Category Archives: Bayview

Suddenly, Bayview Station CDP doesn’t look so bad

The City’s (in)famous Bayview-Carling CDP process has been sputtering along for a very long time. In January, the City cut it into three segments, each their own CDP. Rather like the myths about worms, does each section have a heart and ability to keep on wiggling?

Interested observers can trot off to Tom Brown Arena this Tuesday evening to see the purported “final” draft of the Bayview Station area plan. You can send your doppleganger to the Albert Street reconstruction open house being held the same night at the Dalhousie Community Centre. Since the two projects overlap planning areas, it is somehow appropriate they overlap their public consultation times, but at different places, hence the need to employ your twin.

Bayview Station is less contentious than the still-writhing-in-the-Dark  Carling end of this planning worm. That’s because this CDP planning zone contains exactly zero houses. That’s right, its all vacant land, brownfields, industrial lands, former dumps, and other stuff the Florida creative class disdains. Although cheap industrial space is so scarce that it is becoming trendy, witness the arrival of some speciality boutiques and restaurants in old industrial buildings. How the worm turns.

bayviewmap

Above: the basic study area – Bayview Yards on upper left, City Centre Avenue on lower right. (from previous draft plan)

And, in the usual Ottawa manner, the plan follows behind spot rezonings and much lobbying. So 801 Albert has already been rezoned for 30 stories or so for two office towers; if built, they will be the largest office complex in the city. And the crowd of condos lining Parkdale is set to jump east and take up proliferating along the Bayview industrial lands,   north of the transitway/Albert/Scott. Won’t those new condos block the views of the Parkdale condos? No, they’ll be the new view, that’s all.

Here’s a sketch from the previous draft showing the eventual build out of the Bayview Yards area as seen from some not-yet-sold Parkdale penthouse:

bayview mechanics

The above pic is from the previous draft of the plan, and a few items have changed. The old sewer works yard, the white building on the left, will likely be kept. The buildings closer to the transitway/LRT have gotten shorter  taller, and are now 30 stories. The plan still calls for the buildings to be linked by a series of courtyards and arches and green mews, just like no one appreciates at Claridge’s project at the east end of the Flats.

There is some talk of removing one of the high rise buildings mid-block on the parcel east of Bayview Road, and putting in a local neighbourhood park. The larger existing Laroche Park is used for field sports as well as local uses, and has a splash pad, but presumably it will be more intensely used as condoville grows along Parkdale, so maybe another local tot-lot park will be wise. The missing development space from the removed tower will be added to the top of the remaining towers, which may actually hep make developing these polluted sites more economic.

bayview hinton

Above: sketch viewed by a pigeon from somewhere high above Hintonburg from previous draft of plan. Undulating roof is the LRT station, Tom Brown arena is shown much expanded (no funding mind you). Warning: new plan will not be exactly as shown, as elaborated below:

On the southeast quadrant of the plan along City Centre Avenue there are some significant changes. Here is the view from the previous plan:

bayviewdalhousie

 

The pink houses in the foreground and right are existing homes; the turquoise stuff is NCC dreams on the Flats, with the Claridge great-grandkids still constructing condos. The proposed zoning starts at four stories along the edge of existing housing that runs from Preston westwards.

The general principle of the plan is OK. There is a height gradient as one moves west through the neighbourhood  There used to be a height gradient as one moved south too, away from the 801 Albert office towers shown at the very top of the white building cluster. But about a year ago the major property owners (Domicile, Equity) questioned whether the gradient should run down as it went south, or up as it went south to Somerset.

So in a fine example of Solomon-like wisdom, the City is rezoning all the land along the east edge of the tracks as 30 stories. This is sure to make someone happy.

The plan still has some glaring flaws.

While it calls for mixed use development, there is no plan to quantify that. If it goes all residential, or all office, no matter, as long as there are some convenience stores at ground level. There are no intensification targets for jobs, residences, population or even a dog count. So there is no plan for more recreation facilities or parks since the  eventual buildout is all unknown. Still, it remains difficult for the city to write a plan even without any targets.

Will the plan contain some detailed descriptions of acceptable ground level usages? The Dark plan for Centretown CDP actually specifies how residential frontages should work, in some detail. Will these guidelines be extended to Bayview or the Carling CDP’s? Dunno.

The plan includes Albert Street running right through the middle, but is silent on how wide it could or should be, and when it might reach that status. Previous CDP dreams  for Albert to be prettified and landscaped and traffic calmed, are gone. The bridge has a speeding problem now, how will that be addressed? It won’t.

Bikewest currently runs on the north side of Albert and then on Scott, interrupted by the narrow Albert street bridge over the OTrain. Will that be fixed/connected? That is apparently up to others.

Will Bikewest connect to the OTrain path at the LRT Station? Dunno, and the Bayview LRT station design currently doesn’t allow for a ride-able connection.

