Flower Power

The Dalhousie Community Assoc. installed and maintains the garden in front of the Dalhousie Community Centre (shown in the background) on Somerset street (thanks to Ida the gardener!)

There is a constant stream of people passing the garden who pause to admire it. It brings a smile to so many people. Flower power builds communities.

When the photographer turned around, she saw me taking a picture of her taking a picture. When I turned, I saw her friends taking a picture of me taking a picture of her. This is what we saw:

The tulip festival in Ottawa starts today.

St Agnes Resurrected; will Bell ring?

The old St Agnes school south of Gladstone on Bell has been in private ownership for some time. It unfortunately had that "abandonned" look to it, which the neighborhood did not need.

The school, now owned by the adjacent Polish Catholic church, is undergoing major renovations as a educational, community, and recreational centre for the Polish community. It is nice to see quality renovations underway, including new windows and additional window walls being cut into the old brick exterior.

The dilapidated Bell Street towers apartment buildings across the street have also seen better days. Apparently the new owners are going to reclad the exteriors of the buildings. There is tremendous potential to do a design-challenged cheap job (black metal siding) or an design-proud recladding in traditional or modern materials. Givent the prominence of the towers to the skyline and their view from miles away along the Qway, I hope for the quality refinishing.

infill in Dalhousie South

Substantial-sized infill semi-detached homes under construction in Dalhousie south, near Carling. The foundation has a substantial ledge, which suggests the exterior may be brick. There is a detached garage in the rear, with access of the rear lane. In a well done move, the back of the garage, which faces the back of the house, has been finished with quality detail so it looks like a small house in the back yard rather than a garage.

The arrival of larger single homes in the neighborhood (rather than triplex or quadplex infills) bodes well for neighborhood stability as it is more likely to attract families. These infills are not cheap, which further indicates the buyers faith in the desirability of this neighborhood which still has its blighted / less-well-cared-for portions and, shall we say, party-oriented and alternate-universe oriented occupants.

Green green grass of Dalhousie

This little patch of lawn on Balsam caught my eye. It is greener than its neighbours, and obviously recently raked as it is so clean compared to the foreground bit of turf. A closer inspection revealed its secret. It is synthetic. Fake. Manufactured.

I wonder how many times I have gone past it and not noticed; it did not look recently laid. It stood out now because it doesn't change with the seasons. It is an effective bit of private streetscaping along the public boulevard.

Goodbye Desjardin's IGA/Loeb

The former Desjardins IGA / Loeb store on Booth Street at Eccles has been closed for several years. Demolition is now underway, making way for the new Cornerstone housing project, a four storey 40 unit apartment residence.

The new Cornerstone residence, coupled with the now-under-construction Z6 condo building (16 of 26 units sold) will give a modern new face to tired Booth Street. Both buildings have traditional brick exteriors with modern design touches.

The last large remaining eyesore on the street is the blighted zone known as Cousin Eddey's garage/ Chado's auto repair. The only saving grace there is that it is a large lot, which will make some developer happy some day.

Infill on Eccles

This infill is once again in the very modern boxy style common today. It is constructed from pre-made wafer panels that include the exterior sheathing, insulation, and interior sheathing . Is is on the north side of Eccles, between Booth and LeBreton. I am getting to like this style more and more. I much prefer it over the blah-design of so many infills made of plastic siding and low-slope asphalt shingle roofs. Design and quality matters.

Does anyone know why Eccles Street is so often pronounced Eck-Less? Ever since I moved here 30 some years ago, it has puzzled me if this is a mispronunciation by immigrant or less-educated populations or is there another explanation? In the same vein, Pamilla street is seldom pronounced Pam-il-la except by newcomers, the old hands call it Pa-mill-a.

Local character, maybe.

Let it snow

I have a number of neighbors that manage to avoid shovelling snow as much as possible. Options include just driving over the snow bank and packing the snow down with your four wheel drive SUV, hiring neighbors or plowing services, etc.

This house on Rochester always has its porch plastic wrapped to break the wind and keep the snow off. Last year, and this, it has its steps covered too, in a dropsheet version of those canopied entrances to elegant hotels and really ritzy apartments we see in the movies set in NYC.

