to 22 units per hectare of older parts of Barrhaven.

"That’s part of affordability and to to avoid expanding out into countryside further, " says Dana Collings, program manager, community planning and urban design at the City of Ottawa.

The official plan seeks to place walkable cores linked to transit in the midst of new development.

"For urban planning we have concentrated the retail and business districts into town centres and we’ve avoided creating a Merivale Road which is just a long strip of stores," explains Desroches.

The large shopping centres that exist do little for local identity. In contrast, lovely parks and recreation areas along the banks of the Rideau River make sense of names like Riverside South and Chapman Mills.

Natural attributes such as parks, paths, wetlands and storm-water ponds, give the neighbourhoods their character, says Desroches.

The city’s 2013 development report highlighted the continuing trend of people moving to "urban areas" outside the greenbelt. An estimated 33.5 per cent of the city’s 935,255 population, at the end of 2012, lived in these developing communities and a further 9.9 per cent in rural areas. This contrasts with 56.6 per cent living within the Greenbelt.

"I jokingly tell the people who moved there in 2001 that they’re pioneers," says Desroches. "They lived there when there was virtually nothing."

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/busines...351/story.html

Barrhaven: Booming or sprawling?

Ever-expanding community seeks to be high-density while remaining pedestrian friendly

By Maria Cook, Ottawa Citizen December 25, 2013 6:00 PM

By settling in Chapman Mills, a newer part of Barrhaven, Xiaopeng Li says his family has all it needs for a good life: a network of friends, a comfortable house, recreation and proximity to shopping and transit.

“We feel quite happy,” says Li, 49, a federal civil servant. “In the last several years, we can see Barrhaven is booming. You still see lots of construction. Gradually, we have Walmart, a cinema, Home Depot. The educational facilities are wonderful.”

The Li family is among thousands who have chosen in the past decade to move to the city’s new suburbs south of the Greenbelt. The southern urban area, which includes Barrhaven, Riverside South and Leitrim, is the fastest growing part of Ottawa.

Over the past 11 years, Barrhaven’s population increased by 85 per cent — from 41,711 in 2001 to 77,245 in 2012. By 2021, the population is projected to swell to 95,000, and by 2031 to 110,000. (These numbers include all of Barrhaven, which is divided between two wards: Barrhaven and Gloucester-South Nepean.)

Barrhaven was established by Kingston contractor Melville Barr, who in 1959 bought 200 acres at Greenbank and Fallowfield roads to build a race course. After the Rideau-Carleton Raceway appeared, he subdivided the land instead and sold lots to builders.

The original Barrhaven, now called Old Barrhaven, was developed in the 1960s. Since then, it has grown south, east and west. The boundaries of Barrhaven are now the Greenbelt to the north; Rideau River to the east; Highway 416 to the west and Cambrian Road and Strandherd Road to the south.

Barrhaven is surrounded by rural areas and farmland, with the exception of the growing Riverside South community across the Rideau River. Directly south is Manotick, a village that has become part of Ottawa.

New Canadians are among those attracted to Barrhaven, including a significant Asian community. Li came from China to New Brunswick in 1994 to pursue his PhD in geomatics and remote sensing. The family, including wife Huili Wang, daughter Mengting and son Andy, moved to Ottawa in 1999 when Li got a job at a mapping company.

In 2000, they bought in Old Barrhaven because that’s where they had friends. In 2009, they moved to Chapman Mills for a newer and bigger house, going from 1,800 square feet to 3,400 square feet.

A Chinese volunteer group in Barrhaven organizes sports and social activities: Li plays volleyball three times a week, while his wife participates in traditional dance. A Chinese Saturday school in Barrhaven has 600 students, including their son.

At Water Dragon Park on Chapman Mills Drive, a pair of stone lions frame the entrance to the park. They were a gift from China, arranged with the help of Gloucester-South Nepean Coun. Steve Desroches, who wanted to mark the presence of the Chinese community.

“We like this kind of environment,” says Li. “We don’t like Toronto or Vancouver. Too many people. Too noisy.”

Barrhaven Coun. Jan Harder says the Greenbelt creates a transition zone from work to home “that’s almost like a poignant pause. Once you cross Hunt Club Road you can feel the stress leave your body. You know you’re almost there.”