The CDP plan is being presented with no details about the size or detailed function of the Bayview LRT station except for the previous RTG “artist conception” sketch released last fall. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

 

This lead to some nasty comments at the PAC (public advisory committee)  that it doesn’t matter because as the LRT stations continue to shrink, Bayview Station will end up reusing the four bus shelters already there, with a permanent station to be built “some day” “as the area develops”.

The draft document I saw last week also muddied the waters on the Primrose extension. When the Just Right storage building – the former Champagne streetcar bar, subsequently Vimy House –  becomes just right for redevelopment, Primrose is supposed to be extended thru the site as a pedestrian street, aligning with an extended Primrose west of City Centre Avenue (when that site is redeveloped…)  and connecting to the new Old Wellington right-of-way pedestrian bridge over the OTrain tracks. The concept was straight and clear on previous drafts, but somehow got messed up getting to this draft [perhaps due to the long planning process people can't remember any more - ed]

Similarly, the high-potential underpass that links City Centre Avenue with the government warehouse complex at 1010 Somerset, is left vague. If it isn’t addressed when doing strategic planning, when will it be? At the last minute? In a rush?

The City is also continuing along its path of proposing to have a CDP plan that calls for high rises, but to leave the actual zoning as is. In this way, every applicant has to apply for a rezoning, and the City can sell this permission to the developer for money under sec 37 of the Planning Act.

So despite there being a plan, the endless contentious rezonings would continue.

Community members of the PAC strenuously objected, since one of the purposes of the plan is to create certainty, and the zoning — which is what general members of the public understand — should be honest. There were dire predictions that deliberately setting the zoning and the plan at odds would eventually lead to an OMB overthrow and the city would lose all the Sec 37 stuff anyway.

On this matter,   at the last PAC meeting the developers agreed that they didn’t like the zoning not matching the plan, and felt it makes them out to be the bad guys each time they propose a building within the plan specifications. Plus, uncertainty costs money, as does the rezoning process. Will those objections be enough to cause the city to reconsider its greed? Not likely.

Observers of the Bayview Station CDP need to also keep in mind that the redevelopment areas don’t just end at Somerset on the south (there is another CDP to do the Somerset-Gladstone-Queensway stretch of CDP) nor do they end along Scott or Mechanicsville areas (Mr Dark has been hired to wave his magic wands over those areas in the Scott Street CDP). And don’t forget there was that awfully disappointing Tunney’s Pasture redevelopment plan last fall.

On the positive side, the City is actually looking at designating some of the land along the OTrain MUP behind 801 Albert Street as official parkland. It would be the only park in the city with a secret.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Albert Street reconstruction – Back to the Future?

jan 2013 041

 

above: elderly gent attempts to give directions to city engineers who will shortly zoom off – but in what direction?

 

The section of Albert Street that runs through LeBreton Flats is up for reconstruction starting this year. Total reconstruction, as in deep sewers, new watermains, new pavement and curbs. But the wiring won’t be buried  that is a cost imposed on suburban areas not in central Ottawa.

What will be the changes? Well, we don’t know for sure. The contract is being given to the Rideau Transit Group while the project is in the design stage, with more unknowns than knowns. In addition to the unknowns we know about, there are probably lots of unknown unknowns too.

The engineers know what they want to see in 2018: a four lane Albert between City Centre Drive and Empress. In addition, there will be turning lanes running all the way from Preston to Booth, and maybe a few others. They anticipate that the final road will be moved north about 15′ from the current curb. They are designing a 3.5m grassy median or boulevard on each side of the road. This grassy boulevard may someday – possibly in 2018, but maybe later — become a segregated bike lane, or a painted bike lane, or maybe neither, since there is no budget provision for actually building the lane, and the city is relieving itself of the obligation to install cycling facilities for major reconstructions.

In the meantime, between reconstruction in 2013-14 and 2018, the RTG may wish to convert that boulevard space into bus lanes, whilst the transitway is closed to buses because it will be converted to rail for the Confederation Line LRT. Or it might build the bus lanes all on the north side of the street instead, as a two-way transitway distinct from cars on Albert.. Or maybe it will build them all on the south side. Or neither. Apparently there are about a dozen road options.

But what residents along the street will have to put up with for some years (again, just how long is one of those known unknowns) is a six lane Albert (plus extensive single and maybe double turn lanes, so 7 – 9  lanes in total at intersections) with hundreds of buses per hour (exactly how many buses is also a known unknown since it hasn’t been decided if Albert will be used only for 90 series routes, or all the Kanata-Barrhaven express buses).

After the RTG is finished running buses along Albert — which is presumed to be some months after the opening of the LRT in 2018 — then the asphalt lanes will be torn out and the grass put back down. Unless, of course, the City comes up with money to build those bike lanes.