I am not tall. I walked up to this cover, and discovered the roof of it hit me at nose level. Hmm. What happens if we have a non-midget lettercarrier?

Elevator added

For many months work has been under way to install an exterior elevator shaft and new entry porch on the north (Lisgar St) side of McPhail Baptist church.

I rather expected a ultra-mod addition -- you know, glass box, exposed steel frame -- and am pleasantly surprised to see how well the contractor blended the old brick and new, kept the same foundation materials, etc.

Cornerstone Project launched

the Cornerstone women's housing apartment building (42units) will be built at the corner of Booth and Eccles, on the site of the former Desjardins/IGA/Loeb grocery store

Diane Holmes, Royal Galipeau, Jim Watson, Sue Garvey, and Yasir Naqvi

Sue Garvey speaks to the large turnout that came to launch the project

Willow Street Reno

You gotta give it to this Willow Street property owner who took a really big hammer to renovation.

Infill on Bell & Christie Streets

This infill project in Dalhousie is just about all complete. The sod is down, slender tree saplings planted, backyard fences completed. The building faces Christie and reads as semi-detached. The presence of side doors that are celebrated with wide steps, fancy door sets, and a little peaked roof suggest otherwise. In fact, the units can be used as a three storey unit with large ground floor rec room or the ground floor can be closed off leaving a two storey unit above with a balcony, and a small independent unit on the ground floor with its own door to the side of the building and access to the rear yard.

I am surprised to see front facade garages. City planners discourage or forbid them in our neighborhood now. The infill is on a formerly vacant lot that had a lot of small tree and weed growth on it -- either overgrown or naturalized, depending on your point of view -- and a fair share of garbage.

The builder went to considerable effort to use some quality exterior finishes (not plastic siding). The ground floor is "stone" and the upper floors stucco. The presence of horizontal belt lines addssome character and improves the scale and massing. The windows are higher than wide -- nothing looks more incongruous than "renovations" or infills with suburban-style wide windows. City policy actually discourages infill units from being built in the same architectural style as its neighbors from the 1920s, claiming these are "faux" references. If well done (and that's a big if) faux historic infill is fine with me.

DOTT plans affect west side residents (xii): Booth Station

The Booth Street station is location directly under the new elevated Booth Street overpass. The overpass crosses over the station and the aquaduct. The new LRT alignment is a few meters south of the current transitway which is closer to the aquaduct. Most frightening about this drawing is the abundance of car traffic lanes on Booth, the awful manoevering required to get buses from the Booth St bus stop over to the centre lane to turn onto Albert to go uptown, and the generous addition of lanes to Albert Street in both directions. Somehow, a transit project is providing lots of expensive car commuter infrastructure and generous road widenings on prime downtown development land. Just who will rush to live in condos facing such over-sexed roadways? What happened to neighborhood connectivity, with these proposed huge automotive rips to the urban fabric of Dalhousie neighborhood.

New Residential Building, Booth near Somerset

Shown is a interim elevation of the new senior's residence building proposed for the corner of Booth and Eccles Street, just south of Chinatown's main drag: Somerset Street. It has 42 residences, common facilities, a brick and well-detailed exterior finish. It complements the Somerset West Community Health Centre across the street. It should give a real boost to the appearance of Booth Street and the Dalhousie neighborhood as a whole. Anthony Leaning is the architect. Construction beings in 2010 for completion in 2011.

DOTT plans affect west side residents (iii): Albert Street widening planned

tailback of cars on Booth going to Gatineau, evening rush hour at 3pm

tailback of cars extends back to Gladstone, every single vehicle had only one person in it

The intersection of Booth / Albert fails for several hours a day. Mostly this is due to our city policies of catering to single occupancy vehicles. Drive them by the thousands,  and we will widen the roads for you! Right now the "tailback" or long queue of vehicles trying to get onto Booth to go to Gatineau extends back to Preston on the west (often blocking that intersection) and back to Empress or even Bronson on the east. On Booth south of Albert, in the heart of a residential neighborhood cruelly sacrificed by the city traffic engineers at the altar of car supremacy , cars stack up in a line that always goes back as far as Somerset and sometimes back as far as Gladstone.