Driving south on Greenbank Road, through the cornfields of the Greenbelt, just before Fallowfield Road, motorists are greeted with a sign that reads “Barrhaven — Welcome Home.”

A short drive further, Greenbank narrows to two lanes and seems to enter woodlands, leading past elegantly simple 1970’s townhouses set among trees — a new form of housing then. A sign on a treed site announces a church to be built.

But, rather than becoming more rural as it moves further beyond the Greenbelt, the road soon emerges into the broad, bare streetscape of new shopping centres. Village Square Mall, Chapman Mills Marketplace, Barrhaven Town Centre, and others provide residents with Loblaws, Canadian Tire, Wendy’s and banks in multiple buildings arranged around parking.

During the 1990s and 2000s, Barrhaven expanded south and east toward Woodroffe Avenue and the Rideau River into subdivisions with names such as Chapman Mills, Longfields, Davidson Heights and Stonebridge, built beside a golf course.

In the 24-year period between 1988 and 2012, more than 21,000 new houses appeared in Barrhaven. Today, Chapman Mills and Longfields are still growing. Half Moon Bay is a new district down Greenbank Road on the Jock River. Further south, development is slated for neighbourhoods called the South Nepean Town Centre and Barrhaven South, for which the City of Ottawa has prepared community design plans.

While the shopping centres look like suburban malls everywhere, the nearby stacked townhouses signal new ideas about how a suburb should be designed.

Under the City of Ottawa’s intensification policies, new subdivisions are being developed to a higher density, which includes smaller lots and narrower road allowances to increase the number of houses built on the land.

The city’s new official plan has density targets of 34 units per hectare in subdivisions, compared to 29 units/hectare a decade ago and about 20 units/hectare in Old Barrhaven.

Barrhaven has exceeded the target: Over the past five years the density of new development has been 37 units/ hectare.

For example, Li’s house, built in 2007, sits on a relatively tight lot. The width is about 36 feet and the distance between houses is 10 feet. “This is between urban and suburban style,” he says. “We are very close to each other.”

The city’s plan for Barrhaven is to become a self-sustaining centre, with employment, and dense, walkable core areas connected to transit.

One such mixed-use district in the making is the South Nepean Town Centre. The 165-hectare site is planned for 22,000 residents and 12,000 jobs by 2031.

It is bounded to the north by Strandherd Drive, to the west by the Kennedy-Burnett Stormwater Management Facility, to the east by the future extension of Longfields Drive, and to the south by the Jock River.

“Is it residential sprawl?” says Dana Collings, the city’s program manager, community planning and urban design. “That’s not what this is. It’s going to be more of a place to live work, shop, go to school. It’s going to have every component of an urban city, not just housing.”

The first phase of the South Nepean Town Centre is a high-density development by Minto called Ampersand, which includes stacked townhouses and four-storey apartment buildings laid out on a city-type grid. High-rise condos are planned. The four-storey buildings frame a park that planners describe as “urban” for its use of hard surfaces, lamp-posts and rectangular form.

Parking courts behind the buildings reduce the impact of garages. Balconies are larger and more enclosed than is common on apartment buildings. At completion, Ampersand will have about 1,000 dwellings.

Another developer, Tega Homes, has applied to build two condo towers overlooking the Chapman Mills Marketplace shopping centre. They would be the highest in Barrhaven at 16 and 12 storeys.

“We need to look at opportunities for more density,” says Harder, vice-chair of city council’s planning committee. Density will bring a greater variety of stores and better bus service, she says.

Part of the idea of Ampersand is to be near shopping and transit, to reduce car use. It is located beside the Marketplace, giving residents access to stores within 600 metres and a rapid-bus transit station within 800 metres.

Still, Harder is disappointed that the walkability and cycling connections promised for the mall did not happen. “When I think back to what the initial presentations were, it was far more pedestrian friendly,” she says. “We have one bench in the entire Marketplace. Lots of seniors tell me they wish they could walk about and rest on a bench when needed.”

Because of the way communities are laid out, most residents of the south urban area will not be able to walk to shops, says Carleton University architecture professor Ben Gianni.

