The City of Ottawa will give residents of older city wards the chance to share their thoughts on small-scale infill housing this month.
Infill housing is a construction trend that is rapidly reshaping streetscapes across the central area of the city.
Small-scale infill housing refers to projects that see new, modern, and often multi-unit dwellings built on either vacant lots or lots where an older building is demolished and then replaced with the new housing.
Centretown, along with three other older neighbourhoods of Ottawa, were part of a city study that looked at the trends in this type of infill and its impact on mature neighbourhoods.
City planner Selma Hassan says the study was born out of complaints that were brought to the city last spring.
"We were getting a lot of emails and calls from either individual citizens or community associations," she says, "and they were basically saying, we're getting a lot of infill, it's different, we don't really like it, what can you do about it?"
The community outcry prompted the study, which looked at over 400 infill projects in the four wards in the past five years. City staff is now presenting the results to community members at public consultations.
City employees are asking for citizens' opinions on the problems and the possible solutions they found through their research.
At the meetings, Hassan is addressing issues such as how infill is affecting streetscapes by getting rid of older trees or increasing paved areas in front yards, how cars and garages are changing the look and layout of new houses compared to the old, and how bylaws, design guidelines and city processes could change to solve these problems.
Charles Akben-Marchand, president of the Centretown Citizens Community Association, says that small-scale infill is creating these problems in his community.
He says one example that concerns him is a project proposed for the corner of McLeod Street and Queen Elizabeth Drive, which would convert a one-family home into three luxury condominiums that may only be lived in for part of the year.
Akben-Marchand also cites an infilled house on Frank Street which has three garages instead of a front yard.
"The front entrance and living space of the building is set far back from the garages," he says, which is a problem because it reduces community interaction and the ability for the inhabitants to have their "eyes on the street."
It is exactly these issues and complaints from citizens that the city hopes to address through these consultations, but city staff acknowledged at the first meeting that "fixing infill" won't be easy.
Amid concerns from New Edinburgh citizens at the first consultation that the interests of developers are "changing the fabric" of their neighbourhood, city planner Alain Miguelez said he recognizes there are many interests at play in the issue, and that there are no quick fixes.
"It is a learning process," he said. "We are here as a resource to council, to the people of Ottawa and to the industry, as professionals, to make all this fit together."
The consultation in Somerset ward will take place at the Festival Control Plaza of City Hall on Thursday, Feb. 24 from 7 to 9 p.m.