Right now there is one turn lane for cars to stack up in. The left turn lane from Albert eastbound is constrained in length by the need to have a turn lane onto Preston. The City proposes to "ease" the situation by constructing a double turn lane on Albert. One lane will be the same length as the current stack lane, the other will likely be the entire block from Preston to Booth. The planners justify this construction as being necessary to move the bus traffic through the intersection once the existing transitway is closed. However, the additional stack lanes will be permanent, not temporary, and there is no word of making a stack lane specifically for buses. Instead cars will clog up the lane and transit users will be able to proceed only as fast as the slowest single-occupancy motorist.

This proposal strikes me as ill-thought-out. We cannot continue paving over valuable downtown development land for such low value uses. The stack lanes are justified as being for transit, but offer transit no special advantages. The widened Albert Street will simply deliver more cars to an already failing intersection at Booth / Albert. This part of the LRT plans definately needs a rethink based on principles of traffic demand managment (instead of coping with cars, figure out a better way to move people through the area / intersection).

While details are not available, the decision to build the Preston Extension will likely require the construction of  right and left turn lanes on Albert on both sides of Preston. Why do ostentiously transit-oriented projects result in so much road engorgement for commuters? The future Albert is looking a lot less like a city street and more like a mini-freeway.

Note to critics of LRT costs: the construction costs of the new Preston Extension and Booth / Albert intersections and Booth overpass over the transitway, primarily of benefit to single occupancy cars, will be billed to the LRT project rather than having some apportioned to the general transportation budget. Transit users and tax payers get hosed once again, car users get more hidden subsidies.

DOTT plans affect west side residents (ii): Tunnel entrance

 The new LRT  LeBreton Station is to be located roughly where the current transitway station is at Booth. The entrance to the tunnel portion of the new LRT service under the downtown core will be immediately east of the station. Its location and design is in accordance with the Escarpment Plan that outlines how the adjacent lands are to be developed.

During the tunnel construction period of 2-3 years, tunnel boring machines will eat their way through the limestone bedrock six to ten stories down under the street level of the core. All this chewed up rock has to come out of the 3km tunnel somewhere, and that somewhere is the entrance on LeBreton Flats. Running 24 hours a day, the boring machines themselves will be quiet and unobtrusive. But the tailings -- the chewed up rock removed to make the tunnel -- will be dragged out on mine cars 24 h/day and then lifted up and the rock contents dumped into dump trucks, that will rumble off at all hours of the day and night.

The tailings may be trucked to a site on LeBreton Flats to be piled up and stored, and later ground up to make construction gravel and for other uses in constructing the LRT system (a lot of fill, for example, will be required for a lengthy embankment at Hurdman). The contractor may install gravel crushers on the Flats to grind the rock. A similar setup was installed years ago during the transitway construction and the dust fall on the residents was noticeable and unplesant. The contractor may even install a temporary cement plan on site to make concrete to construct the stations and access shafts.

Residents of the Dalhousie area between Bronson and Bayview have seen the "land take" of much smaller projects. The high pressure water pipeline constructed over the last 3 years saw large areas temporarily fenced off to store equipment, supplies, and dirt. Similarly, the sewer regulator chamber currently being constructed at the intersection of Old Wellington and Booth has required large fenced off areas, road diversions, and conversion of space for temporary bus turning loops. The tunnel construction impacts for will for much longer time period, and involve much larger quantities of materials and crews. Imagine a snow-dump type operation running 365/24/7 !!

Planners for the LRT are aware that noise mitigation features will be required. It will be up to the community to demand sound and dust attenuation. Possibly we can ensure that some of the features are permanet, eg improved landscaping along Albert.

