a peek inside the fishbowl

11 Mar, 2010

Ashcroft gets a convent

Posted by andrea tomkins in: - Westboro|Yaktivism

I’m still on a roll from yesterday’s post (to which I have to return because the discussion has been amazing) but I wanted to quickly summarize last night’s public meeting about the development of the Sisters of Visitation convent (and site) at 114 Richmond Road. They unveiled prelimary concept plans.

I live-tweeted the meeting (which, to non-users, basically means that I “reported” the meeting electronically as it unfolded). The conversation is ongoing, and you can follow it here.

The West-side action blog has a really good summary of the meeting.

The Citizen has a story about the meeting here and actual plans are here. What’s missing from the Citizen gallery are two important views … and that’s this one and this one, otherwise you don’t have a sense of what it’s going to look like from streetview.

My thoughts, just off the top of my head:

  • This is big. Really big. Do we have the infrastructure in place to accommodate an extra 1000-1400 people?
  • I know design is a highly subjective thing, but the proposed plans are ugly. I’m sorry, I have to say it. Councillor Leadman called it a fortress, and I agree. All you need is a moat and a drawbridge and the picture would be complete. The plan is to replace the existing wall with a giant stretch of building with an arched entrance. If this site – one so precious and rare – needs to be developed, we need to insist on something a lot more compelling, a lot greener, a LOT smarter.
  • I don’t have a problem with infill and intensification, but how much is too much? This property is zoned for a maximum of four storeys, they want 12.
  • In a perfect world the convent would be restored and repurposed and the green space would be left alone. Consider the old Maplelawn building (now a Keg, which is private property) and the adjoining garden (which is public). Why is this so impossible? Why does money trump everything else?
  • Developers want to cut across Byron Tramway park to allow for vehicular access to their underground parking. 
  • I don’t even want to launch into the issue of traffic. It’s just so frustrating. Apparently they don’t need to worry about traffic impact outside a 1 km radius. (?)
  • Are we prepared for the old bait and switch? It’s become the norm. It goes like this. (1) Developers unveil a massive development. (2) There is a public outcry. (3) Developers scale it back – allegedly in response to demand – but (3) it’s still bigger than allowable by law (“Hey, nine storeys is better than 12, right?”) and the public is forced to accept it

I want reasonable, beautiful, well-planned development. This isn’t it.

Tell me, when do we say enough is enough? What rights do the residents have as it pertains to development? What will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back?

I need to think about this some more. In the meantime, over to you.

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22 Responses to "Ashcroft gets a convent"

1 | Kaitlin

March 11th, 2010 at 9:46 am

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My biggest issue, following your (wonderful) tweets is the lip-service they are paying to issues like heritage and “green space”. It’s lip-service to the ideas that ground an urban lifestyle. And honestly, I think it’s BS. It’s a branding mechanism.

The husband & I talked about this last night. We are both of the mind that urban areas should not have cul-de-sacs and are not the place for gated communities. If there is one thing that does not foster community, it is a cul-de-sac.

I am of the belief that a corporation that has historically been building gated communities in Orleans and new McMansions in Kanata has no business trying to urbanize. Engineers have no business being generalists, and a degree in engineering does not an urban planner make.

2 | andrea

March 11th, 2010 at 9:54 am

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Lip service and deflection.

I also found it interesting that they over-emphasized the protection of tiny Shannon St. yet in the practically the same breath they’re talking about paving over a giant swath of greenspace.

3 | andrea

March 11th, 2010 at 10:12 am

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Re: community spaces. Some might be interested to know that “health clubs”were mentioned for this space. A health club is not a community space.

And an additional note re: setbacks and the “transitional” style of architecture that is being proposed for this site. “Although the building is somewhat higher,” said Rod Lahey (main project architect) “it actually has less impact because there’s greater distance and you can put in more green.”

4 | andrea

March 11th, 2010 at 10:21 am

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Wondering about height? Highest building will be 12 storeys. Rod: “with a very small mechanical penthouse on the top and possibly maybe one unit and a party room or something like that on the top.”

5 | Marla

March 11th, 2010 at 10:45 am

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I’m curious about any light studies?

