A DINER’S 20-YEAR PATIO PUSH

City might finally serve up a permit

A Wellington West restaurant has finally found an opening at city hall to get an outdoor patio approved after 20 years of battles with neighbours.

In a 9-1 vote on Tuesday, the Wellington Diner at 1385 Wellington St. W. won the planning committee’s support to set up a patio outside the restaurant, along the corner of Western Avenue. The patio would have room for 24 people.

The restaurant needs council’s permission to have a patio, even though there’s a natural patio carved into the property footprint.

The zoning bylaw doesn’t allow a commercial patio within 30 metres of a residential area. The proposed patio would be about 19 metres from homes.

If the Wellington Diner is going to be allowed to have a 20-squaremetre patio, the city wants it to be temporary. Planning staff want an expiry date of Nov. 1, 2018.

Opponents have been worried about noise from the small patio bothering the neighbourhood, with a couple even hiring a planning consultant, noise consultant and lawyer to fight the application.

Carolyn Kearney, who lives directly to the north of the restaurant with her wife, Geena Green, said patio noise would be damaging to her health. Kearney, who is blind, said a screen blocking the sight of the patio obviously won’t help her.

“I cannot simply tune this out,” Kearney said.

Green said they built their accessible home on Western Avenue assuming the patio issue was dead.

It turns out, this might be one of the longest patio wars in the city’s history.

The restaurant first filed an application for a patio in 1997, only to be denied by the committee of adjustment.

The Ontario Municipal Board upheld the decision after an appeal, even dismissing the idea of allowing the patio for a one-year trial.

Another application landed at the committee of adjustment in 2009, but the committee didn’t see much of a difference from the 1997 application and refused the request. By that time, the city’s planning department was on board with the patio proposal since there was a new traditional mainstreet designation for Wellington West.

The designation makes mixed property uses more flexible; the city wants to animate these types of roads.

The appetite for restaurant patios has only grown stronger over the past eight years. There’s a new patio-friendly attitude at city hall, where politicians have tried to balance neighbours’ concerns about noise with trying to shed Ottawa’s perception as a staid capital city.

Diane Kirkpatrick, who lives in the area, voiced support for the patio application since it helps people who live in condos or apartments to enjoy a meal outside. She called it a “simple pleasure.”

After the committee meeting, Jeff Frost, the owner of the Wellington Diner since February 2015, said he would install double-sided wooden panelling two metres high to reduce noise from the patio.

He has a dream of making the patio the “Dairy Queen of Wellington West,” serving ice cream and sundaes to customers.

Frost said if there’s another challenge to the OMB, he’ll persist.

“I’m not afraid because I believe in what I say and I do what I say,” Frost said.

In recent months, the Wellington Diner used social media, and some famous customers, to help push the patio issue.

Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper is in favour of the patio. The committees of adjustment in the past have “narrowly interpreted” the bylaw, and now it’s time for an elected council to make the right decision, Leiper said.

Leiper, who described overwhelming support in the community for the patio proposal, said he would work with the restaurant to make sure there’s patio screening and restrictions on hours and amplified noise.

It appears Mayor Jim Watson wants the diner to finally get its patio, too.

Council will be asked to confirm the planning committee’s decision on July 12.