Ottawa’s planning committee has approved a temporary parking lot at 330 Gilmour St., delaying construction of an eight-storey senior’s residence approved for the site by at least three more years.
The parking lot will be built on the Centretown property owned by Ashcroft Homes. According to a report submitted to the Nov. 24 planning committee, the parking lot will be built because the market for a senior’s home in the area is still “evolving.”
The property has been underused since 2001, when it was sold to Ashcroft. The Ontario Municipal Board approved the construction of the eight-storey residence in 2009.
The property is located between Gilmour and Lewis streets on the east side of O’Connor Street. The old Ottawa Board of Education building currently sits on the property but parking space exists adjacent to the structure.
The latest proposal will bring existing parking use into conformity with current bylaws, which also requires adding greenspace to the area. The matter was to be voted on at a city council meeting on Dec. 9.
Construction on the new parking lot would begin next spring, according to Paul Rothwell, Ashcroft’s director of planning and development. The parking lot would be used for three years.
Rothwell says economic factors play a role in the slow development of the property.
“The baby boom bubble has not really started to buy into retirement homes yet. And when it does, the market will be fairly bullish,” he says.
Rothwell adds that a cooler condo market in the past two years has also slowed down the development process.
The property was once at the centre of a long and heated debate over height restrictions on heritage-designated properties.
Council nixed a proposal in 2007 for a nine-storey building, and instead rezoned it to be seven floors high.
Some community members were also concerned that Ashcroft Homes would not respect the school board building’s heritage designation.
Ashcroft appealed the decision to the OMB, which approved an eight-storey building at the site.
A proposed 20-storey building by Ashcroft was also rejected by city council in 2002.
Rothwell says he could “write a book” on the amount of frustration he has faced over the years with developing the property.
The planning committee report included concerns from Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney about the amount of greenspace required as part of the parking lot plan.
McKenney stated that while the proposed site plan was an improvement, landscaping needs to be “significant and substantial.” She pointed to recent landscaping added on Sunnyside Avenue in Old Ottawa South as an example for Ashcroft to consider.
According to the committee report, parking space has been slightly scaled back to make room for more greenspace.
Rothwell says Ashcroft has been following parking lot guidelines set out by the city regarding the amount of landscaping required.
“Remembering that it is all temporary and when the development goes ahead — and we hope it goes ahead sooner rather than later—all that is going to disappear to make way for a new project,” he says.
Mitch Vandenborn, president of the Centretown Citizens Community Association, says the amount of landscaping in the Gilmour Street plan is enough but more is always better for the community.
Vandenborn mentioned that 293 Lisgar St., which is slated for demolition, will be turned into public greenspace until construction begins on a new development.
“If these kinds of construction projects or development applications are hanging up in the air or nothing’s being used at the site, we’d really like to see that site be used to improve the community,” he says.