Category Archives: Elm Street

Intensification not without its drawbacks

On Pamilla Street an infill developer severed the side yard of a small single — the blue one to the right in the pic — and greatly intensified the site. The neighbours objected, took it to the OMB, lost, and the building went ahead.

Why was it controversial? Well, the usual developer sins. They took the front and back yard set back minimums as the permissible maximum building size. So the infill house is huge — so huge, it is in fact 3 houses on one 23′ lot with shared driveway. The neighbours objected to the height, the car traffic, and especially the depth of the house, which extends behind the existing alignment of houses thus blocking off the open sense in the backyards (and the afternoon sun).

The Committee of Adjustment turned it down partially based on the unique open stairwell proposed for the project.

Like other infills for this developer (these include the Elm Street ones that face my backyard, and won a design award last year, and that I like, and which have been subject of numerous posts here) he pushes the envelope. Hard. Here’s the Pamilla infill, now completed, as seen from the street:

From this angle, it is not apparent that the roof has a low slope. How are there three houses here? Well, the first house faces the street, it is two floors high, and has a front door off the nod-to-the-traditional porch. It has three bedrooms, and a finished basement with a rec room, bathroom, kitchenette, and separate entrance, ie a suite.

Then there is a very similar house facing the back of the lot (unit 2, plus its suite). And then there is a third floor, which is one apartment straddling the two lower townhouses. And to get to the top apartment (and the basement suites) there is an exterior flight of stairs that pushes the two ground level townhouses apart. Here’s the view down the driveway:

and here are the stairs, which are open to the next door’s back yard, which was one of the objections to the stairs, due to their impact on the privacy of the adjacent rear patio and gardens:

and here is a view looking way-way-up, Jerome, to the entrance to the third floor apartment, which has about 1100 sq ft:

The house looks fine from the front. Indeed, it is now, along with the renovated single just beyond it that originally had this side yard, perhaps the most attractive property on the street.

And yet. Qualms remain. From a plans-on-paper perspective, the house is similar to the one I like in my backyard. Except those ones (on Elm) have landscaped backyards to my backyard; Pamilla has two parking spaces for a backyard, and the adjacent single has the third space. All paved. No room for plants or big trees. And potential source of noise (car stereos are so convenient for washing the car, or sitting out back with a beer, or entertaining friends — and all the neighbours).

The mass of the house IS huge; it extends well back into the lot. While they let in enough light for grass and plants to grow, I notice my chinese neighbours gave up back yard gardening when the large corrugated tin walls rise up 33′ on the lot line, blocking afternoon sun.

Infill is not painless. Intensification is not painless. The Pamilla project turned out well enough, but is dense. On the other hand, wood frame construction is cheaper to build, which makes the units more profitable to rent, which encourages landlords to provide more affordable units. The renters are getting more house for their dollar than they would in a high rise condo. The neighbours got a good looking house from the street, and an irritant in the back.

Of course, the alternative is the land assembly going on in the next block (Norman St) where Urban Capital is active. I somehow suspect they are not going to propose a stacked townhouse or two.

From Parking to Parks

Miracles do happen at City Hall.

Not often. But one is unfolding right now. Pay attention.

Instead of paving over more of our scarce parkland for vehicle parking, instead of just whining forever about the lack of City park space in our downtown neighborhoods … our parks dept has actually agreed to expand a park onto the road allowance. And removing some vehicle parking too! Yes, this miraculous green space expansion is happening right here in little ole’ Ottawa.

Chaudiere Park is a small pocket park on Elm Street in West Side Ottawa. The proposed expansion replaces on-street parking with a more livable expansion of the adjacent park. The reclaimed strip of land is about 8′ x 140′.

But it is more useful than the small dimensions might indicate. The main part of the park is for little kids — a tot lot, a wading pool, gazebo — with another third for teens in form of a resurfaced basketball court.

The strip of land along the front curb will be useful for passive functions, like sitting and conversing, resting whilst taking the dog for its walkies, people watching, etc. The new wiggley fence of the main park will actually “push” some more landscaped space out toward the passive sitting area. Right now, there are decorative boulders and perennials in this strip. Hopefully, it can be restored as an even better garden for the enjoyment of perambulators and procastinators.

I’m not sure how “fixed” the plan is. For example, the benches along the street are rather rigidly set parallel to the curb and spaced far apart. Not very sociable at all. I’d rather see them clustered in a U shape, maybe with a few two-seater benches and a single seater, sort of like a conversational grouping in your living room. Might as well talk to the neighbours if we gonna sit on our asses. And put a garbage can by sidewalk to collect those popsicle wrappers.

