Feds sitting on underutilized office campuses: city report
Published on April 12th, 2010
Peter Kovessy
Ottawa Business Journal
With Ottawa facing a dwindling supply of land within the Greenbelt available for office development, city officials plan to press the federal government to redevelop some of its properties.
Topics : Public Works , Transitway , Ottawa , Greenbelt
Since 2001, Ottawa has lost 35 per cent of its supply of employment land – property designated for manufacturing, warehousing, offices and other accommodations that support well-paying jobs – to other uses, such as retail and residential.
When all the land parcels are added up, Ottawa technically has an adequate 25-year supply of employment lands. However, city staff have written multiple reports noting much of this land is located far away from where developers want to build, is carved into unworkable parcels or lacks roads, transit and water/sewer services.
Earlier this year, the city’s planning department held a half-day summit with Ottawa’s development industry.
A summary of the summit, being tabled at a city committee Tuesday, says there was considerable discussion on the role of the federal government.
“Public Works … does not have a history as a community partner, and therefore has not been fully engaged with the city or the community in pursuing mixed-use redevelopment of its underutilized properties,” says the report, specifically naming Tunney’s Pasture, Confederation Heights and the Booth Street Complex.
It says city staff and councillors plan to meet Public Works officials, as well as Ottawa-area MPs, to pursue joint planning exercises on selected federal lands within the Greenbelt.
Last year, Public Works took the first step in redeveloping Tunney’s Pasture by hiring HOK, an international planning and design firm, to help develop a new master plan for the sprawling 49-hectare federal campus.
Separately, the city report says further consideration should be given to constructing buildings above the Transitway.
However, the width of the Transitway does not leave room for supporting columns, meaning development would require more expensive building techniques.
Here's the report (also has info on other innovative planning tools)
http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycou...nnovation%20Policy%20Summit%20Review.htm