Or, since the mood of council in 2018 is known to be unknown, but we can anticipate the worst, some Councillor will brightly declare that the lanes should be left in place because, after spending all that transit money, it’s time to do something for the poor motorists. Then we will get stuck with six lanes forever. Another King Edward freeway, but without the nice landscaping or metal seed pods.

Today, the City may promise it will remove the lanes, someday, but it is not bound to do so. Anyone who has followed municipal governments for some years will recall promises that are not kept, and residents have no legal basis to enforce the prior promises. Promises are cheap when there can be no enforcement or penalty clauses.

So while the community members on the PAC (public advisory committee) have had lots of say on what we would like the future Albert Street to look like, and how it might function, we have lost on most of the issues.

Ped lighting on the sidewalks and(planned) bike lanes, given that this is a designated “scenic gateway” to the downtown? Nope, no can do.

Keep the two way multi-user path on the north side of the road, and especially keep it elevated like it is now? Nope, no can do. A temporary MUP might be put in place in the interim period up to 2018, but its not in the cards for the future, because those bike lanes will be just fine for taking your eight year old or towing a bike trailer to go the river front parklands.

Raised sidewalks, especially along the south side where there are some rather bleak retaining walls and no building fronts? Nope, no can do. Sidewalks are, by definition, remember, to be glued to the side of the road at the curb. And an elevation advantage for peds just ain’t in the drawings folks.

The City, through its OCH agency, spent millions and several years building that new retaining wall in front of their houses between Preston and Lorne. Can they do something to fix up the 100m of collapsing wall west of Preston? Nope, no can do. If it collapses or falls down, the sixteen individual property owners will have to figure out how they are going to do that, collectively or individually. The city, will however, enforce that they keep the collapse debris off city property.

At least pedestrians will get proper drainage and catch basins along the street? Well, not necessarily, that’s another one of those known unknowns. They may not replace the sewers and catch basins until late 2018. That’s up to RTG. Surely pedestrians won’t mind walking along the continuous puddle and surface ponding that characterizes and plagues Albert Street for another five years. Hey, maybe that 1000 buses per morning will splash all that water out of the road?

The PAC also lobbied the city to investigate roundabouts at Preston-Albert and City Centre-Albert intersections. Nope, would require negotiation with the NCC and this project isn’t allowed to do that. Negotiation with the NCC is the exclusive prerogative of the Confederation LRT and the western LRT extension (WLRT) projects so other projects are frozen out of land asks.

The PAC lobbied for a continuous centre median from Preston to Booth, to prevent U turns and other dangerous manoeuvres motorists use to avoid the “no straight through south bound onto Booth” restriction that applies after 11pm at night. For this the city agreed, as channelling vehicles is good for traffic flow.

And they agreed to propose landscaping down said centre boulevard, although they aren’t proposing anything near as nice a Allumetieres or Maisonneuve in Gatineau. (Remember when Gatineau was our poor cousin over there? Now Ottawa is so enfeebled it can only talk about doing something half as nice, subject to budget restraints of course).

Street lighting for motorists will be on a line of poles put on the centre median. Can we make this look decent, so it doesn’t look like a freeway inviting high speeds? Maybe put lower level lighting (like the ped lights, if we get them) half way up the poles? Nope, mid or low level lighting is not proposed for Albert Street.

The PAC also asked for design features to make the road look like a street, and not a road or imitation freeway. We don’t want it to look and function like Bronson does near Carleton U. Answer: it will be designed for a 50kmh limit, which means it is designed for 60, as a margin of safety. The rebuilt road will be wider, smoother, flatter, with fewer catchbasin locations, longer sight lines, etc etc. Hey, it’s not the city’s fault if it looks and functions like a freeway, go talk to the motorists.

How about back curbs for the sidewalks, to protect the planting zones from plows and the soil being trodden down? Nope, no can do.

How about the new TMP so much touted by the City and Councillor Hume, you know the one that talks about enhancing the pedestrian experience and improving ped facilities so people will be encouraged to walk to transit stations? (This section of Albert passes both the Bayview and LeBreton Stations). Nope, haven’t talked to the city staff implementing that, and have no plans to. Maybe someone else can look at that in 2018.

So what pedestrian volumes are expected when the new LRT stations open, and will six foot wide sidewalks be enough to carry the volume of pedestrians, and will waiting areas at intersections be wide enough to deal with the volumes? City: haven’t looked at that, have no plans to look at that. Maybe things can be changed later if they don’t work out with standard minimum sized sidewalks.

What about a signalized intersection at City Centre Avenue  (if there can’t be a roundabout) since so much redevelopment is proposed there in the Bayview Station CDP now going to Council? And what about all those cyclists being delivered to here on the new OTrain MUP? Sorry, current traffic volumes don’t justify signals here, nor is the City proposing to install ductwork for future signals.

