Hintonburg wall mural

This new mural is facing the parking lot entrance to the Hintonburg Community Centre on West Wellie.

It has all the characteristics of a good location: blank block wall, facing a parking lot entrance and parking spaces, visible with great sight lines from the street.

In the foreground is the volunteer planted perennial garden recently installed by ... hintonburgers.

Residents of Hintonburg

 Now we know what they are called:

Great for dog walkers

On Spadina Avenue in Hintonburg, as it approaches West Wellie, the city has planted trees on both sides of the street right on the centreline of the concrete sidewalk that runs up the rest of the street. The black post in the foreground is a bike rack that also serves to protect trees from plows, etc.

I find it curious that with all the spare space off to the side, the tree was planted in the direct line of the sidewalk. Are trendy Hintonburgers all so thin they can slip by this tree? Do they all walk dogs? Are the sidewalks not going to be plowed? Is it traffic calmings for aggressive pedestrians?

Boys Toys

It's a bird ... a plane ... a dragonfly ...

It's Heli-Go, the photographer disguised as a helicopter. Remote controlled, it was taking pictures from above the new Domicile condo site at the corner of Holland and West Wellington. Inside the operators van was a huge flatscreen TV so the operator could see what pictures he was getting, real time.

The operator with the plastic nose cone taken off. The camera is suspended below the skids, and could be rotated and angled via remote control. When flying, the legs and foam base of the copter retract up and horizontal to the 'copter, to clear the way for the camera angles. It was equiped with a digital still camera today, sending its wireless camera images to the ground control TV, but there are also movie cameras that he can attach, for filming aerial movie scenes and promo videos.

Dutch twins

These two houses on Hollard are fraternal twins. I find it interesting how differently each looks after some renovation. While I am a fan of brick and generally not a fan of plastic siding, the right one scores higher on the curb appeal.

I wonder how it will age.

Small Houses

The renovated house in the top picture is on Armstrong Ave in Hintonburg. I love tiny houses, there is something so doll-house-like, so intimate, so cute about them. Maybe it's the little-child in me wanting to curl up in a cupboard.

Hidden behind the renovator's trailer to the right of the blue and white house there is a foundation in the ground for another thin house infill.

I hope the vacant lot, now for sale, gets some more tiny infill houses rather than a McMansion.

I would love to see more tiny houses built in the city. I feel there is a huge market for them amongst singles, retirees, and people who want to spend less of their money on housing. However, so many city expenses are not size related or have minimum charges (eg water bill, electric bill, gas bill), and taxes on small houses can easily be higher than on larger houses, so they are squeezed out of the new-build category and are seen as non-economic by the cold-hearted (like me -- when shopping for my first house, I discovered it is much more economic to have a 1300 sq ft house than a 900 sq ft house, and bought accordingly).

As for my tax comment above, taxes are based on market value. When a small one bedroom house (no driveway, and the house is so small the one bedroom is in the walkout basement) on Primrose was renovated it was reassessed at higher value than three storey 2200 sq ft houses along the same street, because the assessors said the "comparable" was a trendy loft condo!

Potted Tree Planting

Tom Brown arena got new front entry paving and landscaping courtesy of the water main installation along Bayview Road. The old front entry had a large concrete planter with low walls. Trees in it rooted right into the underlying soil. A sign on it indicated Tom Brown's ghost or a concerned neighbor maintained the planting bed.

The new entry treatment has lots and lots of trees. I love this aggressive tree planting. One tree philosophy, I'm told, is to plant too many trees in the expectation that some will die. Rather than come back and replace them (which is expensive), they just let the strongest survive.

The yellow barriers are to control the huge crowds of people at the arena scoring H1N1 shots.

I also very much like the generous supply of bike racks (3!)

I do wonder at the survivability of trees planted in those raised concrete pots. Will they survive the August droughts and terrors of global warming?

Slippery Slope of Pedestrian Desires

Pedestrians climb over the significant height of the steel barrier to leave the sidewalk and climb down the slope along Albert Street at Tom Brown arena. At the foot of the slope, they cross the soccer field or parking lots at a diagonal, heading towards West Wellington or Bayview/Bayswater.

The worn out slope is quite wide, indicating the volume of pedestrian desire is so large is might be termed pedestrian lust.

The "landing zone" on the slope is almost a foot lower than the sidewalk, worn down by all the users. [Notice the curious shaddow of the man - it seems upsidedown! Must be a trick of the Hintonburg Sun Angle apparent only on select days]

The latest planning documents for Hintonburg have indentified this slope as needing a staircase and path at the bottom. Alas, the document has not yet been approved. If the Otrain station is relocated to the west side of cut, as proposed in the most recent DOTT plans, pedestrian access should be routed to the south side of Albert (going under the Albert St overpass) rather than the north side as it is for the current Otrain station. .