“Retail is aggregated into fewer, larger stores in shopping plazas, often at the edges rather than through the centre of the neighbourhood,” says Gianni.

“These centres are not only more difficult to reach on foot but are less pedestrian friendly given the need to accommodate automobiles,” he says. “Arguably residents benefit from few of the advantages or conveniences we associate with density.”

A high-profile example of density without amenity is Chapman Mills Drive, lined with stacked townhouses. Light rail, cancelled in 2006, was supposed to run along a boulevard down the centre of the road. Bus transit will take over the space in a couple of years, but the impact on the houses facing the avenue will be significant compared to LRT.

Roads and transit are the issues Harder hears about most often from residents. The vast majority of people who live in the community, don’t work in the community, says Harder. “Their need for public transit, for roads for their vehicles is very very high.”

Li alternates by car and bus to get to work at Baseline and Merivale. It takes 40 minutes, which he finds reasonable. But Wang’s bus commute to Carleton University campus takes an hour and a half . Because there’s no direct bus, she must travel to Bayview Station to transfer to the O-Train.

The other major area slated for development is Barrhaven South, a 500-hectare site planned for 19,215 people and 2,092 jobs by 2031. Still mostly farms and rural houses, it lies south of the Jock River, east of Highway 16, north of Barnsdale Road and west of Jockvale, Greenbank and the Stonebridge subdivision.

The Barrhaven South community design plan envisions a core area, where transit, commerce and civic uses such as a library or community centre are concentrated, along with apartments and live-work units. The city owns land along the Jock River, where it plans a district park.

Creating such mixed-use areas “that’s the 21st century challenge, we need to resolve in terms of building suburbs,” says urban planner and Davidson Heights resident Steve Willis, 45.

There’s only so much commercial activity to go around and employment is still tough to attract. As a result, despite sidewalks and bike lanes, it’s not easy to get around without a car, says Willis. “Everything is still very spread out, because it’ s not that mixed.”

That said, the Barrhaven being shaped today, is “certainly not the suburb I grew up in,” he says. “The streets are narrower, the lots are smaller.”

Willis was raised in a 1960s subdivision in Lincoln Fields; houses had big driveways and were set back on properties typically measuring 50 feet by 100 feet.

On Barrhaven’s newer streets, garages are pushed back to make them less dominant in front of houses, he observes. Lots are 35 feet and less. Larger and smaller houses as well as townhouses and semi-detached are mixed on the same street. This new model of suburb is driven by city policy as well as rising land prices, says Willis.

Here, the city is also experimenting with narrower right-of-ways. Typically local roads have an 18-metre right-of-way but many of the new streets have a 16.5-metre right way. The amount of asphalt road remains the same — 8.5 metres — but the space for utilities, trees and sidewalks is less.

This makes “a more close-knit fabric” and “more intimate feel,” says David Wise, the City of Ottawa’s program manager, development review.

It has also led to some head-scratching. “Where do hydro transformers go? How do you squeeze the sidewalk in there and make sure you’re leaving enough room for street trees, and underground infrastructure, the gas and water pipes and sanitary pipes and storm-pipes?”

In parts of Chapman Mills, utility boxes sit between driveways and close to houses, which residents do not like and try to screen with plants. Sometimes, there’s no room for street trees.

Smaller lots also mean there’s less lawn surface to soak up rainwater. “We need to direct that water safely so we’re not talking about having issues like flooded basements or erosion,” says Wise.

Parks now do double-duty as part of the storm-management system. At Water Dragon Park, for instance, much of the grass area is sunken to gather rain water .

Last summer, Harder was chatting with fellow residents about the perception of Barrhaven as “BBQ-Haven” or “bore-haven.”

“We no longer care that people mock us and they don’t know what Barrhaven is about,” they told Harder. “We love living here.”

Li’s son Andy, 17, agrees. He hadn’t heard the term “suburban sprawl.” Once it was explained, he replied: “I definitely support the idea of controlling it. You can see how there’s a lot of construction nearby. Two years ago it was trees. I don’t want to grow up and think, ‘Wow, this place used to be filled with nature.”

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/ot...398/story.html

How the south was won ... at least here in Ottawa

A tale of politics, persuasion and money in the nation’s capital

By Maria Cook, Ottawa Citizen December 26, 2013 5:45 PM

In the 1970s, when the former Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton proposed a satellite city of 100,000 in the south end — today’s Riverside South and expanded Barrhaven — many people thought it was a bad idea.