6 | andrea

March 11th, 2010 at 11:18 am

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Another interesting bit from the meeting:

The question from the floor was about making the convent visible from the street.

Rod Lahey (architect): “The fact that you’ve never seen the building from the street is basically our philosophy on the development of the site. Again, if you’re in such a hurry that you want to drive by and don’t want to stop the car and get out and enjoy this space then do it. You can do that and not experience … you don’t have to experience everything at all times. But if you want to stop and park the car or if you live in the area …”

I asked: “Where are you going to park?”

Rod: “Underground parking, on the street …”

Someone else: “Do you have to pay for underground parking?”

Rod: “I’m not sure where you live, but I live in Westboro and I drive my car and I walk, I park my car in front of my coffee shop every day. I think it’s really exciting what’s happening. Gary [Ludington] said when is enough? If we look at the other end where two major buildings have gone in and a third or fourth tower is going up in the Westboro Station, it’s been virtually no impact in terms of the lives of anyone living in that immediate area. “

7 | Heather

March 11th, 2010 at 11:29 am

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I don’t think it’s the density that is the problem. You ask if we have the infrastructure – well, compare bringing in the infrastructure all around the site vs. the cost of servicing new development in the the suburbs, over agricultural land, etc. The revenue the city generates by this project will definitely cover infrastructure costs. Heck, Infrastructure-concerns are the reason why we need density in place like westboro.

My community (Little Italy) is seeing a lot of development, which is good, but the problem is that we don’t have to grocery stores, pharmacies, post offices, etc etc to service people. We have to drive to westboro!

Now gated communities, with cul de sacs.. that’s just wrong.

I like the idea of storefronts on that stretch of Richmond though.

8 | andrea

March 11th, 2010 at 11:31 am

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Marla: they showed some light study diagrams for the site. They should be part of a package that is to be uploaded to their site. (Although I don’t see it there yet: http://www.ashcrofthomes.ca). There will be shade on neighboring homes, as well as the schoolyard (but since this will be in June it was deemed as something that would be welcome for a schoolyard).

9 | andrea

March 11th, 2010 at 11:36 am

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Heather – as I mentioned before, many people understand and accept the idea of residential infill. It is preferable than building out … paving over working farms, fields, forests and wetlands etc. The question remains, is this development reasonable? Smart? Useful? Beautiful? The best use of this unique space? We only have one shot, let’s not blow it.

10 | Kaitlin

March 11th, 2010 at 12:18 pm

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I really don’t know who Ron is referring to when he says it’s “virtually no impact to the people living in that immediate area”.

I don’t know how many times I have lamented to friends that I resent Westboro on weekends because it’s overcrowded, both in terms of cars and pedestrians. (Oh, and SUV-sized strollers).

I’m all in favour of urban infill, but how are we to be resourceful about it, such that it doesn’t drive many of us away?

11 | teapotkid

March 11th, 2010 at 12:48 pm

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This looks like another cold, soulless condo tower that’s not noteworthy from Richmond Road. It’s designed more with cars in mind. It’s very disappointing. Also, what types of businesses does the retail space invite: more American Apparels, high-end optometrists, etc. — as you mentioned in a previous post.

12 | lacoop

March 11th, 2010 at 3:21 pm

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The proposal doesn’t look good to me. 12 stories is way too much (8 is way too much as well). How about 5 stories? How about not messing up the bikepath by putting a lane through it…do you know how many kids ride their bike along that bikepath (and there is a school along it as well)? Lots! What makes me lose faith in the system is that this shouldn’t be allowed, according to the zoning. If you and I try to build a fence a foot out of position, the city is all over us. But if you are a developer, please, go ahead and build 8 more stories on top of what is zoned. No wonder our civic officials get no respect. And so much faith in Main Stream Media: if you read the Citizen, you would think everyone was OK with this idea, as it just summarizes the proposal with no context or value-added content (it seems the only place you find an “unincorporated” opinion these days is on the web). What I see happening is that Westboro is more and more becoming an urban version of Barrhaven and Kanata: we just keep getting more big homes, more big (boring) buildings, more car-centric areas (what use are bike-paths if you are afraid to let your kids ride on them because so many roads cut through them)…if they keep it up, we might as well move to the burbs where at least the housing is cheaper. I’m at a loss Andrea!