A tale of two neighborhoods

Digging a trench along the old Byron trolleyway park just north of Highland Park for these beasts? That's just slightly less brutal a planning decision than running steam trains through slums in 19th-century Manchester.  -  Ottawa Citizen editorial

Hmm, let's see if I can get this right. As part of its LRT program the City is converting the current bus rapid transit (BRT) roads (the "transitway") to LRT ("the beasts"). A problem arises where the BRT shares road surfaces with the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway. It shares the road alignment ... because the original alignment along the Byron transit streetcar right of way was opposed by local residents of McKellar park. So the Byron right of way became a linear park, at first temporary, then permanent, with short sharp curvy paths so they are useless for cycling but great for dog walking. A main impetus for the "park" was to thwart the transitway. The Lincoln Fields station is built where it is and in its current alignment because it is line with the curve from the Byron right of way, before the right of way was killed off.

So the original transit alignment has been forfeited for streetcars, LRT, and cycling, and given over to dog walkers. The neighborhood along the Byron right of way is sort of interesting. It was one time forest. Then farm land. Then a golf course. Then housing subdivisions. It is primarily low density, with a few towers along the river front. There is abundant parkland and lots sizes are large. The neighborhood reads as one large green space, with some tacky commercial developments/strip malls.

So McKeller residents have worked for decades to prevent rapid transit from servicing their neighborhood, first by pushing it onto the parkway. Only problem today is that there is a vociferous group opposed to running the LRT along the parkway. Commuting motorists spewing gas fumes and racing through the frustrated hay fields are to have their riparian views preserved. Transit users are to be forbidden to have views. But if they don't run the LRT along the parkway ... Byron is the most logical choice. Out of this difficulty comes the suggestion that express long-haul LRT service be shoved off to ... Carling Avenue. If that is built, Kanata and Barrhven commuters will have longer trip times, with dozens of stops, and transit service is likely to face numerous interruptions and delays due to conflicts with traffic. None of this is very pretty.

 The attitude expressed in the Citizen editorial bothers me: a grade separated (ie, trenched ) LRT would be brutal for the neighborhood, a decision worthy of 1800's decision making rathe than 21st century enlightened civic government.

 It is offensive to the Citizen to permit a open-cut transit line go through the area. But it is apparently OK that lower income neighborhoods, with the least parkland in the City, get open cut transit corridors. One corridor, the OTrain alignment through Dalhousie, actually has one of its few parks -- a linear path along the track (Carling Ave to Young St)-- to be reduced or eliminated in order to widen the cut.

My prognosis: Byron right of way will the chosen LRT route. The tracks will be cut and covered at great municipal taxpayer expense so dog walkers of the inner suburbs can continue to do their bit up above. The open cut going through Dalhousie, Hintonburg, and Mechanicsville neighborhoods will not be covered, as it is "too expensive" to provide any parkland or recreational facilities to the urban lower classes. The completed LRT network will be a diagram of the economic profile of the city: underground in affluent neighborhoods; in open cuts through poorer ones.

Baird on the Ottawa Transit Tunnell

Last evening there was a banquet in Chinatown. It had several purposes. It was a birthday celebration for the 60th Anniversary of the current ruling regime in China, and the Chinese ambassador was present. It was a fundraiser for the new archway that will grace Somerset St at Cambridge later this year, and for that welcoming beacon and sign of the Chinese-Asian presence in the Dalhousie neighborhood of Ottawa, significant funds were raised. The final arch design was revealled: it is a royal arch, because Ottawa is a capital city, as is Beijing, which is contributing to the archway here. It will be the only royal arch in a Canadian Chinatown (hello Toronto, Vancouver ...). It also launched the weekend Festival Asia. There was drumming and three ornate dragons danced through the crowded tables of attendees.

Of course there were politicans present: John Baird, Jim Watson, Larry OBrien, Diane Holmes, and (ex-politican) Richard Patton, all seeming glad to be in each other's presence. Their mutual delight radiated throughout the room. With politicians, there are speeches.

Jim Watson told of his mayoral visit to Beijing. John Baird related his visit to a number of Chinese cities this summer past, particularly focussing on the number of transit projects he saw underway. Light rail, heavy rail, urban and interurban, he recited an impressive list of transit projects, their lengths, and time frames for construction, all from memory. He then commented that it made an interesting contrast to all the fuss about Ottawa's short tunnel and initial few kilometers of rail.

