DALHOUSIE COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION

755 Somerset Street West, Ottawa, Ontario, K1R 6R1

9 February 2015
Councillor Jan Harder
Chair, Planning Committee
City of Ottawa
Re:

10 February Planning Committee

845 Carling Ave., Re-Zoning

Dear Ms. Harder,

I am writing to express some concern with the proposed redevelopment of 845 Carling Ave. that will be
discussed at a meeting of Planning Committee on February 10th 2015.
Firstly, we remain concerned about the traffic flow from this development onto nearby side streets.
Though there is some access to Carling Ave., this underused arterial road would make much more sense
as a primary garage entrance.
Most importantly, we are flabbergasted with the proposal to allocate more than one third of the Section
37 monies towards burying hydro wires on the streets surrounding the proposed development. The
community has never seen burying hydro wires as either a public benefit nor as anything but the most
frivolous of public realm improvements, a point we made consistently during the secondary plans public
realm consultation process.
The functional effect of burying these utilities is to remove the need for a building to be setback 5m to
accommodate aboveground wires. Given the It seems unlikely that a development of this scale would be
possible with such a setback, meaning relocation or burying of hydro lines would have been required in
any case. Section 37 monies should not be used to do what the developer would have to do anyway.
There are many higher priorities for public benefit and for public realm improvements, even within the
priority list set out in the Preston-Carling Public Realm and Mobility Study. This is to say nothing of
broader needs within the community, including greenspace, affordable housing and day care spaces.
845 Carling will likely be the largest, most-intense redevelopment in the Preston-Carling area. It alone
will add 1100 new residences to our community. This plan creates what amounts to a vertical
subdivision within our existing community, but, unlike most greenfield development, there is no real
plan to add or increase the capacity of public amenities, such as parks, libraries, or community and
recreation centres, that this growth requires.

With such a clear need, it is absurd that the city would accept burying of hydro wires as a community
benefit, let alone such a large portion. We recommend that the committee table this report while the
section 37 benefits are re-negotiated accordingly.

Yours truly,
Michael Powell
President

cc:

Members of Planning Committee

Councillor Catherine McKenney
Mayor Jim Watson