What about all those cyclists coming on the new OTrain MUP? You know, the ones the city is counting on to relive some of the overcrowding during the transitway closure.  How will they get onto Albert? Sorry, that’s someone else’s problem.

Well, what about Bikewest, Mayor Watson’s plan for an major east-west bike route from Westboro to the far east? What form will it take along Albert and how will it connect at each end? Sorry, that’s up to the bike planning folks, we’re just doing the road.

What about the Preston extension? The extension of Preston over to the existing signalized intersection of Vimy Drive and Wellington/Sir John A McDonald Parkway, will be constructed and used for a detour for a number of years during the construction of the LRT. The extension is also in the OP as a permanent route. Will this new road surface be permanent or will it be temporary? Answer: most likely temporary, with catchbasins and sewers  and curbs and asphalt installed and then removed again. It’s just a throwaway cost of building the LRT. Gotta save the cost of building an overpass over the LRT. (Background info: if the City builds the overpass now, it gets to pay for it. If it waits a dozen years — or lifetimes — until NCC developments reach this area, then the NCC builds it. And if the temporary road looks at all permanent or parts of it remain in situ, there is the issue of pedestrians and cyclists forcing their way through this popular alignment much as they do now, to the frustration of the NCC and City who try to close it down).

Booth Street is one of those primarily residential streets that the City has decided to redeploy as a major commuter arterial to and from Gatineau. It’s an awful mess now, with huge queue backs, and a severely impaired living arrangement for residents. Nope, won’t address that now.

What about traffic calming bulb out dimensions on Booth? Remember, the City agreed to narrow traffic lanes on Booth (south of Albert) as its concession to slowing traffic. These lanes are narrower than what the city calls for on cycle routes, and somehow Booth which used to not be on the cycle routes has magically appeared as a cycling route. How will the city resolve these two policies, one calling for narrower lanes and one wider? No answer. Another known unknown.

Well, how about the redesign of the Booth – Albert intersection? Can we comment on that? The neighbourhood PAC has some suggestions! Nope, the public consultation doesn’t include that key intersection in the middle of the strip, nor is that intersection designed yet, and however it is designed will be up to the RTG who will design it to fit their LeBreton Station needs. Period. Another known  unknown.

Well, how about the little side streets, like Lorne, Perkins, and Empress, some of which have almost no traffic, could we look at doing something nicer there since a standard street design with two lanes of traffic, parking lane,  two sidewalks, two sets of curbs and catchbasins aren’t really needed? Maybe something more mews like, that would actually cost the City less to build and maintain? Nope, not interested.

What about the Albert intersection with Rochester, which is a lengthy north-south street that intersects with Albert. And is a designated bike route parallel to and much safer to use than Booth.  It is a legal intersection, with crossing rights for pedestrians and cyclists, how will that be handled? Answer: no measures will be taken to improve this intersection.

The City’s LRT plan boasts that it will be connecting the LeBreton Station to the Broad Street alignment that crosses the aqueduct and goes to the War Museum and  Bluesfest site. This also aligns with Rochester Street. Will there be any provision to cross the LRT or will this remain another one of those “missing links” in the urban network? Sorry folks, no answer, because one city department simply can’t talk to another one,  coordination being the latest mortal sin.

Now it may be that the City has resolved many of these issues in the last week. That’s another unknown. But it is known that the public is invited to the Dalhousie Community Centre this Tuesday at 7pm (corner of Empress-Somerset) to review the plans and offer comments.

I encourage you to go, not so much to ask about the current plans, because so much about them is  known to be unknown, and undoubtedly there are unknown unknowns, and you’ll have to listen very carefully to distinguish between might be’s and could be’s and may be’s and whether it is 2013 or 2018 that something might be done.

But you can at least tell them what you want: A real street, pedestrian and cyclist friendly, well landscaped,  not another pretend freeway like Bronson or King Edward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OTrain bike path paved

Okay, I mislead you a bit with the title.

It’s not a bike path, it’s a multi-user path, since cyclists, pedestrians, dog-walkers and their guardians are all welcome. And it’s not all paved, just the section from Somerset north to the Ottawa River.

I suspect the section from Somerset to Young didn’t get paved due to the heavy equipment installing the staircase at Somerset. But I am hopeful we will get it paved before this winter.

Herewith, the pic:

section between Bayview Station and the Sir John A MacDonald Parkway.I think the amount of “zoom” on the picture distorts the curves, which are in fact gentle. The NCC section gets nicer black chain link fence.

the path meets the OTrain platform

looking south along the new path as it leaves Bayview OTrain station, towards Somerset

the new path goes through Bayview OTrain station, as viewed from the Albert Street overpass

looking south, behind City Centre building, with the plain silver chain link fencing

view north, from City Centre building, back towards Bayview Station. Lamp-posts are in, but not the light heads

paved section of pathway ends at the Somerset underpass. It will be possible to “race” the train between Gladstone and Bayview …

 

City’s tallest office towers proposed for west side

Phoenix DCR is going to Council in August seeking rezoning of the parcel of land known as 801 Albert Street. They are proposing a 34 storey office tower; a 31 storey office tower, and a 7 storey office tower. Currently, the tallest office buildings in Ottawa are Place de Ville at 29 stories and Place Bell, both in the downtown core.