The benches need to be set on permeable paved surfaces if our feet aren’t to get all muddy. And why not put some plants along the curb for some greenery, plants that die down flat to the ground come winter for the convenience of snow plows? Tall decorative grasses come to mind, but surely there are others. Yes, this is pushing the greenery right out to the maximum extent. And along that curvy fence, I hope there are some real flowery shrubs of the type people like to stop and look at (eg azalea) and not just those minimally flowery ones beloved by landscape architects deemed suitable for “mass plantings” seen at 60 kmh.

Here, for those who are sceptical, is a planted bulb out on Argyle Street. Worthwhile? You betcha.

(Above: Ottawa parking spaces restored to livable street people space)

The City didn’t seem too enthused with the expand-a-park idea when I first brought it up last fall, but I’ve got to give them credit for running it up the flagpole and seeing who salutes and who boos. Thus far, the fans are far out numbering any opponents. So kudos to the parks people for stepping out of the easy confines of the official parkland box. And to Councillor Holmes for pushing the idea. If you support the park expansion, email Diane.Holmes@ottawa.ca.

Little real-world improvements like this park expansion, or the trees soon to come all along the Somerset Street viaduct (first trees in Ottawa to be planted on a bridge) are practical manifestations of the good community associations and community involvement can accomplish.

Residents of Dalhousie are invited to come out to the annual community association AGM on April 10th at 7pm at the Dal Centre to hear our guest speaker Dr Bruce Firestone talk about Intensification: Boon or Bane. There are free cookies too.

Parks Planning (ii)

Chaudiere Park is a well-used large-ish pocket park on Elm Street, between Rochester and Preston. It’s about 140′ along the street, and about 100′ deep. The park is dominated by a very large, very deep wading pool that delivers a freeze-your-bones-it’s-so-cold experience to kiddies for six weeks every summer. There is a large sandbox on the east; a basketball court on the west. The general impression is a sea of pavement.

Existing park with its "Haarlem style" scenic fencing

and

A neighborhood with few parks but lots of on-street parking: should we keep it that way? Just what is the best use for public space?

Chaudiere Park on Elm is a newish location for the former Chaudiere Park on LeBreton Flats, which was relocated to Elm after the “slum clearance” expropriation in the 1960′s. As such, it deserves a proper park sign with a “since 18xx” date on it. Heritage is not the exclusive preserve of the more affluent neighborhoods.

Planners propose installing a much smaller wading pool, and a slightly smaller basketball court with a rubber surface. Here is their first go at a new layout:

Chaudiere Park viewed from the south. Elm runs west>east across the top (north side) of the park

The rubber bball court might mitigate the sound of bouncing balls, which can be annoying to (very close by) neighbours. The existing play structure isn’t bad, but used to be much much larger, but play structures in Ottawa shrink at the same rate as cotton underwear in a too-hot dryer.

Natch, the planners propose a mechanical shade structure in the centre, shown as “sails” in the plan. This might, or might not, work well. But why does the City insist on planting toy trees that will never grow large, and favoring expensive-to-install and even more expensive-to-maintain structures instead? Guys, plant a giant chestnut or oak and in 20 years we won’t need the steel and plastic fake tree, or its successor, or its successor, or its …

I once attended the City’s “parks planning” session (reported here:  http://westsideaction.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/parks-and-parking/ ) which was more frustrating than educational. I had bad vibrations come over me at the public meeting last week as the planners started trotting out the old shibboleths.

For example, this park is small. Why not move the fence out flush with the sidewalk, so that about 6-8′ x 140′ more space could be incorporated into the park (about an 8% enlargement). Oh no, say the planners, that’s city road allowance, not city parkland. It is needed to dump snow on. We only plan people spaces on “official park land”.

At other times in the meeting, planners were asked about getting new parks. Nope. Too expensive. Can’t compete with Claridge and their 28 million storey condo towers. But what is wrong with landscaping the dead street allowances? There is one at the top of Primrose staircase that is quite large, has nice views, and is well used? Nope, it’s a street allowance and must stay that way. What about dead ends (like the west stub end of Primrose) or the turning circles of Walnut or Rochester? Nope, those are streets, we can’t encourage kids to play on the street. Someone might sue us. (the original neighborhood plans had both turning circles identified as semi-park space for kids on bikes, etc but the cars took over both spaces so thoroughly we cannot imagine anymore that we could reclaim this public space for our kids. Steel wins over flesh every time in Ottawa).

