Despite city 'losing' delegates' concerns, highrise development in Centretown to move forward

Article content

After talking to others who also hadn’t heard about the meeting, Centretown residents wrote a joint email to the city on June 8 with concerns.

Article content

They heard back on June 26 at 4:30 p.m., Kagedan said, when they were given a report “concerning an error in public notification regarding the planning applications for 267 O’Connor Street,” that stated comments from 39 individuals, including Kagedan, had been lost.

Article content

267 O’Connor St. Photo by DENNIS LEUNG /POSTMEDIA/OPENSTREETMAP

Article content

“When I first approached them in May after the hearing, they told me that city staff searched and they couldn’t find any correspondence. Then suddenly they were able to find it,” she said.

Article content

The report states that the error was an IT issue related to an individual staff member’s email account, which resulted in online submissions not being forwarded to city staff and their contact information not being recorded on a public notification list.

Article content

Though the concerned residents did eventually comment at a PHC meeting on July 8, Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper, who chairs the committee, said then that it would be a major step — that he wouldn’t take — for the committee to rescind the April 22 proposal approval.

Article content

Article content

Martin Barclay, the president of the Centretown Community Association, said at the meeting that it was the city’s democratic responsibility to reconsider.

Article content

“It’s not a matter of whether they all said the same thing,” he said, “I’m asking that the city consider revisiting this and offer a time frame for resubmissions, so that these concerns of people in the area can be co-ordinated and added to the summary.”

Article content

Also during the meeting, Troster apologized to Kagedan and other delegates for the city’s lack of communication.

Article content

“I did not know that this mistake had been made. Staff only told me after the fact,” she said.

Article content

Troster asked Derrick Moodie, Ottawa’s planning services director, if he could ensure the city won’t lose delegates’ comments again. She added that she would have likely dissented on the file in April had delegates spoken.

Article content

“We are looking at our process; we are continuing to investigate this issue …” Moodie responded.

Article content

A dangerous intersection

Article content

The condos will be built in a residential area zoned for low-to-mid-rise buildings of nine storeys, according to the bylaw amendment proposal from Taggart Realty in February 2025.

Article content

Article content

The 27- and 25-storey buildings, aside from the units and parking, will have 280 square metres of commercial and 80 square metres of institutional space, the same document says.

Article content

O’Connor and MacLaren is already a dangerous intersection, Kagedan said.

Article content

“There’s a lot of traffic that comes from the north side. It’s easy to miss bikes or people in wheelchairs on that bikeway,” she said, adding that when the two-way bike lane was first built there about 10 years ago, several collisions took place nearby.

Article content

When an early version of the proposal in November 2020 included two 30- and 28-storey highrises, the city’s Urban Design Review Panel opposed it for several reasons.

Article content

Among the concerns were the site’s density given its location in a heritage neighbourhood and in proximity to nearby buildings, as well as concerns with the size and mass of the towers, calling them “too large for the site.”

Article content

“The panel “strongly recommends that the proposed urban room be lined with public and/or publicly accessible uses, and have strong visual connections to the exterior public realm on all sides in order to be readily apparent to the community as a publicly accessible space,” reads the written recommendations from May 2024.