West Wellington Condo Mania

A new condo is planned for 1433 Wellington, a half block east of Island Park Drive. It is almost opposite the recent Domicile building at the corner of Picadilly. The site is currently a small strip mall. I think a new mid-rise condo is a big improvement over the strip mall and worthwhile bit of intensification.

The building will have vehicular access from the side facing the Loeb/Metro store.

The building exterior is very much in the same style as the building at 200 Lett Street at the corner of Wellington, the first condo built in the current LeBreton Flats project. While it doesn't have a glass tower on top of a podium, both are similar heights (six and seven stories), have windows that vary vertically and horizontally in size, shape, and position. Both have decorative horizontal reliefs or cut ins.

It remains to be seen if this building, already in a built-up area, will be better received than the LeBreton building.

The Claridge condo on the Flats is much larger than 1433 Wellington. However, a similar sized and designed building to the one pictured above(same architect, same builder) is planned for right next door in West Wellington (the car audio site), so from the street there will be much more building than looking at "phase 1" might suggest. The two West Wellington buildings as currently planned will be separated by the 3 storey Bella Bistro restuarant.

The two new West Wellington buildings,plus the nearby 101 Richmond Road condo now under construction on the west side of Island Park, are all of a similar architectural style that will set the tone for the neighborhood. Recall too that Ashcroft, builder of 101, now owns the convent grounds across the street and will likely be wanting to build more, similar condo buildings.

Garland Bike Lane

West Wellington, like Preston, has been reconstructed to be two lanes of traffic, plus parking bays. There is no marked bike path but the traffic lane is supposed to be so wide it can accomodate cyclists and motorists compatibly. The lane width is rather cosy for cyclists and the No 2 OC Transpo bus or the many trucks in the area. And there are door prizes to be won.

Cyclists are also being directed to marked bike routes parallel to West Wellington along two-way Armstrong street. It remains to be seen what amenities cyclists will get along Armstrong (other than big signs) in return for being directed off the main shopping and destination street. (Safety is presumably the big payoff as Armstrong has much less traffic or on-street parking).

To get to the eastern part of Armstrong, the most logical route utilizes Garland Street, which joins the multi-pronged dog-legged intersection of West Wellington/Somerset/Garland near Somerset Square (a triangular park in the intersection) where the old Nieghborhood Services store used to be. Garland is two way north of Armstrong, but it appears it will be one way from the intersection to Armstrong. This means a counter-flow cycling lane is required for the short block. The south end (near the big intersection) is shown above. The parked truck belongs to active construction crews on the site -- the lane is not yet open.

The second two pictures show the intersection at Armstrong, the other end of the short bike lane. Note the cyclist going the "wrong way" down a one-way street, he also rode right through the red light without pause. In this very short half block there is a driveway entrance to the parking lot on the right, which might pose a danger to cyclists if motorists are not expecting a counter-flow lane. However, there a large law office on the other side of the street to file injury claims.

 In any case, the bizarre intersection at Wellington/Somerset which is being converted to a signalized dog-leg turn in the road, plus the orphaned section of West Wellington [is Wellington forever doomed to be cut up into smaller and smaller segments?] plus the two-way meeting one-way sections of Garland at Armstrong should keep motorists on the edge and alert.

Conversion to Transitional Housing

This elderly blue-clad apartment building on Holland Avenue just north of the Queensway has been purchased by the Ottawa Mission for use as transitional housing. Acording to Ms Vicki's neighborhood blog the Mission intends for its clientele to occupy about half the units. She does not identify who will occupy the other half - presumably it is market rentals.

I support the move to transitional and supportive housing. I strongly feel they need close supervision and much more "tough love" than laissez-faire.

I have three "second hand" experiences with apartment buildings undergoing similar changes. In one, my aunt was a long term tennant, along with mostly elderly people in a very stable market-rental building. A social agency bought the building and moved in a "few" clients graduating from mental health programs. Under the new owners, the building quickly fell into disrepair, the hallways dirty, vomit in the elevators, smelly stiarways, people ("weirdos") hanging about the entrances. The fire alarms went off 5 times a night. A special client was found to be doing it. He was not removed but counselled to take his medicine. The exodus of the middle class tennants accelerated, eventually my aunt moved too.

The second story is from Toronto, the Crombie Town area near St Lawrence Market. It was a mixed income building. My relative found it safe and a great place to live. Then the City started closing out Regent's Park, a notoriously bad housing project, for rebuilding. The mixed income nature of other buildings was "waived" to find room for the displaced Regent's tennants. The balanced mix of incomes, employment status, etc was lost. Security guards appeared. Taxis refused to pick up residents at the door; later they refused to drop off residents near the doors. Pizza deliveries stopped, it was too dangerous. Long term tennants fled. Gangs of menacing males clustered around the doors.

