Lincoln Fields Station

Going places in the Lincoln Fields area

City Planning is starting to pay more attention to the Lincoln Fields area. Work is finally beginning on a Secondary Plan to guide future development. The first meeting with stakeholders focused on transportation issues, because that links to the draft Transportation Master Plan, also in process now.

City planners shared recommendations for improving connectivity. These came from a consultant study. They focused on how residents might get to the new Lincoln Fields Transit station and desired destinations in and around a redeveloped mall. Many of the proposals would make it easier to walk or use a bike to go places. They include changes in the access from Carling to the Parkway, more pedestrian paths, bike lanes, and safer pedestrian crossings of Carling Avenue.

None of these proposals are currently in the Transportation Master Plan and there is no funding for them. QTNca representatives are advocating for early attention to the Connaught-Carling intersection, to link improvements to the upcoming new sidewalks on Connaught. More places to cross Carling safely is another focus of our advocacy, along with early funding so improvements can be in place at the same time the new LRT station opens.

You can review the proposal on our website (PDF) or you can find it by scrolling through the Engage Ottawa page on the Lincoln Fields Secondary Plan. If you have feedback or suggestions, let us know through a message to qtncommunity@gmail.com. A public meeting on proposals for the Lincoln Fields Secondary Plan will be held later this year.

Lincoln Fields Plan Delayed Again

We all know that Lincoln Fields mall and the surrounding areas will undergo major changes, especially as we get closer to the opening of the new LRT station in 2025. Revitalization could be positive or negative, and the difference is good planning. An integrated plan has been one focus of QTNca advocacy for three years now.

City Planning promised to develop what is called a Secondary Plan to provide guidance for development in this area. It was supposed to follow soon after the Official Plan. This week we learned that it will be delayed until 2023, after the next civic election.

Meanwhile, the Official Plan, to be adopted this fall, will facilitate intensification around the LRT stations and along Carling Avenue, with more flexible permissions for developers, higher towers, and requirements for residential densities of 200 units per hectare near stations. Developers will be able to make proposals without a more detailed City plan or an integrated approach to planning. When we name community issues, we are told those will be addressed in the secondary plan – but that is now delayed and major redevelopment proposals will be approved in the meantime. That means we will see more piece-meal development without serious consideration of context.

Lincoln Fields is an important strategic area for QTN residents and for the west end of Ottawa. Its strategic importance is comparable to Le Breton Flats because of its location, access to basic services, and connections between neighborhoods and also to the river valley. The Lincoln Fields LRT station will be a major facility, given the new plans for connections to Barrhaven. And while intensification is pushed for every lot within QTN, in the name of needed housing, a large, vacant parking lot close to a station is allowed to stagnate as an urban wasteland. This is short-sighted.

The lack of vision for what Lincoln Fields area could be is disturbing. Intensification requires confidence in City Planning. It is difficult to have that confidence when such short-sighted and reactive approaches to development are allowed to continue. QTNca is now working with other neighborhood associations to find alternative ways to put forward a vision for what Lincoln Fields could be.

If you have questions or suggestions, please send a message to qtncommunity@gmail.com.

Kathy Vandergrift

QTN and the New Official Plan: Next Steps

What kind of intensification is good for QTN? The debate in Ottawa has shifted slightly from “how much intensification” to “what kind of intensification,” as the draft Official Plan is revised. More change is needed before final approval by City Council, scheduled for this fall.

Density Targets instead of Requirements

In response to strong push back, including the QTN submission, the proposed density of 80 units per hectare will be a target instead of a requirement. That means more flexibility in how change will happen in QTN and other neighborhoods in the Inner Urban Transect, a category that captures neighborhoods developed before 1950. QTN stayed in the Inner Urban Transect because of its location between two LRT stations, even though its character has many similarities to neighborhoods in the Outer Urban Transect.

Neighborhood Focus

So far City planners refuse to recognize the need for a stronger focus on neighborhood-level planning rather than uniform policies for the whole transect. At a high level City planners support healthy neighborhoods, e.g. the notion of 15-Minute Neighborhoods, but the specific policies run counter to a neighborhood focus and could undermine neighborhoods like QTN. While the negative impacts of previous approaches to in-fill housing are recognized, the new plan will continue the same cookie-cutter approach – only this time it will be the much-vaunted 613 apartments at a higher density than the earlier cookie-cutter approach to large 4-suite units, both of which require destroying the trees, green space, and interesting streets that make up the character of QTN.

City planners say they will take context more seriously, but the plan includes no means to do that. City planners say they recognize the need to integrate planning for streets, playgrounds, and services with intensification, but there is no means to do that at the neighborhood level, where it has to happen. Better integration of master plans at the city-wide level will not lead to healthy neighborhoods without a clear means to focus on the neighborhood level. Our experience shows the gaps that result from multiple layers of city-wide master plans that don’t connect on the street level.

The means is well-known; it is called neighborhood planning. It gives neighborhoods an effective voice to ensure that changes benefit the whole neighborhood instead of undermining what makes it work. Other cities do it; it can be as cost-effective as the existing cumbersome, overly bureaucratic development processes that all neighborhood associations find ineffective.

Next Steps

The QTN Planning Committee continues to advocate for a number of policy changes in the various master plans that will come together to City Council this fall. The common theme is a stronger focus on the neighborhood level in order to accommodate population growth without destroying what makes QTN and other neighborhoods good places to live.

More specific information will come in additional posts, such as our recent post on the Parks and Recreation Master Plan. If you would like more specific information or have suggestions for QTN, please contact Kathy Vandergrift, chair of the planning committee, by e-mail at qtncommunity@gmail.com.