13 | James

March 11th, 2010 at 4:26 pm

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It’s interesting to note in The Citizen’s “Designing Ottawa” blog today that the City of Montreal holds design competitions even for bus shelters. The City of Ottawa? We allow developers to go at large urban spaces with no holds barred.

The Ashcroft drawings are so “soft” that I doubt if anyone really has a good idea of what this will actually look like. What we do know is that there will be an additional 1000 vehicles or so going in and out of there each day.

And just a side note… Ever wonder why none of these developers ever produce site drawings that show what it will look like 1/3 of the year when the snow is high and all the trees are bare and brown.

14 | lacoop

March 12th, 2010 at 5:47 am

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I had to add another blurb after reading the news yesterday. Did you hear that Tofino has proposed banning fast food chains and big box stores from their community? That reminded me that it was not that long ago that many communities banned comestic pesticides from their community. This probably ticks off the “let the market decide crowd”. But, isn’t that just people deciding what they want for their community? When I think of that phrase “let the market decide”, it sounds like the only thing that matters is money. But “let the people decide” is a bit more broad isn’t it…we take into account all the things that matter to us (including money) and then we decide. I think that is called “democracy”. And the fact is, we lived in a closed system. This is not the wild west, with boundless borders (not that there ever was such a thing). So, if we live in a closed system and we believe in fairness, then we have to have rules to get along (if you don’t think that makes sense, think of all those not great places in the world where there are no rules or the rules are not respected).

When I think of all the promises made about the Superstore development, I understand why I have no faith that this project will go well. With the Superstore, the promises made you think they were building a store that would be pleasing to the eye, a pleasure to access, and add to the neighbourhood…that it would different and better. But what we got was another brown brick box, with a big parking lot, that is too packed 95% of the time (don’t you feel like cattle as you pass through the one small entrance to the parking lot?). So, keeping that in mind, I think of the promises being made for this new development and I think “here we go again”.

Which brings me back to the democracy idea. It may be that there will be a line up of people to buy these new homes. But that doesn’t mean we can’t create a bigger line up of people to say we want our development guidelines respected. And, perhaps the developers will have their way again this time, as they did with the Superstore. And they will say “the market decided”. But at some point enough people will say “enough”. We will say we want development and intensification…but good development that we define and a density that we feel is acceptable. We want development that is not driven by a business, but instead by a community (which includes the business voice, but is not dominated by it), so we can incorporate a better balance into our development and it more fairly reflects the balanced wishes of the community. That is not happening right now. The guidelines are being ignored. The “public consultation” process is a crock – we all see that is is just a hoop developers have to jump through (if they actually believed in public consultation, they would not grossly ignore the building guidelines). The city should come up with a better way to manage big developments…through a design competition, or, written petitions which could measure acceptance of proposals.

15 | Hilary

March 12th, 2010 at 6:25 am

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I agree with James, I got absolutely no sense of what this will look like from the drawings except for the view from Richmond Road – and that looks just ghastly. It will be so oppressive on what is quite a narrow street (esp. with another condo building going up opposite!) Sheer ugliness.

And why so much focus on condos in this area? Aren’t there other ways of building high density housing, housing which would be more family friendly? Stacked townhouses come to mind. And that gets me thinking about Andrea’s point in her last post – why hasn’t this happened to the Glebe? I would love to know how they have avoided this fate while Westboro gets turned into condo city.

I like lacoop’s point – on the one hand my parents have got to fight the city to cut down an overgrown tree in their own backyard. On the other hand Ashcroft can do whatever the heck it wants. It makes me angry.

I’m kind of disappointed that Rod Lahey is in charge of this mess because he can be a very good architect. His own home, which he designed, is beautiful and very much in keeping with the scale of the surrounding neighbourhood. I guess those principles don’t apply when there are massive amounts of profit involved…

16 | Binki

March 12th, 2010 at 1:59 pm

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Good post. Good topic. I agree with everything you say. I am particularly impressed with the word “beautiful”. Beauty hardly ever makes the list of requirements for development these days. And your bait’n switch comment is bang on. How many times are we going to fall for that one?