And in front of Chaudiere Park, why not push out the sidewalk onto a bulb out, and convert those parking spaces into the park? Heavens, shock from public attendees, where would the Bluesfest parkers park? We can’t take away any of their parking spaces! (I hear this argument all the time against anything proposed for the neighborhood: build a condo? No! Bluesfest people need parking. Build a wider sidewalk? No! where will the Bluesfest people find parking? Honestly, Dalhousie residents are so damn polite and considerate for Bluesfest parkers I’m surprised they didn’t suggest paving over parts of both parks for Bluesfest parking [oops, shouldn't have suggested that ...].

Here’s an example of what Centretowner’s used to do to improve their streets: 

landscaped bulb out shelter the sidewalk and apt building. Alas, we have lost the will to build these to protect a park or visually expand it.

Alas, I don’t see much of the imaginative thinking that got us the wonerf on Cambridge Street or the street closures of the 1980′s and 90′s. Instead, we are back to catering to car movement and car storage as the primary claimant on public space. We don’t seem to have the drive anymore to want to experiment with multi-use borderless streets, or to displace a few parking spaces for parks. Instead, we moan that we lack the $2 million dollars to compete with Claridge or Starwood to buy land on the market. Or pray for the replacement of the nasty Conservative government with someone more “progressive” who will shower us with buckets of money for parks and museums and transit. Who says cargo cults are extinct? And heavens help anyone who suggests building over the OTrain or LRT cuts to provide parkland above … definitely too expensive [for this neighborhood; I fully expect to see just that in McKellar Park].

In sum, Chaudiere Park is on its way to a decent rebuild. It is fortunate in having an articulate and energetic lobby group of neighbours and parents who will fight for what they want. Provided they stay within the official parks silo that planners inhabit. Imaginative solutions are reserved for expensive conferences, and are not to be implemented at the neighborhood level.

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thanks to readeer Richard Thomas for the park diagram.

 
 

Noble residents

The modest house shown above on Elm Street is typical for the neighborhood. West Side homes have seen many stories played out. But this story is far from typical.

This is the home Joseph Guillaume Laurent “Larry” Robillard and his brothers grew up in.

On Nov 8, 1941, 70 years ago, Sgt. Robillard of the Royal Canadian Air Force was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal. He downed two enemy aircraft while protecting a descending parachutist. Then just 20 years old, the resident of 15 Elm Street had already shot down a Messerschmitt 109 on 22 June .

During a patrol over Lille, France, on 2 July 1941, then a novice pilot with less than a month’s flying under his belt, he saw a descending parachutist and moved down to protect him. Nine Nazi fighters moved in to kill them both. In the following firefight, Larry Robillard shot down two German fighters and drove off the others (the parchutist lived).

Unfortunately, he was shot down in the process. Would he become the 404th RCAF casualty of the war?

Within a few minutes of his crashing in occupied France, peasants came rushing up with civilian clothes. They removed his uniform and hid it. Dressed as a peasant, he was employed by the Germans to head up the search for himself.

With the assistance of the Resistance, aided by his fluent French,  he walked across France, snuck through the Spanish border, and travelled at nights across Fascist Spain, and snuck across the border into British Gibraltar on 12 August 1941. He had travelled through 1724 km of enemy territory.  By October, he was back in the UK where he got his DFM medal. He wasn’t promoted, however, until March 1942.

The New York Times reported on June 6, 1942 that a civic reception was held on Parliament Hill in honour of Larry Robillard and Paul Emile Morin. Over 10,000 people showed up on the lawn of Parliament Hill. By November of ’42, Robillard had eight enemy planes to credit.

In Nov ’43, Larry’s little brother RJ, aged 19, who had been serving in the Wildcat Squadron patrolling over Alaska, flew cross country and then over the Atlantic to join the RCAF in Europe.

On June 29th, 1944 (just three weeks after the D Day Normandy invasion) Larry Robillard was part of a group of RCAF fighters than engaged 34 enemy aircraft in Normandy and shot down 26 of them in one day. Robillard was credited with one kill.

He retired as a Lt.Commander in 1955.

He was born in Ottawa on 17 November 1920, residing with his parents and brothers at 15 Elm Street. He learned to fly at the Ottawa Flying Club.  Robillard died at his home in Montreal, Canada on 8th March 2006.

                   (right: Distinguished Flying Medal)

(left: Larry Robillard)

                       Lest We Forget.

