a peek inside the fishbowl

I have written about our family junk food “strategy” before. It’s not exactly written in stone, but to summarize:

1. 1) We have minimal junk at home – no chips or pop or candy or chocolate or ice cream or bags of cookies are kept in the cupboards on a permanent basis.
2. 2) I do the grocery shopping. If Mark does it, boxes of crackers and chocolate chip cookies suddenly materialize. ;)
3. 3) If craving occurs, we feed it. The best scenario is to go out to feed it. This works best in the warmer weather (and so it doesn’t always happen), but we do like to walk or bike to the closest ice cream parlour and spend on the good stuff.

Ah, the good bad stuff. Much better than that BAD bad stuff.

I look at it this way: Homemade strawberry ice cream made with whipped cream and sugar? Eat it.

Delicious homemade cookie hot from the oven? Eat it.

Crappy factory-made shrink-wrapped danish from the 7-11 chock full of trans fats and ingredients you can’t pronounce? Don’t eat it.

Here is the thing about the buying quality instead of quantity. Less is more. And excellent ingredients go a long way to stem a craving. And the same goes for chocolate.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Lori Sword recently, owner and Chief Chocolatier of Koko Chocolates, for a recent SavvyMom article (which you can read here).

Lori is a lovely lovely person. Her dedication and patience (do you know how long it takes to make a tray of hand-dripped truffles?) is astounding. She works in a small room in her Parkdale-area condo, patiently filling orders for weddings and baby showers and Christmas gifts.

Lucky me, I got to sample the magic, but more importantly (yes, there is something more important than chocolate) I really enjoyed meeting someone who loves what they do. It is truly infectious.

And I haven’t even mentioned her delicious chocolates.

The good news about koko chocolates is that they taste like chocolate without being sugary sweet. And there’s no waxy filler like the kind you’d find in dollar store chocolates. (If you are buying and enjoying chocolate from the dollar store, well, I’m not sure if there is hope for you.) Bad news about koko chocolates is that you will never go back to your grocery-store variety ever again and you will look down your nose at dollar store chocolate and the people who eat them. :)

If you are a lover of chocolate you will love koko. Here’s the website if you want the deets.

I am on the board of my local community association. One of the perks of being a board member is that we often get advance notice of new developments being proposed in our neighborhood. One of the disadvantages is that some of this crap drives me absolutely mental and it adds to my already skyrocketing stress levels. But I will get to that in just a sec.

First I would like to clarify my views on residential development:

Infill is necessary. Not just because Westboro is such an amazing place to live (and more people should have the opportunity to live here) but to prevent further urban sprawl, which is, frankly, a blight on Ottawa because no one seems to be doing it right. New infill should not dominate the streetscape or overwhelm the houses in the immediate vicinity. New infill should fit the neighborhood for which it is proposed in every way; in terms of lot size, design, and height.

Enter SKY BUNGLALOWS OF WESTBORO. Destined for two locations, including this one on Byron Avenue:

You might be wondering about this new real estate term: sky bungalow. I’ll tell you, it’s a stack of bungalows! In other words, a condo. But bungalows. In the sky. Going up.

Here’s the part that makes me bonkers because it doesn’t make sense (please read this next part carefully):

• In the old 1998 Zoning By-law, triplexes were allowed, but only in a limited kind of way. An existing house could be converted to have three units but you could not build a triplex outright.
• In the new Zoning by-law, what is permitted is now defined as a “three-unit dwelling.” No one noticed this change and it has a massive impact on residential development. A three-unit dwelling is defined as a “building originally constructed to contain three principal dwelling units divided horizontally.”
• Sky Bungalows are aptly named. This new by-law permits the building of a three-unit dwelling on a lot size similar to that of a single detached home but to a height of 11 metres. A single or semi-detached home has a height limit of 8 metres in our community.

But that’s not the worst thing about it. I’d love it if someone can prove me wrong, but as far as I’m aware THIS COULD HAPPEN ANYWHERE, on any residential street. My next door neighbors could easily sell out to a developer who would tear down their ONE single family home and replace it with a towering SET OF SKY BUNGALOWS.

FYI, one unit in a SKY BUNGALOW retails for $689,900. (They even have an ad on Kijiji. Check it out if you’d like an advance look at what might be built next door or across the street from you. Wouldn’t you love to wake up to a wall of garages like that?)

My questions:

• Who is responsible for the rewording of the City of Ottawa zoning bylaw?
• Why is it that advantage often plays on the side of the developers instead of the residents?
• Why can’t something be done about bad design?
• Where does the Community Design Plan come into all of this? Why is no one guiding the long-term growth of this community!

I find this kind of hornswoggle extremely frustrating. Gah!

If you’re as peeved about this as I am – or just worried about what Westboro is going to look like in the next dozen years –  I suggest you call or write an email to our Councillor.

* These views are entirely my own, and this post in no way reflects the views of the Westboro Community Association, of which I am a part.

Rico is not ours. Sarah was just holding him.

This is actually the second of two shots:

This was the first.