About Westboro….I think you can’t stop “progress”. The market and the clients will drive it. I remember thinking it was cool when the Glebe got a Roots. I thought it was so Big time. Roots, Lulu Melon, North Face, American Apparel, Bloblaws….the begining of the end. People do have a wee bit of power through their dollars. Boycott. And tell your friends to do the same. And of course….throw dollars at your fave shops.

Oh and in my opinion, MEC is not a problem. I love everything about MEC and I have taken the time to tell them.

17 | andrea

March 12th, 2010 at 9:40 pm

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It’s tough, it really is.
We want business, but only certain kinds of business. Who draws the line? And where is that line anyway?

Awhile back there was a kerfuffle regarding the ground floor commercial in The Exchange. Tim Horton’s was going to move in there, but there was such an outcry that it never actually happened.

You know what’s leaving Westboro next? Puzzles.

I’ve been thinking, you know what the biggest problem here is? The City of Ottawa did not step up to the plate when they should have. Ashcroft bought it. The process was doomed from the start.

The Ottawa Citizen has posted an interview here with Paul Rothwell, Ashcroft’s director of planning and development. It’s worth a read. For example, here’s what he said about the proposed Byron entrance (bolding mine):

Rothwell: “We’ve got into our site and the planners at the city and transportation people at the city have given the thumbs up to an entrance off of Byron.

“We don’t want to come in off Leighton Terrace unless we’re forced to, which is the street to the east. We don’t want to come in off of Shannon, a very narrow street…much to the relief of those owners.

“We’ll have an entrance off Richmond Road and we’ll have one off Byron and everyone except the councillor’s office thinks that’s a good idea.”

As far as I know there are a LOT of people who are upset about using Byron as an entrance to this site. I wonder, if the site is so big that they need two entrances, why not just make it smaller?

I also don’t like Rothwell’s plea for sympathy re: all the work and money that’s required to pump into this site because of the convent’s heritage designation, and his expectation to get a little something in return for his troubles: “To do all of that we’re asking for something in return, and we’re asking for some floor space and some building height to be approved here.”

Why can’t developers be forced to operated within the approved bylaws and guidelines? Like the residents do?

18 | andrea

March 12th, 2010 at 9:41 pm

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Some images have been posted in this thread:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=178158&page=3

19 | Kaitlin

March 13th, 2010 at 10:06 am

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Hmmm. Arguably, if the Councillor’s Office does not think it’s a good idea, and if the Councillor’s Office represents the best interests of Kitchisippi Ward….then wouldn’t it stand to reason that Kitchisippi Ward in some context is against this?

Argh.

I’m going to e-mail my councillor right now :)

20 | James

March 13th, 2010 at 3:59 pm

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I have to wonder how many Ottawa councillors and design staff members have ever been to cities that we might realistically aspire to emulate: e.g., Portland, Austin, Dublin, Amsterdam. Instead, they seem to vacillate between believing that “Ottawa knows best” (the idea that only Ottawa-based developers/designers know what’s best for Lansdowne Park continues to flabbergast me) and looking to cities like Houston and Vancouver that many times Ottawa’s size and have little, if anything, in common with it. A couple of years ago, Ottawa hosted a very informative conference on urban planning and cultural development. Was anyone listening? I’ve just signed a contract to write a new version of Frommer’s Ottawa, and I have to say that I can’t see a way around alerting tourists to the fact that Ottawa’s infrastructure seems to be falling apart and several key pieces of land are being converted to mega-complexes of one form or another (has anyone had a look at what’s planned for the massive site where Laurentian High School used to sit?) Arggh!

21 | TZ

March 19th, 2010 at 1:56 pm

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opps – I posted about Puzzles on the previous post, I see you have already heard the news. Puzzles represented a side of westboro that no longer exists which is a shame.

22 | mike

May 18th, 2011 at 12:46 pm

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I don’t live in Ottawa, but i am really upset how park land is always sacrificed by the city of Ottawa, AND, now they are recommending cutting across the Byron Tram Park, going against their OWN community design plans for the park …

http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/planning/community_plans/completed/richmond_westboro/5_0_greenspace_en.html

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