Caldwell Neighbourhood Watch

Carlington Glee Club by Josh McJannett

Most of Ottawa’s roads were primarily built to accommodate motor vehicles. As Ottawa grows and develops, the City is ensuring our streets are designed to meet the needs of all people whether they choose to walk, bike, drive or take public transit.

Building a Liveable Ottawa 2031 is a city-wide review of land use, transportation and infrastructure policies that make up the Official Plan, Transportation Master Plan, Infrastructure Master Plan, Cycling Plan and the Pedestrian Plan, with an eye towards making Ottawa a more vibrant, healthy and sustainable city.

The focus of the review is to propose solutions to 12 current planning issues. The outcome of the review will be an updated Official Plan and supporting plans with policies and priorities that influence the future growth of the city for years to come. The last step is the review and approval of the Development Charges (DC) by-law before it expires in July, 2014. Development charges fund a portion of the growth-related costs associated with many services provided by the city.

Ecology Ottawa is a not-for-profit, grassroots, volunteer-driven organization working to make Ottawa the green capital of Canada. They currently have a petition urging Mayor Jim Watson and all Ottawa City Councillors to support the passage and implementation of a comprehensive Complete Streets policy into all planning documents under review. The policy should be applied to the entire urban boundary so that residents in urban Ottawa, as well as citizens living in the suburbs and villages, all benefit from Complete Streets.

Read more:

• Ecology Ottawa Petition
• City of Ottawa Complete Streets at a Glance
• Complete Streets Preliminary Policy

The Carlington Community Association will hold its 2013 Annual General Meeting on Tuesday May 14 (Alexander Community Centre, 960 Silver Street at 7pm).

One of the important activities that will take place at this meeting will be the nomination and election of members of the CCA executive for 2013-14. Any paid-up member of the Association is eligible for nomination and election. The CCA executive is made up of a President and a maximum of 8 Board members. Board positions (such as Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary, etc) are normally determined in June following the AGM.

This is a great opportunity to get involved in making Carlington an even better place to live, so please consider joining the CCA executive! If you are interested in standing for election, or to find out more about the Board and the nomination/election process, please contact Chelsea Sutcliffe or Wendy Vasbinder (613-761-5631).

The AGM nominating committee will make a short presentation at tomorrow’s (April 9) CCA general meeting. Please join us at the Alexander Community Centre (960 Silver Street) at 7pm.

On Wednesday April 3 the CCA held a special general meeting to discuss the proposed rezoning at 1110 Fisher Avenue. The meeting provided an opportunity for members to weigh in on this issue directly. We heard terrific presentations from the CCA Development Committee as well as a number of individual community members from nearby Trent Street and representatives from Turnbull School who have all studied the proposal closely and who shared their concerns.

Through the course of the discussion a number of community members asked that the CCA make available a concise description of how individual residents wishing to share their concerns about the proposed rezoning could do so. Below you will find three ways to make your voice heard.

1. Submit comments to the planner assigned to review this application, copying Planning Committee members and Councillors.  Deadline is Friday April 12. If you’re looking for a comments you can use, the CCA has prepared a draft letter you can copy/paste in the City’s online form. You can access the form by clicking on ‘Send comments to the file lead’ midway down on this page.

2. Lend your name to a Turnbull School petition opposing the proposed rezoning at 1110 Fisher Avenue. A copy of the petition will be posted at the Alexander Community Centre (960 Silver Street) for those wishing to lend their name but who do not have ready access to the Internet.

3. Contribute your input to the CCA’s planning submission regarding this application. Contact Phil Bartlett to review our draft or to submit your comments no later than Wednesday April 10.

Having heard the feedback of CCA members and local residents, the CCA board met Sunday March 17 and agreed to the following motion:

BE IT RESOLVED, that the Carlington Community Association does not support the proposed R5 rezoning at 1110 Fisher Avenue.

The motion passed with the unanimous support of all directors present. UPDATE: Complete minutes from the meetings on March 12 and March 17 are available here and here (respectively).

A number of CCA members have written to request an opportunity to weigh in directly on this issue. Accordingly, a meeting will be held at 7pm on Wednesday April 3rd at the Alexander Community Centre to address community questions about the application to rezone 1110 Fisher Avenue.

The association will participate in the City of Ottawa’s planning process and undertake to carry forward the concerns highlighted in the recently submitted report of the CCA Development Committee. The CCA has also requested and received Councillor McRae’s support to work with City staff for a public meeting with planning staff to outline the details of the proposal, describe the planning process and hear resident feedback.  Scheduling details for this meeting will be forthcoming as soon as available.

An update on the CCA’s advocacy and activities with respect to this file will be provided at the April 3rd special general meeting.