Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
Developers can build anything city zoning will allow outside of the protected area (downtown proper and the market) and only two buildings of any height have been built (the Minto Metropole and the Claridge Icon under construction). Ottawa is a city of 800k people where land prices aren't particularly high and there are few geographic constraints to growth, it isn't exactly conducive to encouraging tall buildings (not the NCC's fault). It doesn't help that neighborhood associations fight height like rabid ferrets (not the NCC's fault) and that the OMB discourages exceptions by putting way to much emphasis on precedent (not the NCC's fault) and that Ottawa developers have a penchant for designing 🞵🞵🞵🞵-ugly buildings (also not the NCC's fault)
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There have been many instances where buildings were proposed and the NCC imposed their law outside the core, like across the river (so, yeah, their fault). Whether or not taller buildings are justified or required is an irrelevant argument to dismiss the NCC's excessive domination over height limits in the core. Neighborhoods?... We're talking about the core, where residents have no reason to contest another tower. Irrelevant again. 🞵🞵🞵🞵 ugly buildings? Yes, it is their fault... This is what they should be looking at, but they're not. Ottawa is a city of 900,000 at the center of a metropolitan area of 1.3 million where less strict height limits would have permitted architecture with better interaction at street level (taller and thiner buildings allowing more space around the podiums). Instead, we have a downtown core which is packed like a can of sardines. By enforcing ridiculous height limits, the NCC has encouraged the abundance of fat utilitarian structures. But we're really diverging from my original point: the NCC is responsible for the downtown 27 story limit, not the city. The reason the core looks like a table top is that all buildings are at their limit, and would be taller if permitted.
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