There was no way it could be interpreted as negative about the Ottawa project's funding or feasibility. It sure did not sound like he was about to pull the plug.

Twilight on the Aquaduct and the ... come out to play

A number of earlier posts show damage caused to large trees in the LeBreton Flats area. The Dalhousie neighborhood hosts a surprising number of animals and birds.

These two twilights shots show the local vampires, err, beaver out to prey on unsuspecting urbanites. In the photo with a fine stone-arch bridge in the background, the beaver can be jut seen in the right foreground. Click picture to enlarge. The second picture shows him up close ... he was about 20 feet away from me and curious about the flash on my camera. After several shots, he dove leaving only a trail of bubbles.

Recall all those "raw sewage in the River" stories?

The media has had a field day with stories of raw sewage being dumped into the Ottawa River from ancient sewer control points, a number of which date from the late 1800's. Typically, the focus is on the obvious: raw sewage. Ignored is why those sewage facilities are over a hundred years old. My view is that successive councils have favoured glamorous higher profile spending projects that buy them favour with select voting groups. The go for the glitz, they delay and postpone the core civic expenditures. Hello Walkerton, decades of not-upgraded water works, cosy featherbedding, porkbarrelling, etc.

At the corner of Old Wellington (you know, the mostly closed segments of former-Wellington that runs from below the Garden of the Provinces till it meets Albert at the old Broad St intersection*) and Booth, construction has started to replace one of these old regulator stations. These drain pipes fill up in the Glebe, flow under Preston Street through Little Italy (flooding and backing up in basements there) and thence to the Ottawa River.

Why do they flood into the Ottawa River? Well, they always did, after all the flood overflow mechanisms were installed in 1880! But they probably flood more often in Dalhousie neighborhood because more and more city land gets paved over and built over and drains faster. The City has no regulations to require permeable pavements. More requirements are being put in place requiring new large buildings to "hold" their rainwater, but I am not sure if they apply everywhere (like upstream on the pipe, hello Glebe!) or just on the downstream portions of the sewers, in Dalhousie and LeBreton Flats (which must hold and delay releasing 100% of  rain fall).

What we really need are performance standards or benchmarks, a spreadsheet that every municipality could upload many performance standards for comparisson to all other municipalities. I did this is a businessman, comparing my stats with industry averages, and believe me its hard to hide behind "but we are different/special" whining for very long. Sloppily run cities, just like businesses,  show up in the stats right some quick. But businesses go out of business when they are run poorly. City halls just beg for grants from senior levels of government, and get bailed out, thus their bad behaviour gets rewarded.

No premier's name or mayor's name shown.

Mr Harper's name is also absent.

Workers doing what they do, without a shovel.

First priority, a portable sewage retention pond.

*On internet maps of the City, they persist in showing former Wellington as Wellington, and the newer Wellington going out past the War Museum as Ottawa River Parkway. How does one update the internet?

Crime, Supervised Injection Site, transition housing, etc.

Throughout the past months, the issues related to drug dealing, drug using, supervised (safe) injection sites, shelters, transitional or supervised housing units, a proposed parole office, and the impact on the rest of the community, have been visited a number of times on this blog.

Recall the supervised injection site focus group. Recall the impact of shelters like Shepards of Good Hope or Union Mission on adjacent neighborhoods. The parole office issue. Recall there is another proposal coming forward for supervised transitional housing units on Booth Street, perhaps with a shelter element, we don't know yet.

Dalhousie is still a very safe neighborhood. Its appeal, however, can change quickly when a number of factors come together that conspire to drive out the "middle class" and any neighborhood can go downhill quickly. The climb out is much slower.

Here is an article from City-Journal that deals with all these issues in the ghetto of Los Angeles, a neighborhood with many of the same issues as downtown east side Vancouver. Vancouver has tried the friendly helpful approach welfare advocates for a number of years, and the problems there do not seem to be getting better. In recent weeks, I have been reading in the papers of stronger enforcement efforts - probably related to the Olympics and the dreadful black eye the DTE gives to Vancouver.

Anyhow, here's the original article, it makes a provoking read:
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon0928hm.html