Real Estate Porn: the Elm edition

Ah, real estate porn. Featuring objects you cannot afford, splendors you can only dream about. And the opportunity to second guess and dump on the people that did spend the money to do what you wouldn’t have done!

There have been many previous posts about the innovative infill houses on the west end of Elm Street. On a single 56×100 lot the developer, Sage, has inserted four houses, replacing one that wasn’t much larger than a couple of shipping containers. From the street, it appears to be two single homes; and from the backyards it appears to be two homes.

The four homes have different layouts. The front model home is for DINKS. It has one large bedroom on the third floor, with a walk in closet+laundry room with skylight, a giant bathroom with shower for two, and a private outdoor deck. A flex room right at the front entry could be a den, office, or bedroom, with attached bathroom.

The other three homes are more conventional, with three bedrooms up, a ground floor family room, plus a finished basement. The two homes at the front have a balcony; the two at the back have back yards about 28×20.

There are four covered parking spaces at ground level.

street view

back view

 
 
 
 

view towards kitchen from living room, note metal stair panels

 

view of second floor great room from kitchen

 
 
 

looking down the bedroom stairs into the living room. Funky mid-century modern furniture is from Funky Furniture, just a few steps further down Elm Street towards Art-is-In Bakery. Glass railing. ten foot high windows plus numerous other windows flood the rooms with light.

 

front balcony with clear glass rail, faces south, is the primary usable space although there is a lawn below

 

the master bedroom in the DINK house; all maple floors are real solid maple planks, not laminates .

there is one bath in the DINK unit, with a big shower; the three bedroom houses have two full (albeit more modest) bathrooms on their third floors

the third floor deck in the DINK unit has four different walls, privacy for sunning

the two front units have entry stairs like this; the two back units have 3 stories of full glazing up both ends of the stairs. The architect, Flynn, made each stair slightly different -- one is open all three floors. Note the glass railing on the stairs and metal panels on the landings.

The flex room at the entry level could be an office, bedroom, den ... there is a bathroom there too. There is another equally large room below it in the basement.

in the centre of the lots are four parking spaces in open garages or carports. The ceilings are high and the spaces feel fine albeit I saw it without SUV's parked there....

Except for the exterior and carport pic, all others were taken by Laurie-Anne Smith. There will undoubtedly be more open houses so you can browse and praise/criticise to your heart’s content. If you’ve got a spare $699,000 you can even have one. Beware that the back units look at a crotchedly old blogger which might be cause for grief.

Waterparks in the City

Dufferin Park in Toronto is justifiably well known for its innovative features. The boy on the left (picture, above) is by the spigot that flows water into this large sand lot, complete with oversize logs that seem perfect to stimulate little imaginations while containing the mess and providing bum rests for parents.

Can’t you just hear Ottawa park bureaucrats commenting on the “safety” of that big log bridge? (shown above) Actually, watching the baby crawl up out of the ditch was hilarious and inspiring.

The Dufferin Park neighborhood and adjacent Trinity Bellwoods neighborhoods appear to me to be in the “Glebe” level of affluence. A number of large houses have been converted into small apartments for exorbitant rent, which is how I end up there (visiting my daughter). It is very self-consciously trendy and struts its “progressive” credentials proudly. Olivia Chow was a little ways over, meeting her constituents in an open air tent.

The park has a large public fire pit (that’s right, start your own open-air bonfires — the city supplies the firewood — and attract friends, neighbours, and other passersby). It has a shallow saucer-like wading pool, unlike any I have seen in Ottawa:

A parents association had set up open tents to sell lunches and snacks. Ideal for the urbanista nudist-infant who is a lactose-intolerant-vegan-celiac who likes tofu companions (can’t call them “dogs”). Fortunately, they had cans of coke too, which they sold whilst wincing.

There was also a large outdoor pizza oven that is “on” certain days. You can bake your own bread or pizzas or let the attendant bake your stuff.

In Ottawa, the closest thing I know of to a Dufferin-style waterpark is the Andrew Haydon Waterpark in the far west end:

The water feature is a kit-built structure with very modest water flow. Nonetheless, the little tykes manage to get very wet and very happy playing there**. The structure is now old, and quite leaky; I am surprised it hasn’t been torn down yet and replaced by something smaller and less imaginative and less fun. Hint: a rubber-roc pad floor would eliminate all that pesky sand!

Adjacent the water park is a public washroom, complete with a little outdoor shower for hosing down the little ones that have become weighted down with too much sand in their diapers.

