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Posted May 27, 2008, 5:36 PM
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National Capital Region
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Eastern Ontario
Posts: 9,254
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Quote:
Planners praise Barrhaven subdivision design
Proposed project's high number of residential units meets goal of densifying suburbia, city officials say
Jake RupertThe Ottawa Citizen
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
A new Barrhaven subdivision with more residential units than normal is the way of the future if the goal of densifying suburbia is to be met, city planning officials say.
The Mattamy Homes project, near the intersection of Greenbank and Cambrian roads, is to be examined by council's planning committee today, and it meets with the city's goal of bringing urban-like densities and lifestyles to suburban areas, the planners say.
Karen Currie, manager of development approvals at the city, said a typical suburb has about 24 residential units per hectare of land designated for residential use.
A community design plan for south Barrhaven demands 34 units per residential hectare, and the Mattamy development, if approved, will have 40 units per residential hectare. By comparison, Old Ottawa South has 41 units per residential hectare.
The development also contains a park, and a central commercial area for businesses such as bakeries, restaurants, corner stores, dry cleaners, and storefronts with residences above the ground floors.
"(The company) has done a number of things to tighten up the density," Ms. Currie said. "I think the suburbs of the future will see more of this type of thing, and we need to encourage more of this."
Ms. Currie's comments come a week after an international group of planning and transit experts told council's transportation committee that the municipality must start creating a more compact city, including the suburbs.
They said the city's suburbs are unsustainable, and the city would be wise to put an end to expensive sprawl and create suburbs that look more like urban areas, with higher densities and employment bases.
City planners have been calling for that vision for years, but the reality has been largely detached homes and big-box store shopping centres.
The municipality is reviewing its official land-use plan, and councillors have been proclaiming a new commitment to creating a more compact city.
Ian Cross does research and forecasting in the city's planning and design department. He said the city is taking a two-pronged approach to the issue.
"You have to encourage what you want, and try to find ways to restrain the type of development you don't want," he said.
Mattamy's subdivision is able to give the city what it wants by making several seemingly minor adjustments that add up to more units. They propose 1,600 detached, semi-detached and townhouse residential units in a development of 85 hectares, with roughly half of that to be used for businesses, roads, parks and other public spaces.
The company, one of the country's biggest residential builders, was able to get the density by decreasing front- and backyard sizes, building on more land per lot and building "back-to-back" townhouses that have no backyard at all.
"I think it's a good mix and I think we're going to see more of this," said Barrhaven Councillor Jan Harder, noting that smaller properties are generally more affordable. "It will allow people who couldn't afford a single or a townhome to buy them."
Higher densities are supposed to be easier on the city's budget, as well.
"(The subdivision) responds to policies in the official plan that speak to the creation of unique, compact and innovative developments that in the long term result in more efficient use of the city infrastructure and resources," says a planning staff report to committee on the application.
And it's most likely the first of many subdivisions of its kind in the area.
Preliminary forecasts for the land-use-plan update call for 55 per cent of the city's growth over the next 23 years to be in the suburbs (with nine per cent in the rural areas and 36 per cent inside the Greenbelt).
Ms. Currie said the new type of subdivision, however, is just part of the answer for densifying the suburbs. She said the city will also have to look at "retrofitting" built-up areas, too.
This is exactly what the panel of experts said the city should be doing in the suburbs, particularly along mass-transit routes planned for the municipal transit network, which goes to city council for a vote tomorrow.
They said the city shouldn't even consider sending rail transit to the suburbs until residential areas along these routes reach urban-level densities, a concept supported by a unanimous vote of city council's transit and transportation committees.
To send rail service to the suburbs now, they said, would only encourage sprawl.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008
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http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=c9296bf8-69ca-4a1b-8112-2f03d57d7f8c
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