Trend-Arlington residents oppose church expansion
Joanne Laucius, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: March 7, 2019
Trend-Arlington residents packed a public meeting organized to outline a church’s expansion plans in their west-end community.
St. Mary Coptic Orthodox Church has been at the corner of Greenbank Road and Canfield Road for about 25 years. The church serves about 300 families, with about 25 to 30 families living in the neighbourhood, Nancy Meloche, a planner representing the church, told the meeting.
The church wants to expand to accommodate up to 550 families. It doesn’t have events space and wants to build a centre with a gym, meeting rooms and classrooms. If the plan goes ahead, the 25-year-old church would be torn down and replaced with a larger church, Meloshe told the approximately 100 people at the meeting.
The plan would require that the church have 110 parking spaces on the site, up from a current 90 spots. To accommodate the larger buildings and the parking spots, the church would need to demolish six adjacent homes. Five of the homes are already owned by the church.
But residents are concerned about parking on the street and incredulous that an expansion of this scale would need only 20 additional parking spaces.
A petition about the project attracted 155 signatures of residents who are strongly opposed to the plan, said Don Ball, a member of a community group that opposes the expansion.
The expansion would change the character of the neighbourhood, which has always been a quiet, low-density residential area, said Ball. When there are church services, there is an overflow onto Canfield Road of 10 to 20 cars. The proposed community centre would mean noise and traffic hazards every day of the week, he said.
One of the most contentious issues is that six homes could be demolished. The expansion would also mean rezoning the property for institutional use, which would set a precedent for similar projects in the future, said Ball.
“These are five beautiful two-storey homes that are valued in the community,” said Paul Strandberg, who lives about a block from the church. “The church would turn form a small community church into a regional church.
“They’re going to take houses out of our residential community and turn it into a parking lot. It doesn’t make sense.”
St. Mary’s has made no formal application to the city so far, although it held a pre-consultation meeting with city staff last June. The church has until this June to file a formal application.
Some compromises were mentioned at the meeting, including leasing parking spaces from schools and a medical centre nearby when church services are held.
At one point, there was scattered applause when it was mentioned that the church could sell the houses and buy a larger property elsewhere large enough for the expansion.
Coun. Keith Egli told the meeting that if the church decides not to go ahead with the plans, theoretically, the five houses it already owns could be sold as a block to a developer.
Egli said he’s aware that there’s a lot of angst and frustration about the proposal.
“But I know from listening to the church they feel they’re part of the community as well.”
Sean Devine, the president of the Trend-Arlington Community Association, said the association has taken no stance on the expansion yet.
“We couldn’t really know what the community wants until we hold a process. We’re here to listen to both sides of the proposal.”
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/trend-arlington-residents-oppose-church-expansion
Prev
Linear Mode