Transportation planner Stan Wallace, speaking at a 1976 panel discussion in Manotick, predicted “horrendous transit problems,” and said the plan would require a 16-lane highway through the Greenbelt.

In 1977, almost 1,900 people signed a petition against the proposal. They included Ottawa mayor Lorry Greenberg, David Lewis, a one-time leader of the national NDP, and Jean Pigott, member of Parliament for Ottawa-Carleton.

“The heavy increase in taxes, the impossibility of providing direct transportation into Ottawa, the pollution . . . the destruction of good farm land and the lack of employment prospects in the area . . . prove such dense development is unnecessary,” the petition said.

How the south was won for suburban development is a story of politics, persuasion and money, as well as sewers and bogs.

The first southern outpost was Barrhaven, named after Kingston contractor Mel Barr who, in 1959, bought 200 acres south of the Greenbelt at Fallowfield and Greenbank roads from a man named “Early” Larkin.

Barr meant to build a race course but after the Rideau-Carleton Raceway appeared, he decided instead to subdivide the land and sell lots to builders. This plan was made possible by a key piece of infrastructure: an existing sewer that served the Agriculture Canada facility in the Greenbelt.

Over the next decade, during the 1960s, houses sprang up in Barrhaven. At the same time, residential development crossed the Greenbelt to Kanata in the west and Orleans to the east.

In early 1970s, RMOC planners forecast the population of the region would reach one million by the turn of the 20th century. It was not a bad guess. The 2011 census had the city’s population as 883,391. The census metropolitan area, which includes Gatineau, had 1.2 million people.

To accommodate future growth, the regional government envisioned three “satellite cities.”

It was “a foregone conclusion” that development would continue in Orleans and Kanata, writes Carleton University professor Bruce Elliott in The City Beyond: a History of Nepean. “The location of a third node to the south remained in contention,” he writes.

As it happens, there were two potential sites: one in private hands and the other public.

The former townships of Nepean and Gloucester pushed for a “south urban community” that would spread south-east from Barrhaven straddling the Rideau River. The land — 4,000 acres in the southern part of Nepean and Gloucester — was owned by four development companies: Campeau, Urbandale, Jockvale and Shenkman.

Meanwhile, the province’s Ontario Housing Corp. and the National Capital Commission had assembled a 6,000-acre parcel in Carlsbad Springs, about 20 kilometres southeast of Ottawa. It met provincial policies of directing residential development away from prime agricultural land.

Critics pointed out the presence of unstable Leda clay. Nevertheless, based on studies and the fact that 40 per cent of Ottawa is built on similar soil, regional planners gave Carlsbad Springs the thumbs up.

The planning department was overruled by regional council in 1974, after intense lobbying by developers. The RMOC went on to approve a south urban community in Nepean and Gloucester in 1977. It became part of the region’s official land-use plan.

“What the people want has been disregarded,” wrote Ottawa Citizen columnist Jane Finlayson.

Following the Carlsbad Springs versus Nepean-Gloucester debate, the discussion shifted back to whether a big settlement in the south was needed at all and the potential damage it could cause.

At one point, Rideau Township mayor Bill Tupper tried to have the south urban community deleted from the city’s official plan. He protested that the township’s villages and farms would be sunk by the creation of a Sudbury-sized city on its northern flank.

“We really have no desire at all to be the sort of growing community that’s going to be on the end of a 30-mile-long trunk sewer,” he said. “We can’t maintain the integrity of our villages if that happens.”

The objections continued in 1977 at the Ontario Municipal Board, which held hearings on the regional plan.

Marianne Wilkinson, then-reeve of March township, and currently Kanata North councillor, testified that much had changed since regional planners made their growth projections.

The federal government was decentralizing jobs out of the region; public service growth slowed; immigration policies tightened and birth rates declined. As a result, the south urban community would not be required for many years, she said.

A spokesman for the Federation of Citizens Associations told the OMB: “We would need to double or triple the north-south road structure and change the present east-west structures of Ottawa by driving new routes through the area. We are also concerned that no evidence has been given of employment in the south urban area.”

