Councillor Leadman has published a response to Ashcroft’s new plans for the redevelopment of the Soeurs de la Visitation Convent site at 114 Richmond Road.

Furthermore, she has called a public meeting to discuss these new plans, which will go to the City of Ottawa’s Planning Committee on Sept 14th and to City Council on Sept 29th.  Details are as follows:

Date and time: Wednesday, 1 September 2010, 7pm-9pm

Location: St George’s Church, 415 Picaddilly Avenue

Councillor Leadman plans on discussing changes made to the development application of the site.  She will also talk about the Design Review Panel’s recommendations and the changes made to the plans as a result.

More information can be found in this PDF.

Ashcroft Homes has published new plans (click here) for the site at 114 Richmond Road.  This is the first time that the community association has seen these revised plans, and HICG was not consulted and has not been contacted by Ashcroft at any time regarding them.

The plans will now be going to the City’s Planning and Environment Committee and City Council for consideration.

The Peer Review Panel‘s comments on the proposed Ashcroft development at the Souer de la Visitation site have been released.  The comments are available here, and an accompanying sketch can be found here.  The comments mainly focus on the heritage aspects of the site and the development in relationship to the heritage requirements of the site.  While it recommends changes in the configuration of the buildings, it does not directly address the issues of height or density.  As well, while there is no mention of traffic and parking impacts, the Committee did agree with the proposed site access onto Byron Avenue.

The City of Ottawa has responded to questions and comments raised at the recent open houses held on the Carling Ave / Merivale Road Integrated Road, Sewer, and Water Mains Construction Project.

To view the response, please click here.

Apologies for the short notice, but we’ve just found out that tonight’s (6 July) scheduled performance of Romeo and Juliette originally scheduled at Claire Park has been moved to Iona Park.

The play, by a youth acting troupe, begins at 7pm at Iona Park (between Hilson and Kensington).

An update on the Annual Summer Party this coming Friday 2nd July from 10am to 2pm.  This year there are many special guests lined up:

Ottawa Public Library will join us with the TD Summer Reading Club 2010 kick-off at 10:30;
Special guest appearance by everyone’s favorite mascot, Dovercat at 11:30; and…
Ottawa Firefighters will be joining us at 12:30!

Don’t miss these exciting activities as well as the pool opening, bouncy castle, FREE coffee for mom & dad & much, much more!
All activities are free and everyone is welcome.  There will also be a BBQ with hot dogs and drinks to buy.

Hope to see you all there!

The Hampton Iona Community Group has now submitted their review and comments on the proposed development at 114 Richmond Road.  The document can be found here (PDF).  There is a two page Executive Summary at the beginning of the document and a series of recommendations listed at the end of the submission.  This submission was also provided to the Design Review Panel as well as an annex containing all of the letters from the public for which HICG was copied.  If you have any questions on our submission, please let us know.

Kevin O’Donnell is representing Hampton Iona at discussions over the proposed western leg of the LRT.  He attended the public consultation meeting on June 21st and files this report (cross-posted from his website):

The City of Ottawa has begun the Western LRT Corridor Planning and Environmental Assessment project.  This project is going to determine the route that light rail will take as it leaves Downtown (at Bayview station) and heads to Baseline Station.  While the current Transit Master Plan (TMP) chose the Western Parkway, this study is going to “wipe the slate clean” and look at all the route options.  Anything from the Western Parkway, Byron Avenue, O-Train cut, Carling Avenue, Churchill, etc, are on the table for review and investigation.

The NCC has not said one way or another that they will permit light rail on the parkway.  But the NCC was a key contributor in designing the study and process we are about to work through.  The feeling at the City is that the NCC wants to make sure the City has really investigated alternate routes and is not choosing the parkway simply because its there and is the easy”status-quo” choice.

The City is engaging stakeholders by forming three different input groups: agency, business and public.  The Agency groups are composed of government ministries and agencies that are involved because they are a major employer, land holder or provide oversight to the Environment Assessment process.  The Business group is made up of the school boards, hospitals and BIAs in the area.  Finally the Public group is made up of Community Associations, advocacy groups and members from the City Advisory Committees.

Monday June 21st was the first day of meetings between the City and the consultation groups.  The agenda was to get the groups up to speed on how the process will work and to invite the groups to offer feedback on the process itself.

The next meeting in September is where we’ll get into the real details of choosing an alternate route.  Delcan will be preparing a number of options that we can review at that point.  Both the City and Delcan were very up front about the fact that all options are on the table.  As we go through the process we’ll “fan out” to explore all sorts of routes (parkway, carling, o-train, byron, etc) and designs (underground, below grade, overhead, etc) then whittle the options done until we reach just one.

As the representative for Hampton Iona I will be attending all of the public consultation meetings.  If you have questions feel free to send them over and I’ll do my best to get you an answer, or at least help by pointing you in the right direction.  The Western LRT won’t be built for quite a few years, but now is the time to make sure we make the best decision for the City’s long term health, efficiency and livability.

More reading:

• City of Ottawa’s Western LRT Project information (http://ottawa.ca/westernLRT)
• Western LRT Corridor, Planning and Environmental Assessment, Study Design and Schedule Document (PDF)

From the City of Ottawa website:

As part of the Council approved Richmond Road/Westboro Community Design Plan direction was given to develop a Transportation Management Implementation Plan (TMIP) for this area. The main aim of the project is to detail how over a period of years a lower automobile modal share could be achieved though the identification and evaluation of initiatives to promote transit and other non-vehicular modes of transportation (e.g. cycling, pedestrian, and other transportation demand management initiatives). These measures would reduce vehicle dependency in order to accommodate anticipated development in the Richmond Road/Westboro community and to respond to future capacity deficiencies in the Richmond Road corridor.

We’re having a Public Open House to:

• collect local community input on existing barriers to non-vehicular modes of transportation
• provide information on existing vehicle trips and future goals for trip reductions
• provide information on current City of Ottawa citywide plans
• provide information and obtain feedback on potential initiatives

Public Open House Tuesday June 29, 2010
6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
All Saints Anglican Church, Main Hall
347 Richmond Road

On June 11, Lorne Cutler of Hampton Iona Community Group and Roland Dorsey of the Island Park Community Association will be meeting with the Design Review Panel appointed to review the proposed development of the Soeur de la Visitation Convent site.  The committee will not be meeting with the general public, however, or any other community associations.  Hampton Iona, Island Park, West Wellington and Westboro community associations have met to discuss our views of the proposed development so that we can put forward a joint position that reflects the views of all of the neighbouring communities.   Lorne and Roland will be able to take in any messages from the Community and plan to provide hard copies to the Panel of all written submissions (to the City’s Planning Department) that we have been copied on regarding the development.  If you have any specific comments that you would like us to include in our submission, please copy them to either Community Association.

We have also included a link to a letter that Ashcroft had published in the Letters to the Editor section of the Ottawa Citizen on June 7, 2010 in which they claimed that there is widespread community support for their proposed development.  From the comments received by the community associations to date from immediate neighbours and the broader community, we were not aware of this “significant” level of support.  As indicated above, the four adjoining community associations continue to have major concerns as to whether this development meets either the intent or spirit of the Richmond Road Community Design Plan or the Council-adopted Secondary Plan.  We would thus welcome comments from the community on this letter.   Please email us at newsletter@hamptoniona.ca and let us know your views.