Proposed Policy for Posting 30 km/hr speed: Letter From Friends of Broadview Ave Committee

Below is a letter from the Friends of Broadview Ave Committee on the city’s proposed policy for posting 30 km/hr speed limits.

Our apologies for the delay in posting this.

****************************************

April 4, 2017

Dear Mayor Watson, Councillor Egli, and other members of the Transportation Committee,

It just came to our attention last night that the Transportation Committee will be discussing for approval the draft “Policy for Posting 30 km/hr speed limits” this Wednesday. As we will not be able to attend the meeting with such short notice, we are writing to share with you our concerns with the policy as drafted.

To be clear, we strongly support the introduction of a policy to allow for 30 km/hr speed zones in order to promote a safe and liveable city. We have been advocating for 30 km/hr speed limits in school zones and other areas where vulnerable populations are at risk for several years. This would be consistent with other cities, including across the river in Gatineau.

However, we cannot support this policy for two reasons: 1) the focus on existing road conditions may lead to the exclusion of streets where there are vulnerable populations and a real need for lower speed limits; and 2) the “petition” approach is ineffective since it leads to inconsistencies in application across the city and overall poor neighbourhood planning.

With regard to the first point, we would kindly request answers to the following questions and would suggest that the Committee reflect on these answers before making any decision on the Policy. Specifically:
– How many roads near schools (listed in Document 1 of the background material) will qualify under this proposed policy?
– How many roads with temporary traffic calming measures, identified as priority areas by their respective Councillors, will qualify? (i.e. the traffic calming flags, some of which even say 30 km/hr)

In our neighbourhood, due to the width requirements, it is unclear if Broadview Ave will be eligible even though there are three schools with a total of over 2,500 students on only three blocks. Further, Dovercourt Ave, where hundreds of students walk between the elementary school and Dovercourt Recreation Center, will not qualify since there is transit service (would it really hurt for the bus to slow down for a few blocks?). Both these streets are minor collectors and were not designed for massive through traffic, yet they are absorbing increased traffic, travelling at higher speeds, resulting from intensification in the area.

Our second concern relates to the fact that many of the downtown wards have streets designed in a grid pattern. Given the current default speed limit of 50 km/hr, this policy would now enable two parallel streets with similar characteristics to have a 20 km/hr difference in their speed limits strictly because residents on one street are more vocal and have the time/inclination to collect the necessary signatures. It took the Hintonburg Community Association approximately 1700 hours to get the petitions necessary to ensure a community wide reduction in the speed limit. It is not realistic to expect all neighbourhoods to do this. In fact, by focusing on petitions, this policy provides less protection to communities composed of lower income or new immigrant families as they are less likely to have the means or understand the processes to mobilize and request the change. That is unacceptable.

Further, the “petition approach” can lead to poor neighbour planning and unintentional negative outcomes. As an example, based on the petition approach for 40 km/hr streets, Dovercourt Ave. was converted to 40 km/hr from Sherbourne Ave to Denbury Ave but remained 50 km/hr from Denbury Ave to Churchill Ave since Denbury Ave is the dividing line of the two community associations. Not only was this nonsensical, it was also dangerous since the speed limit increased right in front of an elementary school! Our committee lobbied our previous Councillor for over a year and worked with our current Councillor for 6 months to get this fixed. Can you imagine the number of cases that may arise with potential 20 km/hr difference in speed limits? As individual streets are converted to 30 km/hr, traffic patterns will change and is very likely there will be undesirable consequences. Further, budgets for temporary traffic calming measures, which are already insufficient, will be stretched even further – and possibly directed away from more pressing community needs – to meet the policy’s requirement of reducing the entrance throat of roadways to 7meters. Why have Area Traffic Management Plans if this new policy is going to further encourage a one-off approach?

On a final note, while we understand that the city is waiting for provincial decisions that would allow lower speed limits by default since the costs of putting up signage on every street is prohibitive, our overall question is: does it make sense for the city to prioritize streets to appease “squeaky wheels” or should the city prioritize lower speed limits based on overall community need? We strongly believe it should be the latter. As such, we are writing to ask the Committee not to approve this policy, but instead to develop a new draft based on sound public policy objectives – specifically, the purpose should be to make Ottawa a livable and safe city by ensuring our streets are safe for all users and vulnerable populations in particular. 30 km/hr speed zones should be implemented first and foremost in school zones and other community areas with vulnerable populations and should be introduced in a consistent manner across the city.

Sincerely,

Andy Czajkowski, Gary Larkin and Laura Griggs (co-chairs of the Friends of Broadview Ave Committee)

Public Meeting: Developement Application for 1445-1451 Wellington Street West

An application has been posted to the City of Ottawa website for a new development at the northeast corner of Wellington and Island Park by Mizrahi Developments.

They have also sent out an invitation for the public to attend an information session about the development: Mizrahi Developments invites you to a public meeting to discuss their proposed development at 1451 and 1445 Wellington Street West on Thursday December 12, 2013 at 7.00pm.

The meeting will be taking place in the studio of the Great Canadian Theatre Company (located at 1233 Wellington Street West).

All documents regarding details of the development are available on the city’s website.

Katherine Hobbs (Councillor of Kitchissippi Ward) will be in attendance.

What’s your position on this Dawson ‘Addition’??

Let us know what you think of the following Citizen article regarding a City planner who moonlights as developer.

 

By David Reevely, OTTAWA CITIZEN October 2, 2013

OTTAWA — A city planner with a sideline as a small-time property developer was assigned to evaluate a rezoning application close to her own controversial redevelopment project, until nearby residents complained.

