What it takes to add on to the Château Laurier
David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: September 19, 2016 | Last Updated: September 19, 2016 4:46 PM EDT
The owners of the Château Laurier are licking their wounds but planning to press ahead with their plans for an addition to the historic hotel after a nearly unanimous chorus of dismay greeted their announcement last week.
“(I)t is important to maintain an open and transparent dialogue with the public, and we will be doing so later this fall at the Fairmont Château Laurier,” says Dennis Jacobs, a consultant working on Larco Investments’ expansion project: a new section on the north side, with long-stay suites in a modern wrapper markedly different from the Chateau’s old design.
Jacobs is a former planning-policy chief at city hall. He gets how public disapproval can derail a high-profile project.
In the middle of the storm, Coun. Mathieu Fleury retreated smartly from his initial endorsement of the “captivating architectural design.”
“Back to the drawing board,” Mayor Jim Watson advised.
We never left it, Jacobs says. And we’re still very, very open to ideas. “As we are still at the drawing board, it will be critical for us to receive these comments prior to filing our site plan application,” he says.
Here’s the thing: Officially, “I think it’s hideous” is neither here nor there when it comes to getting official approvals, as community associations and neighbours appearing before city council’s planning committee have learned.
If a proposal really looks lovely, or has wide public support, that can lead politicians to make more generous assessments. But in theory, they’re supposed to care about practicalities and quantifiable measurements, not about whether people find a building nice to look at.
Aesthetic appeal depends on taste, and, as a rule, the government doesn’t have any.
In Ontario, some cities, including Ottawa, have tried to make special categories for “landmark” buildings, real standouts that could justify bending some rules that would otherwise apply. The Ontario Municipal Board ruled last year that this is OK, as a city you can say you want “an element of wow” in your architecture, “assuming that the mechanics can be arranged as methodically and objectively as possible.”
These are the hurdles a plan to modify the Château Laurier will have to surmount:
Site-plan approval
This is a mainly technical process that looks at how a medium-to-large new construction project affects its immediate neighbours — things like loading docks and parking access, garbage rooms and exhaust fans. There can be a need for things like transportation impact studies, environmental reports and servicing studies to make sure existing pipes can handle the demand for water and sewage.
Ordinarily, site plans are signed off by city staff without political involvement — they’re more like building permits than rezonings, making sure existing rules are followed rather than changing them — though if a project is big and high-profile enough there can be neighbourhood presentations and a planning committee vote.
The fact the site is in the downtown core means even a site-plan application triggers an assessment by the city’s urban-design review panel. That’s a group of seven architects and urban planners, mostly from Toronto, who give an opinion on large and high-profile projects. Their advice isn’t binding but a firm thumbs-up or -down will influence politicians’ thinking. They’ve seen two iterations of the plans already, Jacobs says.
Design approval
This is the biggie, mainly because it’s in the hands of the National Capital Commission. The Château Laurier itself is on private land but it impinges on federal land all over, including Major’s Hill Park and Mackenzie Avenue (which is part of the NCC’s ceremonial “Confederation Boulevard”). The hotel can’t interfere with views of Parliament Hill or with the Rideau Canal’s status as a world-heritage site.
The commission’s board of directors gets to vote on the design of major changes to any building that’ll affect important symbols in the capital. The NCC has its own design-review panel to advise it, comprising architects and planners from coast to coast.
Larco has already had two meetings with that panel to get advice, without yet having submitted a formal application.
Unlike the city’s decisions, which can be appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board, the NCC board’s votes can only be taken to the federal cabinet to be overturned. Catherine McKenna, the Ottawa Centre MP and senior Liberal minister in the capital, has used Twitter to praise Ottawans for speaking their minds on the plan.
"It is great to see the passion about @fairmontlaurier. Love that residents are owning their Ottawa!"
This doesn’t sound like someone who’s itching to charge to Larco’s defence.
Heritage approval
The Château Laurier is a “designated” heritage structure under Ontario law, which means it’s on an official list of protected buildings. If you want to change such a building, you need approval from city council. That starts with an application that gets assessed by a subcommittee of city council’s planning committee, augmented by a handful of heritage architects and other specialists. They pass their recommendation on to council’s planning committee, which passes it on to the full city council.
Larco’s plans don’t involve messing with the front face of the Château, which makes things easier, but practically every view of the building is important and distinctive, and you tack things onto it at your peril.
These days, the orthodoxy on additions to heritage buildings is that new parts should complement the old parts but not copy them — they should be “physically and visually compatible with, subordinate to and distinguishable from the historic” elements.
Let’s eyeball Larco’s plans:
Physically and visually compatible? Hmm. Materials play a role here, but for most people this is where the Château plan falls down.
Subordinate to? Yes, from every angle except directly behind. It’s not nearly as big an addition as some of the perspectives make it look. Though from Major’s Hill Park, it’s like the Château is wearing a mask.
Distinguishable from the original? Oh. Well, yes, it’s that, for sure.
None of this begins in earnest until Larco submits its paperwork to the city and the NCC. There’s no deadline for that, and no hurry except any the company’s executives feel about keeping their own schedule.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...hateau-laurier
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