'Cottage' gas station in Westboro could be eliminated from redevelopment
Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: May 16, 2019
Trinity Developments is presenting three options for redeveloping the “cottage” gas station property at the eastern edge of Westboro, with two of the options calling for the demolition of the heritage-protected structure.
The company hasn’t yet filed a development application for 70 Richmond Rd. at Island Park Drive, but Mathew Laing, senior vice-president of development and planning, said Trinity talked with Coun. Jeff Leiper about presenting concepts to residents during a pre-application consultation to gather feedback.
Trinity is proposing a seven-storey building with a demolished gas station, an eight-story building with a demolished gas station and terracing setbacks on the upper floors or a nine-storey building working in the facade of the gas station on the ground-floor retail and the terracing on the upper floors. All options have retail space on the ground floor and residential units on the other floors.
The current zoning on the property allows a maximum height of six storeys, but Laing said it wouldn’t be financially feasible to build something that short, considering the land value, the need to address the heritage building and the condition of the site. Since the site is a former service centre, the ground will need to be decontaminated.
Trinity could probably propose an even taller building, considering the size of the Ashcroft condo buildings to the west and the maximum 12-storey-height granted to the Mizrahi Developments site diagonally across the intersection.
“We made a conscious decision not to do that,” Laing said. “We came in and said, this is what we need to make this project work and that conversation evolved into this presentation we’re going to have.”
Laing said the three options generally have the same gross floor area and that Trinity would be happy to build any one of them.
Council in 2015 approved heritage protection for the former Champlain Oil gas station, which was constructed in 1934. The city says the building is a throwback to the days when car ownership was growing in Ottawa and Richmond Road acted as an important route between villages and the city.
Ottawa artist Andrew King first drew the city’s attention to the building after Main + Main scooped up the site for redevelopment. Council slapped heritage protection on the building and Trinity later acquired the property.
If Trinity wants to demolish the gas station, it would have to ask for council to repeal the heritage designation.
Under recently proposed heritage legislation announced by the Ontario Progressive Conservative government, the council verdict could be appealed to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal.
“We’re not even really looking at that right now,” Laing said. “We’re just looking at (the concepts) and getting the community feedback.”
Coun. Glen Gower, who chairs city council’s built-heritage subcommittee, said he hasn’t yet closely reviewed the options, but he would prefer to keep the heritage gas station since the community called for its protection.
The Ontario Municipal Board, now called the LPAT, has already weighed in on the importance of the intersection as a gateway node between Westboro and the city’s core. Mizrahi, which hasn’t yet broken ground on its site at 1445 and 1451 Wellington St. W., was able to get a 12-storey maximum in the zoning if it showed an “element of wow” in the architecture.
Trinity’s preliminary concepts only illustrate options for building massing and don’t represent the final architectural concepts. Ottawa’s Barry Hobin is the architect on the project, Laing said.
The community consultation is scheduled for May 29, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., in the field house at 29 Van Lang Private, near Scott Street and Churchill Avenue. A presentation begins at 7 p.m. More information is on Leiper’s website.
jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...-redevelopment
Prev
Linear Mode