The parcel of land they propose to build these on is right across Albert Street from the existing Bayview transit station and the adjacent OTrain station. The triangular parcel of land is immediately north of the 8 storey City Centre office tower (the City Centre site has long been OK’d for developments in the 8 to 22 storey range), where City Centre Ave meets Albert. The site is bounded on the west by the OTrain line and new north-south multi-user path (bike path) on which construction begins later this month.

Here is a bird’s-eye view of the triangular site, located immediately south of (ie above) the word Bayview  (station). Our bird is flying somewhere above the Ottawa River, looking south:

The proposed office towers would have about 1.3 million square feet of space. The site is very difficult to develop, being crisscrossed with sewers and water mains. The developer was pushed off by the city back in 2010 when they initially sought rezoning, pending completion of studies about the condition of the infrastructure and the possibility of relocating some of the pipes (one pipe is to be relocated by the developer).

The aerial view below reverts to a more conventional view with north to the top of the picture.

The closest residential housing to the site is immediately east (right), the townhouses of Walnut Court.

Working closely with city planners, Phoenix has managed to insert three buildings between the pipe rights of way. They are well set back from Albert due to a major pipe crossing the site just south of Albert. They used this setback zone to create a forecourt for motorists arriving at the site.

The three buildings would only have 275 parking spaces in the four-level garage, and 22 on the surface, for somewhere around 5 – 6,000 employees. This is truly a transit-oriented development, dependent on the east-west LRT and north-south OTrain for all the employees to arrive. The buildings are designed for single occupancy, ie the Feds, with secure loading zones and mail rooms, etc. Recall that Federal buildings do not, as a rule, include much parking.

Proposed office towers, bird’s-eye view from the north-west, looking south. Albert Street is in the foreground, the City Centre complex is behind these buildings; the OTrain is to the right.

The building relates well to the adjacent streets. Residents and community associations put a lot of work into the CDP regarding this site. We wanted buildings to relate to the Albert Street grade on the north; and the much lower City Centre and O-Train grades on the south and west. This project has the auto court on the Albert level; and major pedestrian and cyclist entrances on the west at O-Train level, with direct access into the new Bayview Station at O-track level. Thus crowds of pedestrians needn’t be crossing Albert at 3pm every day… southbound and westbound travellers will find the shortest route via the ped path at OTrain level; eastbound travellers might go either via the path or cross the street.

The two tallest towers are linked above grade, and at grade by a lobby. The CDP calls for open access through the Phoenix site to the south, so that residents or workers at the (future) City Centre site will also have direct access to Albert and the transit station; although the new emphasis on the O-Train level as a pedestrian spine might reduce that need.

The south side of the building has some surface parking and garage entrances. According to site plans community members saw at a preview last September, the south side is being designed to simulate a street environment, with curbside parking, and the sidewalk along the south side will connect directly from City Centre/Albert intersection through the site to a new ped bridge over the OTrain connecting to the former Wellington right of way into Hintonburg (the bridge that used to be there was removed in 1970) . Phoenix is offering funding for the ped bridge and seems cognizant for making the south side pedestrian friendly and safe.

Most people tend to view the 5.3 acre triangular site as being “in a hole”, but it isn’t really. The problem is that Albert Street rises up on an earthen embankment to its bridge over the OTrain. The service ramp to the City Centre building has a similar slope; and then further south Somerset Street is also raised on a viaduct. But the Phoenix site is at the same elevation as Primrose, Elm, and Spruce Streets, and the City Centre site, and Tom Brown arena, Bayview Yards, and most of LeBreton Flats. I am confident that when / if built up as per this proposal the landscape will look and feel natural.

When the Dalhousie and Hintonburg CA’s, plus representatives from Walnut Court (townhouses immediately east of the site), met the developers last September, there was considerable scepticism that the suggested buildings did look nice but would the final buildings actually look like that? In particular, the innovative second skin of coloured glass panels on the north façade looked expendable should the developer need to cut costs.

In the rezoning application, the proponent wants to “shrink wrap” the buildings as proposed, so the exact saw-tooth south façade and building shapes and locations would be approved but any changes would require council approval (rezoning). Would this include the exterior as shown? We don’t know.

The preview session also raised some concerns about the west façade (no pic available) which is precast concrete punched with windows. The concrete surface was required to meet LEED standards and to reduce solar gain from the western sun.

