A three-storey apartment building planned for a vacant lot on Kent Street is expected to bolster the city’s ongoing drive for downtown residential intensification.
Located within the Centretown Heritage Conservation District, the three-unit building will rise on the empty lot and be constructed in a way that match the surrounding buildings on the street.
A two-and-a-half storey house that was demolished after its foundation collapsed in 2003 used to occupy the 506 Kent St. site.
The property has been vacant ever since.
Harish Gupta, head of the architectural company responsible for the property development, says they are not planning to build a “heritage copy, rather it will be blending with the heritage overlay.”
In mid-January, the development was approved by the Ottawa Built Heritage Advisory Committee, and must go through one more committee before being presented to city council.
This building is part of a growing trend of intensification in the downtown core.
The policy aims to increase the population of the city’s central area and reduce the region’s commuter traffic.
The City of Ottawa website lists 37 intensification projects that will make downtown the “neighbourhood of choice” in the future.
Stanley Wilder, a planner for the City of Ottawa, says the municipal government has been looking at ways to bring households back to the inner city since the mid-1990s.
Wilders says, this move supports the downtown economy.
Intensification will provide a new populous for many struggling services and cultural spaces, he says.
“We really want to redevelop underutilized sites.”
However, not all Ottawa residents are convinced that intensification is purely beneficial.
In a recent Ottawa Citizen article, Alta Vista Coun. Peter Hume relayed the concerns of some citizens who are wary about intensification plans.
“Communities are skeptical and they view intensification with a very leery, almost with a jaundiced eye,” he said.
Sabrina Bowman, coordinator for Ecology Ottawa, says “people often associate higher density with high-rises.”
Some residential neighbourhoods say they’re against it because they don’t want to change the character of the neighbourhood by adding apartment towers, says Bowman.
However, intensification can be done in ways that doesn’t require high-rises, she notes – and two- or three-story residential buildings, such as the one planned for Kent Street, also increase downtown density.
These smaller residential developments and other mixed-use facilities are key for the downtown core, says Wilder.
While it’s agreed the redevelopment of 506 Kent St. into a three-unit dwelling will help revive the character of the area, the developer may have to alter the brick colour initially chosen for construction, according to Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes.
In the report presented to the committee, she said illustrations show the building’s proposed façade as too pink.
Wilder says attention to such details is “critical” to the maintenance of a heritage district’s character.
“We cannot destroy what we have; [that’s’ why] we have very rigid heritage guidelines,” he says.
Council will consider the proposal later this month.