Bliss Edwards, who works in the Ottawa planning department’s development-review branch, built a major addition to a property she co-owns at 433 Dawson Ave. near Kirkwood and Byron avenues, and is trying to sever the building into two legally separate lots. That turns out to require the rules for buildings in the area to be bent — something that comes up frequently, but usually before a building is finished rather than after — because its back and front yards are the wrong size and it has a garage that violates rules city council approved last year to try to preserve the characters of old neighbourhoods.

The city’s planning department’s decision to assign Edwards to review a proposed condo building nearby at 236 Richmond Rd. put the local community association in an impossible position, said its president, Lorne Cutler. It’s not next door to her property but both are in the territory covered by the Hampton-Iona Community Group.

“There is the question, which I think is very important, that we have to be able to freely criticize a planner without concerns that our comments on files she’s handling will be held against us,” Cutler said. The association worried that it couldn’t oppose the zoning variances for Edwards’s own property without risking affecting her judgment on other projects in the neighbourhood.

Somewhat more indirectly, he said, the city’s planners frequently argue that intensification is good for nearby property values (even if nearby property owners don’t like it), which would mean Edwards’ own interest would be in recommending to city council that it approve the condo building.

Cutler is particularly perturbed by Edwards’s decision to pursue the project at 433 Dawson Ave. under a different name, Inez Margaret Gloyn, a combination of her given names and married last name that she doesn’t use professionally.

Edwards and her husband also bought a rental property even closer to 236 Richmond Rd., at 219 Wesley Ave. in May. It’s less than 250 metres away.

“A big concern for me is who approves this in the first place. What disclosure was there and who approved it?” Cutler asked.

The Hampton-Iona group wrote to the city to complain and heard back from Michael Mizzi, its chief of development reviews — Edwards’s boss’s boss — that she’d been taken off the file.

Mizzi is coy about what happened. He responded to a Citizen request for an interview with a written statement relayed by the city’s communications department, which didn’t answer a question about whether he knew about Edwards’s side project when she was given the 236 Richmond file.

“The assignment of planning files is a management function and such files are assigned with the full acknowledgment of the principles and guidelines set out in the City of Ottawa’s Employee Code of Conduct,” Mizzi wrote. “In the instance you cite, when the matter was raised in the community, the planner asked to be removed from the file in response to the perception of possible conflict. This request was granted and another planner was assigned to the file.”

(It’s now in the hands of veteran planner Doug James.)

It’s not clear whether Edwards was assigned to deal with the condo building because her bosses didn’t know what she was doing at 433 Dawson Ave. or because they didn’t consider it a conflict of interest.

There’s little ethical guidance for urban planners in such a position. The code of ethics for the Ontario Professional Planners Institute spells out that a planner can’t file an application and then turn around and work on it as a regulator, which nobody has suggested Edwards did. It also says that a planner has to tell her employer about any conflicts of interest she might have, but it doesn’t specifically define what those might be.

The city’s code of conduct says that employees must not make decisions where they or their families stand to benefit and that employees have to report any case where there even might be a conflict of interest to their managers immediately. It tells employees to consider how a situation might look to an outsider and make sure their choices would satisfy a stranger’s sense of propriety, not just their own.

“After you have disclosed an actual or potential conflict of interest, you need to avoid any involvement in the matter. That is why disclosure is important: so that others know not to involve you as well,” the code says.

dreevely@ottawacitizen.com

ottawacitizen.com/greaterottawa

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

This renovated home at 433 Dawson Ave. is an infill building in a popular neighbourhood, in which a single house with a detached garage has been turned into a duplex with two garages, apparently in violation of zoning. It is a project by a junior city planner and her husband, an investment officer at CMHC.

Photograph by: Jean Levac, Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Citizen

City’s Infill Zoning By-law 2012-147 Challenged

The City’s Infill Zoning By-law 2012-147 was challenged by the industry with an appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board and a motion to the Divisional Court of Ontario. The Divisional Court has issued a decision in the city’s favour. The appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board is still underway.

Please refer to link for more details: http://bulldogottawa.com/court-decision-issued-on-infill-bylaw/

 

 

Churchill Avenue Reconstruction Update

As of July 10, 2013 Churchill Avenue southbound at Clare/Princeton to Carling will be closed. Please see link for OC Transpo detours of  the #150 and #16 as well as vehicular detours:

http://ourkitchissippi.ca/news/churchill-avenue-reconstruction-update/

Traffic restrictions on Princeton and Carling Avenues

Ottawa – Princeton Avenue will be closed between Edison Avenue and Churchill Avenue starting this Monday, June 3, while crews replace the sewer and watermain.

Traffic restrictions will remain in effect until the completion of the work at the end of June.

During the same period, Carling Avenue will experience periodic lane reductions at the intersection of Churchill Avenue, while work is being performed to replace sewer infrastructure.

These lanes restrictions are both associated with the Churchill Avenue Rehabilitation project. This is a $21-million project that will replace and rehabilitate current underground infrastructure along portions of Churchill, Princeton and Dovercourt Avenues, improve the streetscape, and add new dedicated cycling facilities on Churchill. For more information visit ottawa.ca.

Churchill Avenue Rehabilitation is an Ottawa on the Move project. Ottawa on the Move is about keeping our community and economy moving forward through strategic investments in a number of transportation, water, and sewer projects to build a better city and create jobs.

For further information on construction projects, and for travel tips to ease disruption, please visit ottawa.ca.

For more information:

Media contact

613-580-2450

Public inquiries:

ottawa.ca

3-1-1

Clifton Road Neighbours Cleaning the Capital

Here are some pictures from the Clifton Road Clean-up Crew

volunteering their time during the Spring Cleaning the Capital campaign.

Now that’s teamwork!