The CA’s generally approved of the traffic access and signals as suggested. We felt the driveways would work as shown, for the traffic volumes projected. However, the parking needs to be almost all short-term parking, not monthly rentals, since if the garage is full of monthly parkers then day-parkers will flood the neighborhood. And the building, as planned, is only useful for Federal tenancy, since any other use, such as condos or a hotel, would require a lot more parking and more road access than is feasible to provide. We are also concerned that the relationship of the site to Albert Street be urban and not encourage motorists to speed up due to the large scale surroundings.

The ground level of the building has a horizontal “arcade” of white concrete across the front to provide eye-level interest. Personally, I’d like to see that extend out from the northwest corner of the building out to Albert Street, to more fully enclose the courtyard. There will be the usual food court and services inside.

As presently proposed, the building seems isolated and the surroundings bleak. It is certainly not part of any downtown or mainstreet fabric. But then, it wouldn’t fit well on any traditional mainstreet (West Wellington? Preston? Somerset?) due to its size. It is much more like the Tunney’s Pasture buildings, which are towers-in-a-bunny-field adjacent a rapid transit station. There is, however, the possibility of developing a more cohesive and usable high-rise neighborhood when the City Centre site is redeveloped and a pedestrian spine is required to run north-south from Somerset to Bayview Station.

The seven storey building on the east, the most triangular one, is  a meeting centre with conference rooms around some sort of atrium. Or, it could be office space. These are details to be worked out should the developer find a tenant, because this complex won’t be built unless they have a pre-signed tenant for all of the space in at least one tower.

The shadows thrown from these towers will go a long way in the winter. Fortunately, they go north, where there is no existing or proposed residential uses. The late afternoon western sun may throw a shadow onto the adjacent Walnut Court, Primrose, and Elm residential areas (the existing Tunney’s Pasture buildings do that already). Unfortunately, the shadow study doesn’t include late afternoon projections, despite Community Association requests:

 Summary: The site for this development is difficult to design well, and the proposed rezoning is highly dependent on the buildings being exactly as shown, and for a single tenancy office use. The quality of the ped and cyclist access via the western frontage is crucial for the easy movement of the six thousand workers to and from the Bayview Station.

The “Other” Iconic Station viewpoint that we lost

The Confederation Square station entrance (or lack of one) is getting a lot of press.

 Earlier, the proposed Rideau Station was straddling the underside of the Canal, with the east entrance coming up at the Rideau Centre and the west entrance coming up at Confederation Square. This was called the Rideau Street station as that was its primary market, and the main reason it was pushed eastward under the canal was the sharp southward curve the track took immediately upon leaving the Rideau Station heading towards Campus:

 

The prior plans showed the western end of the Rideau station platform connected to a long, fairly convoluted set of underground corridors and staircases to come up to entrances at the plaza on the east side of the old train station, and further west by the driveway entrance to the front doors of the NAC.


(There have been numerous versions of this entrance, depending on the depth of the tunnel and its exact alignment. The pic above is to illustrate the concept).

It was from this entrance by the NAC that people exiting the door would have an “iconic” view of the War Memorial, Parliament, etc. Keep in mind that the station entrance design for the NAC location was to kept very minimal and low, because otherwise it would interfere with the motorist’s sight line from their iconic view from Colonel By Drive.

Right from the first unveiling of the Rideau Station plans, I was sceptical about the NAC  entrance. The long sinuous underground corridors to get there are confusing and  unappealing, with several 180 degree turns, 90 degree turns left and right, and odd jogs in the horizontal corridors.

And once you exit at street level, where are you? You’re on the “wrong” side of Confederation Square, you have to cross multiple lanes of busy traffic at busy time-consuming traffic signals to get to Parliament, Sparks, the War Memorial, or the Market. In short, other than a tourist directed there because of the iconic view, who would want to exit there? Is an iconic arrival viewpoint enough justification for this location?

I felt that most people  working along the west side of Elgin would find it faster and more pleasant to exit from the downtown east station, which is also closer to tourist-type destinations such as Sparks Street and Parliament Hill.  The planners at the time were clearly uncomfortable with the main tourist arrival point for Parliament et al being in the East station, a downtown office canyon (Queen Street) where there was no immediate sense of direction to the Parliamentary precinct.

The City’s projected users of the station at Confederation Square showed the following breakdown. At the time, I was told that the number of wide streets to cross or delays in crossing was not a factor in the allocation, only geographic dispersal. Obviously, walk time is not strictly related to distance, but to the time to traverse that distance, which is influenced by the delay at busy streets. About 35% of the pedestrian traffic heading south out of the station would be heading towards Elgin Street (either side) (would any head to DND via the MacKenzieKing Bridge?) and about 5% towards Parliament, Wellington Street, or Sparks:

Remember, the City has only unveiled plans for two exits for each station, which is the legal minimum required. But they expect stations to have multiple exits when actually fully built out. These additional exits come as the plans are refined and detailed, and as adjacent property owners decide how/if to connect their buildings to the stations. (The city will  negotiate rights of ways and cost sharing). I fully expect the Downtown East station to either be shifted very slightly east or have a longer underground exit carry people  closer to Elgin.