Both parks make amusing spots to stop and watch someone else’s kids get dirty and have fun. Then I can bike off without having to carry the dirty ones home. Parents at both parks socialized a lot and relaxed.

Back in the 80′s, Houff tried to introduce a water park to Ottawans on LeBreton Flats. The park on Primrose has a series of shallow paved “ponds” that were to fill with water draining from adjacent houses via surface channels.

 

The water would later seep out through a catch-basin. Alas, water testing showed the runoff water was full of cat shit and dog feces; the depth of the pond around the catchbasin regulator panicked city staff who dumped mismatched asphalt into the pond to make it shallower. It now sits in isolation, functionless*.

My previous suggestions to the city that they install spray posts in the big rocks was dismissed as “too expensive”, although the biggest expense (the drain) is already there, as is the surface of the playpad. [The city insisted on "costing" the water supply from Primrose, at the front of the park, the maximum distance away, rather than tapping into the watermain 50' away at the back of the park].

Alas, the surrounding neighborhood is not affluent enough to shake the funds out of city staff, who instead will probably tear out the perfectly fine wading pool on Elm Street (one block over) in order to put in … a spray pad. Why add facilities when you can replace?

Primrose Park has paid for but disused infrastructure. It could be resurrected and put to good use, economically, either by adding spray posts for kiddies to play in, or by filling the basins with sand and installing a tap so it becomes a creative play waterpark. Wanna bet either of these is high on our parks dept wish list?

When I think about it, I prefer the relaxed, slightly dilapidated and worn appearance of Dufferin to the more pristine Ottawa parks such as the Plant Pool water park or the Hayden waterpark.   Less programmed. Less prissy. More genuine fun.

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*for the second time its 30+ year life, Primrose Park will be hosting a play. Company of Fools puts on Antony and Cleopatra on August 13th, 7pm, Bring your own lawn chair and a tenner donation.

**there are no kids shown in the Ottawa pic because some parents might find it creepy to have an overweight elderly balding cyclist taking pic of their tykes, such is our paranoid society. So take my word for it, it is a popular playspace. Or better yet, take your kid/grandkid/neighbour’s kid there.

The Secret West Side

Everyone knows the traditional main streets: West Wellie, Preston, Chinatown, Bank Street … The very success of these streets ensure they attract popular businesses with enough clientele to afford the rents. But where are the retailers that cannot afford main street?

Ottawa lacks many low-value retail spaces, where specialty niche businesses, startups, and some just-plain marginal businesses can locate.

Gentrification and the revival of main streets are desirable, but have the effect of squeezing out these small firms. So they slip into little-noticed spots unattractive to mainstream, main street retailers.

I previously mentioned the hotbed of nifty niche novelty firms on the west side*. Art-is-in bakery at unit 112 in the City Centre building is doing gangbusters, and friends who drink coffee tell me the brew is excellent. On the western end of Elm Street is Patrick Gordon Framing, and right next door in the basement industrial building is FunkyFurniture Company, dealing in mid-century modern furniture. Backing onto these two businesses, but facing Spruce Street, is another refugee from gentrification, exiled from rising rents in Westboro: Vintage Lighting.

Not much to look at the from the outside:

located beside a small office building home to lost causes and micro-businesses, the lighting store is downstairs

But once you enter the door into a dark but high ceilinged space, a wonderful world of recycled light fixtures appears:

If you can, enlarge these pictures on your screen. Try to figure out the chandelier in the left foreground; and look closely at that Dan Brown-themed globe/astrology light fixture just in front of the ladder. Incredible. No doubt the holy grail of light fixtures is somewhere in here.

While talking to some developers recently, I commented on how much I like the old Centretown plan feature that put small retail shops at street level of most apartment buildings. These house a neat array of not-ready-for-mainstreet businesses, such as foreign-language bookshops.

Alas, condo developers generally don’t like these small shops in their condo buildings because they complicate the paperwork; our Councilor prefers all retail be directed to the  traditional commercial streets (the lone storefront proposed for 89-91 Lisgar has been banished); and some residents fear anything commercial will become a noisy bar. Fun little retail zones as found on Elm and Spruce won’t last long. The condos are coming, the condos are coming!

Surely there are other vibrant little side streets somewhere in the City, home to the less-popular tastes. Please share where you find them.

For previous related posts, click: http://westsideaction.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/rising-action/

http://westsideaction.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/industrial-gentrification-on-the-west-side/