Council approves 65-storey tower
Move undermines efforts to encourage neighbourhood vision, councillor says
City council’s approval on Wednesday of a 65-storey complex near the Bayview O -Train station has cast a shadow on the city’s efforts to encourage neighbourhood visions adopted by regular folks who live in those areas.
Mayor Jim Watson said community design plans aren’t cast in stone. Any property owner can apply to city hall for a land-use change and it’s up to council to say yes or no, he said.
In the case of 900 Albert St., an overwhelming majority of council voted in favour of the development plan that will build three towers of 65, 56 and 27 storeys in a major mixed-use complex. The Bayview station secondary plan, developed with the cooperation of residents, calls for a maximum of 30 storeys on the property.
The vote was 16-5 with councillors Catherine McKenney, Mathieu Fleury, Tobi Nussbaum, Jeff Leiper and David Chernushenko voting against the application by TIP Albert GP (Trinity Developments, InterRent Real Estate Investment Trust and PBC Real Estate Advisors).
The majority agreed with city staff that the official plan, which has a guideline for where tall buildings should be located, trumped any vision developed by residents in the community.
The land is directly beside the O -Train rail juncture, making it a prime candidate for residential intensification. The developer, now with council’s approval, has chosen to spread the density across three slender towers on top of commercial podiums. The developer has yet to announce a construction start date.
“My view is that we have to ensure that the success of the LRT is there with intensification because if you don’t grow up, you have to grow out and growing out is all about urban sprawl, which no one is supportive of because it’s very expensive and it’s not good for the environment,” Watson said after the council meeting.
Watson said it will be a huge private-sector investment and a vote of confidence for the future redevelopment of nearby LeBreton Flats.
TIP Albert will pay $975,000 for community benefits. McKenney, who represents the community east of the Trillium Line, won council’s approval to use $450,000 for gardens and parks rather than a footbridge over the Trillium Line, since the bridge would be an eight-figure cost, and the city doesn’t have much money for it. The rest of the community-benefit money will go into an affordablehousing fund. McKenney also won council’s support to encourage the developer to make 25 per cent of the units affordable housing.
However, the downtown councillor was disappointed with the final vote after the community worked hard to develop a design plan for the Bayview transit station area.
The city’s planning vision for communities mean nothing, she suggested.
“We really do not have certainty. I think that sums it up,” McKenney said.
Stephen Willis, the general manager of planning, said there have been key policy changes since the 2013 Bayview station community design plan received council’s endorsement. There was a council-adopted official-plan amendment that included directions for locating tall buildings, he said. In 2017, the province amended the Planning Act, requiring the city to identify major transit-station areas for intensification.
“We hope when we do the new official plan next term of council we can be much clearer about this,” Willis said after Tuesday’s planning committee meeting. “We’d like to have clearer maps to identify where these very tall building zones will actually occur.
“We’d have to hold much clearer policies, and we’d like to go back and deal with all the very outdated secondary plans, that are not keeping up with the evolution of the main plans, to get them all up to date.”
One huge change in the market, Willis said, is an interest in the development industry to build rental units, especially since the residential vacancy rate is near rockbottom. On top of that, there’s a trend across Canada over the past five years to build taller buildings, Willis said.
Nothing compels an Ottawa highrise developer, after completing construction, to make the units rentals or condo-type ownerships, although condos are often rented out by the owners.
When it comes to 900 Albert St. (whose former address was 801 Albert St.), the city has been trying to get development interest there for 20 years. There have been different owners and different proposals. The sunken land had major sewers running underneath the soil, creating a development barrier.
Still, community volunteers worked to create the 2013 community design plan for Bayview station.
Nussbaum accused the city of failing to meet the expectations of the community around 900 Albert St.
“I take that comment quite seriously,” Willis said. “When council adopted (the official plan amendment), I’m not sure enough people understood the implications of that at the time. Because it’s a text policy rather than a map in the plan, I’m not sure people understand it as well as they could. My hope in the next official plan, we’ll use maps to make this information much clearer because I’d like people to understand where we expect the tallest buildings in the city to go.”
We’d like to have clearer maps to identify where these very tall building zones will actually occur.