But is the Confederation Square entrance the ONLY iconic entrance at hand?

Recall that there is another iconic sight line the NCC and City’s Official Plan protect, and that is from the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway where it rises up and over the O-Train track at the Prince of Wales Bridge. This offers motorists from the west a great view of Parliament and the downtown, a view line that is protected forever.

And barely a few yards south of the motorist’s protected view point is the Bayview Station. the major transfer point for South bound LRT/O-Train services and East-West LRT services, and possibly the STO Rapibus Ottawa terminal or the extension of LRT service to Gatineau. Tens of thousands of passengers will use this station daily.

Under the plans kicked around for the first bit of LRT planning, people arriving at this station would ascend the escalators into the grand hall and have gradually revealed, to the east, a large overhead arch of the roof framing an “iconic” view of the downtown (which may or may not have actually included the Parliament building silhouette).

Alas, the City decided that preserving even a narrow view plane for tens of thousands of daily transit users was not worthwhile. For motorists a few yards north, however, it is a major accomplishment of National Capital Image Building. I guess Obama isn’t expected to arrive by LRT, only by armoured limo on the riverside highways. The escorts for his body guards, however, are more likely to arrive via the LRT, but they don’t warrant a nice view.

The City then turned its back on the remaining views of the downtown that would still have been possible from the station, even if there were some mid-rise Claridge condo towers in the foreground. The City decided it wouldn’t align the arch of the station to frame the view, then compounded it by reversing the escalator flows so that ascending riders view Mechanicsville instead of the downtown.

Yup, it takes multiple parties — the City, its Mayor, the NCC, and others, to produce such  missed opportunities. Iconic sight lines are not priceless, there may be times to not take advantage of them. And we shouldn’t locate/design whole LRT stations primarily because they offer a nifty view upon exiting. Sightlines and views are city-building tools, that elevate a place from the ordinary to the special. But the LRT first and foremost has to work as a transit system.

Are we valuing sight lines highly enough, both at the Confederation and Bayview sites? In the midst of all the noise, it’s hard to tell.

Firestone Prescribes (iii)

I concur with Dr Firestone that Ottawa took its eye off the ball regarding the transitway. It always has money for road widenings and intersection “improvements” and new roads, and new bridges, but not enough for transitway extensions. Ask a city politician, and you get a dirge back about it’s the provinces or fed’s fault because they aren’t funding the transitway. Funny, the feds don’t fund a lot of stuff, but that doesn’t prevent the city from spending its own money. The City, IMO, has spending problems more than it has funding problems.

I must say at this point that Prof Bruce is on a roll here, a hit parade of the bigger errors. Fortunately, Ottawa as a City actually does very little (almost everything nice or significant in Ottawa is from the NCC or the Feds) or else it would screw up more.

One of my pet peeves regarding street trees is the ridiculously high standards the city demands before planting trees. It has never planted trees along Albert (through the Flats) or City Centre Avenue or some other places the community has continually asked for, because “those sites are only temporary, and will be redeveloped [someday] so trees would be a waste of money”. We’ve been asking since 1982; most city trees would have grown, matured, and died of old age before any such redevelopment occurs. Better a lifetime in a barren city than plant one more tree.

As for the Flats, what a fiasco. The city road department was ruling the roost when the Flats agreement was signed with the NCC, and the roads folks wanted sidewalks adjacent the curb to be snow-clearable by road equipment, so — no curbside trees permitted. The NCC fought for tree lined streets. The City refused. Shortly after signing the Flats agreement, the city changed it policy to permit side boulevard trees. Everywhere — except the Flats. There, the NCC is still stuck with the outdated policy. When the City decided to have CDP’s or update old CDP’s all along the new LRT line, they decided in their wisdom that they would not reopen the Flats one. I pointed out we were condemning the entire Flats to a substandard urban environment due to the ill-founded tree policy. The CDP stays closed, the City isn’t interested in the NCC project lookin’ good.

On Booth Street a few years back, the City chopped down a dozen front yard trees (to replace water lines) planted as part of the neighborhood improvement program in 1982. They refused to replant them, claiming that there wasn’t enough room for a 20′ diameter ground space around the tree trunk and therefore insufficient room for them to thrive. Only in Ottawa.

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My thanks to Dr Firestone for letting me post his slides, and for his speech at the recent AGM of the Dalhousie Community Assoc.

On a Clear Day, (Dead) Councillors can see forever …

Back a few months ago when there was snow on the ground, I typically played around with it a bit when sent out to conduct my onerous shovelling obligations. For the first pass, I would make my six-foot-short sidewalk have perfectly vertical snowbanks on each side. Nice straight sides, looking like the whole bank was sculpted at once. A mini Corinthian Canal:

Corinth Canal, photo from Bing. The Ottawa one was frozen.

