Planning

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.

Use of Park Spaces in QTN: Survey Results and Analysis

QTN residents care deeply about the green spaces and parks in our neighborhood. That came through strongly in the 214 responses to a survey sponsored by the community association. The responses included desired uses, suggestions for improvements, and concerns. These will inform further discussions within QTN and with City parks officials and our City Councillor.

Click here to review the results & analysis (PDF)

In-fill in QTN and Committee of Adjustment

Can 35 variances to every aspect of a proposal be a “minor variance?” Is a lot that is more than 75 square metres short of the minimum required in the land-use bylaw a “minor variance”? The purpose of variances is to address “peculiarities” of a property. There is nothing “peculiar” about the lots at 830-840 Alpine, but this week the Committee of Adjustment approved 35 variances and severance into five lots, which will see two semi-detached and one detached home replace three existing units.

The purpose of Committee of Adjustment hearings is to consider context and potential impacts. Anyone who reviews the record of recent hearings on proposals in QTN will see that the panel does not give any consideration to evidence of negative impacts brought forward by neighbours and community speakers. The process itself would not meet any reasonable test of a fair process with a level playing field for deciding what is appropriate in-fill for a particular location.

All of this is happening in the name of intensification. QTN supports appropriate intensification; the Official Plan says intensification should enhance the existing character of a neighborhood. There is a difference between in-fill that enhances a neighbourhood and in-fill that does not fit well and has significant negative impacts for neighbours and other residents.

QTN will not get the kind of “in-fill” that enhances the neighbourhood as long as the Committee of Adjustment approves every request for variances and severances without seriously considering the context and negative impacts. In its submission for the new Official Plan, the QTN community association proposes major changes to the way City planning decisions are made, to give more weight to what will work in each neighborhood. If the City wants public support for intensification, the process has to change.

Kathy Vandergrift, Chair of QTN Planning Committee