The OMB listened. In 1978, the agency approved the regional official plan, but rejected a south urban community at either Nepean and Gloucester or Carlsbad Springs. It also limited Barrhaven’s expansion, favouring ongoing development of Orleans and Kanata.

A year later, in 1979, a bombshell dropped. The provincial cabinet overruled the OMB decision, clearing the way for full-scale development of a new city of 100,000 south of Ottawa.

“I’m absolutely shocked,” said Ottawa mayor Marion Dewar.

Ottawa civic politicians accused the provincial cabinet of bowing to pressure from developers.

An Aug. 23, 1979 editorial in the Citizen described cabinet minister Claude Bennett as a “full blooded Conservative and half-hearted housing minister,” who had swayed colleagues.

“Perhaps significantly those who promoted the southern community have been pro-development Conservatives who had substantial political interests in developing that particular area,” added the editorial.

Among those it named were Nepean politicians Andrew Haydon and Ben Franklin, and Walter Baker, the MP for Nepean-Carleton.

The rest is history. Barrhaven continued to expand, adding the Longfields and Davidson Heights subdivisions in the 1990s. A major new sewer completed in 1995 served new growth in Barrhaven and allowed development in Riverside South to begin. The first houses in Riverside South were built in 1996.

Controversy raged also over the development of Leitrim, site of today’s Findlay Creek Village subdivision.

In the 1980s, Gloucester council discussed creation of an industrial park and bedroom community in Leitrim, east of Ottawa Airport. It was mostly farmland.

Again, bad idea, said those concerned about servicing costs, traffic and preservation of the Leitrim Wetland, a rich habitat for wildlife, rare plants and 200-year-old trees.

Regional planning staff and the NCC opposed the proposal. In 1987, Brendan Reid, an official with the region’s transportation department, said that developing Leitrim would require “a quantum leap” in roads and transitways, costing more than $200 million.

Existing Leitrim residents weren’t exactly thrilled. “I moved out here for peace and quiet, and now look what you are going to do,” Frank Covella told a public meeting in 1987.

Regional council in 1988 said it would make developers pay the entire cost of sewers, watermains and roads, but in 1991 abandoned that policy. Services would in fact be largely financed by the region’s taxpayers. One-third would be recovered from development charges levied on new houses.

According to a 1996 Citizen article, the cost per dwelling unit of development in Leitrim was the highest in the region at $19,000, compared to $15,000 in Orleans; $16,000 in Gloucester south of the Greenbelt, and $7,000 inside the Greenbelt. (It did not provide a figure for Kanata.)

Meanwhile, the struggle to protect the wetland dragged on for more than a decade and included an OMB hearing and an Environmental Review Tribunal hearing.

“Destroying it is beyond belief,” Albert Dugal, a botanist at the Canadian Museum of Nature, told the Citizen in 1990.

Also known as the Albion Road Wetland, the ecosystem is bordered by Bank Street, Rideau Road and Leitrim Road and surrounds Findlay Creek.

In 1988, the RMOC designated the wetland area as ”urban” in its official plan. In 1989, the City of Gloucester designated the area for development. In that same year, Ontario’s ministry of natural resources categorized the Leitrim Wetland as a Class 1 Provincially Significant Wetland, protecting it from development.

However, residential development was planned for part of it. The municipality could not approve the development unless the boundary was changed, explains the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario’s 2009-10 annual report supplement.

In a deal with developers, the ministry in 1991 altered the provincially significant wetland boundary by removing the one-fifth in the north-east part of the wetland.

The developers could proceed with the Findlay Creek Village project in return for conveying 96 hectares of the core wetland to the South Nation Conservation Authority. They also agreed to donate $40,000 for maintenance of the wetland and $200 per house sold to fund programs, wetland education and construction of a boardwalk.

Construction of Findlay Creek Village began in 2003. It borders the wetland, of which 330 hectares remain protected. A boardwalk into the wetland opened last summer.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/busines...165/story.html

Ya gots ta BE pedestrian friendly to "remain" pedestrian friendly".