Later, when the crisp edges started to blur, I would convert the sliced-through snowbanks into a gentle glaciated valley, with the sidewalk at the bottom and then the parabolic sides.

This is a useful metaphor for Ottawa’s sight lines and view cones.

There are a number of view planes that the official plan identifies as being protected. Contrary to what many people seem to think, no one else “owns” the view they have today, and some future development might obstruct it. There goes that argument for opposing anything above the height of your favorite window.

The view planes of the downtown (shown above) show what is in the foreground of the viewplane, and what is beyond the viewed object, in which height is also controlled so that some new building isn’t lurking just beyond the picturesque. Note for example view 16 from the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway where it crosses the O-Train. The motorists have a nifty view of Parliament Hill,  and chunk of the Market beyond it can’t have anything tall enough to be seen. Views 17 and 18 along Colonel By Drive are also of Parliament, and help explain why the Corktown ped bridge over the Canal doesn’t also cross over Colonel By (which would have been so practical and safer, but which would have interrupted the commuter’s glimpse of Parliament).

Of course, the NCC  isn’t protecting the view for commuters. It’s for the occasional visit of the Queen or Mr Obama, should they glance out the window of their limo. Which also explains why there are no view planes for transit users, since heads of state aren’t likely to arrive by OC Transpo. Some earlier versions of the Bayview Station for the east-west LRT consciously manipulated the passenger view of the downtown and Parliament to maximize the WOW factor (ascending the escalator, Billy Commuter sees unveiled the distant downtown framed by the high arched ceiling of the station, etc etc). Nice design aesthetics for the transit stations aren’t talked about much anymore. Jim thinks Chevy users can make do with side views of the road shoulder.

Here’s a  list of the protected views as given in Ottawa’s OP. Mostly they are for motorists.  http://www.ottawa.ca/en/city_hall/planningprojectsreports/ottawa2020/official_plan/vol_1/07_annexes/index.html

The LeBreton Flats viewplane is readily seen by West Siders. As the ORP climbs uphill from Sliddel intersection, the road curves and carefully-planted trees mask the view. Then, at the highest point, cresting the hill, the panorama unfolds. (Pause to suck in breath here).

This view is preserved as the road user transitions onto Wellington at the intersection of Vimy (this T intersection will someday become a + intersection when Preston is extended out to it; the turn lanes have already been installed). Notice how the Claridge buildings at the far right corner of the sight triangle on the Flats are pushed south to preserve the sight line. The plan for the Flats has a sharp edge all along the south side of the view plane, like one bank of the Corinth Canal, except made out of condo buildings six or seven stories high with the occasional tower punching higher. The north side, of course, is the flat park in front of the War Museum.

So, LeBreton is a clean example of a sight line with sharp vertical edges.

The proposed Domicile development in the Vanier area is bringing forth the issue of view cones again. Here is the Beechwood cemetary view cone:

Having drawn the view cones on a map, one would think that’s it, the rest of the city is fair game. But no, in the Beechwood Avenue case, Domicile’s opponents are arguing that buildings shouldn’t be allowed near the view cone. They want a view cone with parabolic sides.

Just how wide do they think this view cone has to be, and why didn’t they argue for a wider one when the views were being preserved? Or are people supposed to buy the land, do the planning and building plans, and then hope that they are not within whatever extra-width view plane the most-vocal group can demand? 

 And don’t forget that there is a background area too. The Beachwood protected sight line runs from Beechwood (the narrow end) to encompass Parliament Hill (at the wider end). But one cannot build further behind the Parliament target, because that would break the silhouette of the protected view against the skyline. So that no-building-zone extends beyond Parliament for some considerable distance. And the sightline cone continues to get wider and wider as it extends beyond. Once the terrain drops down to LeBreton Flats, the height line of the tallest planned building is below that of the existing buildings on Confederation Boulevard, so the sight line in effect continues over LeBreton Flats. Is that background behind Parliament Hill enough, or will Mechanicsville residents be able to oppose high rises in their area because if you extend the view cone far enough they are in the background too?

This isn’t just an argument of interest to developers. It affects all our home prices. And our children’s ability to ever afford a home. A larger cone  removes more land from redevelopment, restricting the developable land in the city, increasing scarcity, which increases land prices, which increases house prices everywhere, which makes housing less affordable, which increases the demand for high taxes to subsidize more housing for someone. Which means housing gets less affordable for more people because more of our money goes to taxes.

Sight lines are not trivial things. With vertical edges, everyone knows the rules. With (presently undefined shallow) parabolas extending the sight lines outward no one knows where the sight lines really are.

Will council open up the definition of sight lines? Whichever definition, they’d better define it precisely and firmly.