Ottawa city council gave the green light to include a grocery store in a development at 187 Metcalfe Street today.
Somerset Ward Coun. Diane Holmes opposed the plan earlier this month at the planning and environment committee questioning the negative impact the new store would have on an already congested Nepean Street.
However, since then she has softened her stance and today tabled a motion that would delegate authority to the city’s planning department to work with the developer, Claridge Homes, its neighbours, and other stakeholders in order to make the project work.
“In talking to everyone involved it seemed as if it was likely to get everyone together and work this out, it was the reasonable thing to do,” Holmes said.
Holmes said the trouble with the current site plan is that the grocery store’s loading dock lies across the street from the current loading dock for Place Bell Centre and the entrance to its 1,000-car garage.
As well, the city sent notice of the design to Montreal instead of the building’s immediate neighbours so when the plan came before committee there had been no opportunity for stakeholder input.
“It wouldn’t be fair to approve a plan that in all likelihood would have compromised the viability of businesses that are already there,” Holmes said.
City staff presented council with some potential solutions to the truck traffic that will come with the construction of a new grocery store including, widening the street by one metre, moving the Place Bell Centre loading dock to the building’s Gloucester Street side, turning the eastern section of Nepean into a two-way, or lowering the street’s curbs to increase trucks’ turning radiuses.
While talks are still in their earliest stages, city staff say they are treating the issue with utmost care.
Despite the developer and the city’s amenability to problem solving Rideau-Rockliffe Ward Coun. Jacques Legendre says the process is backwards.
“Designing our streets to accommodate businesses delivery mechanisms is unreasonable. We need to send a clear message and tell them to accommodate to us,” Legendre said.
The reason, Holmes said, is that she is open to negotiations with the developer is that she recognizes that Centretown needs another grocery store and has needed one for more than 25 years.
She said that if the developers were asking for a zoning change in order to accommodate any other kind of big box store the answer would have been no.