Booming — just not quite as planned

Riverside South has made due without the light-rail originally envisioned for it

By Maria Cook, Ottawa Citizen December 27, 2013 6:00 PM

OTTAWA — In their first years of marriage, Mark and Laurie Rogers lived in a downtown condo and enjoyed the urban lifestyle. “I used to walk to work downtown, and my wife took the bus,” he says. “We lived across from a grocery store.”

In 2007, when Laurie was five months pregnant, they moved to Riverside South, one of Ottawa’s new and fast-growing suburbs beyond the Greenbelt. Located south of the Ottawa International Airport and east of the Rideau River, it encompasses 4,500 acres in the former City of Gloucester.

“We wanted to buy a house,” says Rogers, 35, an information technology manager with the federal government. “We wanted to raise a family in a neighbourhood with other young children and young families.”

They own a 2,600-square-foot house, commute to work by car, and are expecting their third child. “It really appealed to us that the community was still growing but it was not too large,” he says. “It’s almost like Barrhaven about 10 years ago.”

The first houses in Riverside South were built in 1996. By 2012, there were 4,265 houses with 11,800 people living in them. The population is expected to grow to 52,000 over the next two decades.

This is what it looks like when you drive around: A spacious suburb with new houses and new trees; large areas of open, unbuilt development lands reveal long lines of fences and backs of houses. The pale siding and simple box forms contrast sharply with the more elaborate fronts clad in brick and synthetic stone, accented with columns and entry porches.

With its curvy streets, mostly single-family houses, and car-dependence, Riverside South is a typical new suburb. It wasn’t supposed to be.

Two councils ago, then-mayor Bob Chiarelli was going to send light-rail transit to Riverside South, then across the Rideau River into Barrhaven. The idea was to get there before people develop the habit of driving and buy two cars; before the suburb was designed and built around the car.

The proposed north-south light-rail line was expected to serve the community by 2009, but was cancelled in 2006 by Chiarelli’s successor, mayor Larry O’Brien.

“LRT was the main reason for a lot of people moving here,” says Rogers, who serves as webmaster for the Riverside South Community Association. “A lot of people were relying on that.”

It is a missed design opportunity that has perpetuated a car-suburb model instead of creating conditions that would have fostered transit-oriented development.

“That was a sad chapter,” says Gloucester-South Nepean Coun. Steve Desroches. “There’s not a day goes by that I’m not reminded of the impact on this community.”

His ward includes Riverside South, as well as Leitrim to the east and the Barrhaven communities of Chapman Mills, Stonebridge and Davidson Heights to the west.

After light rail was cancelled “my entire career on council was picking up the pieces, getting the bridge back on track, keeping the push on road investments,” says Desroches, who was elected in 2006.

Since 2008, Limebank Road has been widened, park-and-rides built at Riverside South and Leitrim and express bus service provided.

“Park and rides are extremely popular,” says Desroches, a father of four. “It’s a reflection of the lifestyles of young families. We need the flexibility to pick up our children from daycare.”

A key project is the Strandherd-Armstrong bridge, set to open in September 2014. Its three tall white-steel arches span elegantly across the river to join Barrhaven and Riverside South. Coming upon them is a surprise as they seem to spring from an intersection otherwise marked by shopping centres.

Part of the original light-rail plan, the bridge would have been carrying trains, cars, bikes and pedestrians since 2009. It will finally provide a direct route between Barrhaven and Riverside South.

“We can wave to our Barrhaven friends across the river,” says Rogers. “We could be there in 30 seconds if we could jump across that 300-foot barrier.”

The current routes go across the Hunt Club bridge to the north, or through Manotick to the south. “I’m the only councillor who has to leave his ward to get to the other side,” says Desroches.

Instead of light rail, the diesel O-Train is to be extended to Riverside South to Bowesville Road with a stop at Leitrim by 2023. The $100-million project is part of the city’s 2013 transportation master plan.

Rogers hopes the bridge and eventual O-Train will ease traffic congestion. It takes him 45 minutes to drive to work in Kanata. “The big chunk of my morning commute is sitting between Limebank and River roads and then Limebank and Riverside,” he says. “That is just backed up every single morning. It’s only going to get worse as the neighbourhood population increases.”

Peter Hume, chair of the city’s planning committee, recently said that Riverside South is “grossly underserved by public transit.”

