A couple of Wednesday’s ago, I had the pleasure to attend the Centretown Community Association’s Planning Committee meeting for the first time. I have always wanted to be more active in this community association but prior commitments to sport teams and being active at night took up the bulk of my time. This is changing as I am now meeting a lot of my clients at night instead during the day due to work hours as well as I am trying to get more of my exercising done earlier in the morning. Anyways it is great to be back involved something that I feel I can contribute many of my ideas, which have been bottling up inside my head.
The major topic of this meeting had to do with the Centretown Community Design Plan and how the association is going to present it to the public. I am not an expert on the plan but I do want to make sure my generation is represented in this plan, it might be too late for that, but one has to start somewhere. A lot of the discussion has to deal with zoning issues as well as dealing with developers and the future.
http://midcentretown.wordpress.com/
You can download a copy of the plan there. The plan is looking to be finalized and approved by council around mid-June.
This was a great learning experience because after the meeting I got to chat with a member of the committee who was retired but had an urban planner background and has recently moved back to Ottawa to delve back into the Centretown development. It was great to learn about what has gone on in Ottawa with the expansion of the condos, specifically with regards to how council has dealt with it. He went over how several condos had received their permits, many Ontario municipal board appeals, and what this present council is planning to do.
I hope to continue with this committee and see where this can go. A major city planning summit occurred on April 26th, I watched it while it was streamed online, and that blog post will be on shortly. This is the description:
The City of Ottawa Planning Summit is an opportunity to talk about today’s planning challenges with Mayor Jim Watson and others who are helping to shape our city. Participants will represent a variety of perspectives and include residents, community and business organizations, the building and development industry, and professionals working in all areas of planning and design.
The day will include an Open Forum with the Mayor and Councillor Peter Hume as well as insights from special guest speakers:
- Pamela Blais, author of Perverse Cities: Hidden Subsidies, Wonky Policy and Urban Sprawl, on the topic of how we should grow in the suburban area
- Jeffrey Tumlin, a leading thinker in transit-oriented development, on how Ottawa should plan for the areas around our future Light Rail Transit stations