The third incidence is an elderly female aunt who lived in a high rise senior's housing building in downtown Ottawa. She enjoyed it, and the nearby Legion. Then the City (?) moved in a younger crowd. There were noise problems, rowdy parties, spaced out tennants, rumours of drug deals. She died before she could move out.

These three exemplars in my life will outweigh any number of unknown happy cohabitations in buildings. They will influence how I read and interpret "statistics" about the success (or not) of transitional and supportive housing. I note/recall stories I read in the MSM or blogs about crime in similar housing projects whether on Scott Street or in LA. As a result of these influences, I still support these housing measures but that support is dependent on strict on-site supervision. Unfortunately, such supervision will wax and wane with social work trends/fads/philosophies and the leadership (which changes over time) of the agencies involved. The housing never goes away. It does make me nervous.

DOTT plans affect west side residents (viii): Tunney's station

At Monday's public open house, city planners will unveil the final system plans for the DOTT and LRT facilities to be constructed as the first phase of a city-wide sytem. The western terminus of the LRT will be at Tunney's until the LRT is extended west. A major bus transit to LRT facility will be constructed at Tunney's.

The current bus station is in the cut immediately west of Holland Avenue. The new station will be in the same place. The earlier plans for a centre platform LRT station have been scrapped, to avoid having to widen the cut under the Holland overpass. Instead, there will be two side platforms, just like now. The new platforms will be wider than they are now. The two tracks will extend a few hundred meters further west than the station platforms, to allow for the storage / positioning of extra rush hour trains, for switching trains from one track to another, and for any "dead" trains that need to be sidelined until they can be removed in the quiet hours.

plan of new station, bus staging and transfer area to north side, Scott side for local buses only; where did the bike path go to?

The existing transitway bus shelters, 25 years old and badly rusted, are nearing the end of their life, and will be scrapped. A solid flat roof, level with the top of the cut, will be constructed as the new roof for the platforms. This roof will be much higher than the current shelters. The solid platform roofs will be joined over the tracks by a glass roof section, making the whole station somewhat indoors, but open at the ends for the trains. The platform waiting areas will not be heated, but will be "tempered" from the extremes of hot and cold. There may be heated areas within the station, somewhat similar to the heated shelters at some existing transitway stations. The new roofs of the platforms may be "green roofs" (planted).

On the north side, the platforms will access a new tunnel access extending north and then up to an island platform for the bus transfer station. This will look somewhat like the current Hurdman transitway island station. Most arrivals and departures will occur from the north platform. The south platform will be used at rush hour and in the future when the LRT service is extended west to Lincoln Fields. Users on the north platform will be able to access the south platform when necessary (there will be TVmontiors to advise users which track will have the next train) via an overhead walkway or directly across the tracks at grade at the west end of the station.

The current pedestrian crossing of the transitway cut is deemed too narrow for the anticipated volumes of pedestrian traffic. It will be replaced by a new crossing, about 3x wider than the current one. The planners hope to keep the current elevator shafts, and maybe even the "buildings" at each end of the current bridge.

Buses on the transitway can currently climb up out of the cut at Tunney's. This access road will be relocated several hundred meters west, and made more gentle, as all transitway buses will have to exit the cut to the new transfer station at Tunney's.

The transfer station at Tunney's will receive huge volumes of traffic during the first phase of the LRT project, because allmost all bus passengers will transfer to LRT at Tunney's. The station is busy for accessing the employment node as well. Once the LRT service is extended further west in 5-20 years, the facilities will continue to be used for a more intensely developed Tunney's employment node and as a major transfor point for local bus services delivering passengers the line-haul LRT service. Local bus service east-west will be further reduced in favor of delivering N-S passengers to the LRT spine.

Planners have identified the east-west cycling route as passing directly in front of the station doors facing Scott Street, and continuing along the street level bus stops. This is exactly the same unsatisfactory situation as cyclists currently face when passing Tunney's. It is dangerous for cyclists, for pedestrians, and buses. There is a better way, which will be the subject of another post.

Exercise and Drugs

While cycling home from the Parkdale Market the other day I tried to avoid both West Wellington and Scott due to the construction. This took me through the centre of Hintonburg, past a fireplace store.

I came accross one guy on a bike, the other on roller blades. Cyclist had a pager.

Roller blader: puff puff, "He wasn't there."
Cyclist: "he must be, he just called five minutes ago" (holds up pager).
Roller blader: "want me to go back?"
Cyclist: "naw, gotta another call" (cites address).
Blader skates off madly down another street.
Cyclist: checks pager, heads west at a fast clip.

Now what these two gents were doing could be totally innocent. I am sure many 30-40year old scruffy males enjoy cycling and roller blading. Or maybe they were mixing "business" with exercise or economical transportation. Whatever, it was low carbon footprint and will positively reflect on Stats Can surveys about mode of transport to employment in inner city neighborhoods.