Prep for LRT-fuelled work to cost $72M

Developers expected to pitch in on cost of new pipes, bike routes and sidewalks

It will cost about $72 million to kit out neighbourhoods around three east-side transit stations so they will be fit for the massive redevelopments it’s hoped light-rail service will spur, according to a city reckoning.

That tab could also be much higher, if Hydro Ottawa buries its wires at the same time.

Taxpayers won’t be responsible for all the costs of new pipes, sidewalks and bike routes, says a report bound for city council’s planning committee Tuesday: Developers expected to construct all the new buildings the city hopes to see (and ultimately their buyers) will have to pitch in, too. And particularly in the case of sewers and water mains, laying new and bigger pipes will benefit communities besides the ones close to Lees, Hurdman and Blair stations.

The figures are in a report explaining the pre-emptive rezonings the city’s planners want to apply to those areas to try to get vacant properties and strip malls and parking lots to turn into condo towers and office complexes full of people who will ride the city’s $2.1-billion light-rail line to and fro for many of their trips around the city. The changes include allowing buildings as tall as 30, 35, even 45 storeys, — taller than anything built in Ottawa now, next to the stations.

They’re the second round of “transit-oriented development” rezonings, after city council approved similar plans for Train, Cyrville and St Laurent stations a year ago; the idea is to get up to five times as many people living and working near those stations as do today. The idea is to mimic the effect Toronto’s subway system has had in creating nodes of skyscrapers around many of its stations, in exactly the way the Transitway here was supposed to but didn’t.

But all those people will need services and amenities that the station areas don’t have now.

Lees, on the edge of the University of Ottawa campus, needs the least work: a mere $11 million, much of that in upgraded electricity service.

Hurdman, just across the Rideau River but practically isolated with fields on three sides (thanks to its location amid old closed landfills), needs the most: $35 million, with sewer pipes making up $15 million.

Blair, much farther east, needs $26 million worth of work, and the single biggest chunk of that is $13 million to improve the almost nonexistent bike routes to and from a station that’s tucked between the Gloucester Centre mall and a Highway 174 overpass.

Indeed, the single biggest item across all three redevelopment areas combined is biking infrastructure, from roadside tracks to painted lanes to dedicated paths, all of them adding up to $25 million. Making the new neighbourhoods walkable and bikable is key to getting people to use the transit stations that are supposed to be at their heart, the planners’ report says, because people will not use a transit system they can’t get to: “Pedestrian and cycling access to transit along with urban design standards for creating public and private spaces was given highest priority in the preparation of the TOD Plans.”

There is an expense the city won’t be jumping to pay, though: the cost of burying hydro wires. That would cost an estimated $39 million across all six of the transit-oriented development districts the city’s prepared so far, according to an estimate from Hydro Ottawa, and that doesn’t include moving other underground services to make way for them or changing all the electrical hookups in the buildings the wires serve.

“Council could consider burial of hydro wires on (these) streets at the time of major road reconstruction subject to consideration of detailed cost estimates, affordability and street location,” the planning department suggests.