Riverside South resident Robert Fleming, 34, is eager to see improvements. He takes the bus to his federal government job in Gatineau. It takes close to an hour-and-a-half each way. He leaves the house at 5:40 a.m. to be at work for 7 a.m.

“I wish the transit was better,” he says. “I wish the buses didn’t come every half-hour.”

Paradoxically, the presence of cars in Riverside South, as well as Leitrim and Barrhaven, is greatest on streets where the City of Ottawa has experimented with density.

Streets with narrower lots and road allowance, not only feel dramatically smaller, but leave just a thin band of grass after asphalt driveways and front walkways are paved. Garages have been pushed in to reduce the “welcome to my garage” look.

But overall, the effect is to increase the impact of vehicles. Cars and vans parked in a driveway fill the visual space between the front door and the street. Looking along a new street when lots of people are home gives the impression of a parking court.

In contrast, parks and school yards restore a feeling of spaciousness to the larger more public streets where they tend to be located.

It is the natural features that will give the area its character, says Desroches, citing the Rideau River, Mosquito Creek, woodlots and the Leitrim Wetland.

The river setting and the nearby parks, trails and scenic bikeways attracted Rogers and his family.

“The parks downtown don’t really feel as safe as the suburban parks,” he says.

The third piece of the south urban community is Leitrim, located 11 kilometres east of Riverside South.

Stretching across 1,628 acres, Leitrim is bounded by Leitrim Road to the north, Rideau road to the south, Bank Street to the east and Albion Road to the west. In 2012, Leitrim had 6,500 residents. It is so new it does not yet have any public schools. By 2031, it is projected to grow to 18,000 people.

The amalgamation of Gloucester Township into the City of Ottawa in 2001 shifted the status of Leitrim from rural to urban. It allowed for the development of what was mostly farm land into the first subdivision called Findlay Creek Village.

In Findlay Creek, housing started in 2003. There were 2,060 houses at the end of 2012.

The name “Findlay Creek” refers to a small creek that runs between the Leitrim Wetland and the new residential development. The wetlands became controversial when development was proposed that filled in parts of the provincially significant landscape.

A struggle to protect the rich ecological area from becoming house lots lasted for more than a decade. In 1991, in a negotiated agreement with developers, the provincial government altered the northeast boundary, removing one fifth of the area from wetland designation.

In return, the developers conveyed 237 acres of wetland to the South Nation Conservation Authority and agreed to give $40,000 for maintenance of the wetland and $200 per house sold to fund programs, wetland education and construction of a boardwalk.

The Leitrim Wetland is now an amenity promoted by developers and adds to the appeal of the area.

Driving east to Leitrim from Riverside South feels like Barrhaven 20 years ago when its growing subdivisions started to appear among the farmlands along Prince of Wales Drive.

“It’s amazing how fast we see new houses popping up all over the neighbourhood,” Rogers says.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/ot...429/story.html

Ha! Yes!

The last few articles have been spewing bullshit lately. I don't buy the stories published in newspaper by non-urbanists and architects.

How are all these people supposed to get north-south and east-west? Bank, Airport Pkwy, Hunt Club are already clogged in a good day!

And who approved the curvy-streeted, car-dependent layout?

Who didn't insist the crappy suburban developers go back to the drawing board?

Who never, ever demands better of Ottawa's crappy, unimaginative sprawl lords?

Not my problem. You choose to live in a far-flung crap suburb, you live with the problems, and stop expecting the rest of the city to subsidize your sprawlstyle.

Ummm - I don't live there...all these people that commute clog all the existing infrastructure and make it impossible to get around - ever try getting to or from the airport during rush hour? Last time I checked the former cities of Nepean and Kanata were in a much better financial situation than the old city of Ottawa and they paid for their infrastructure just fine...

Ah, the joy of living in Findlay Swamp.

Honestly, how does this community (the low part near Albion, anyway) plan to make it through an extreme heavy rain event?

I have to wonder why this Rogers guy would Live in Riverside South while working in Kanata. That would have to be one of the longest, most annoying commutes in Ottawa.

There is an endless list of places he could buy in Kanata, Stittsville or Barrhaven in order to cut his commute in half. Simply getting across the Rideau from Riverside South would make up half of his commute time.