Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans persuaded the planning committee on Tuesday to specifically name Albion-Heatherington as the site for a proposed neighbourhood revitalization and redevelopment.
The committee was discussing roughly $6.7 million in spending as part of council’s ongoing strategic initiatives exercise, including $250,000 for the neighbourhood revitalization.
But the document doesn’t name a specific neighbourhood and Deans argued it should.
She wants Albion-Heatherington to be the test case for a new way of developing social housing in Ottawa that would result in a broader mix of people and housing or, as she puts it, “a healthier community.”
Heatherington, according to Deans, is a prime location for a social-housing re-think because of available land — the city owns 3.2 hectares at 1770 Heatherington Rd., formerly a city works yard that was decommissioned in 2012, while Hydro Ottawa would soon like to sell about four acres of its nearby Albion Road facility.
Plus, Walkley was designated in 2013 as an “arterial mainstreet”, which means the city’s planning rules now allow for a mix of retail, office and residential spaces in buildings up to nine storeys.
“It’s a hurdle but we haven’t crossed the finish line,” Deans said after committee members voted 7-3 in favour of amending the proposed list of strategic initiatives to name Albion-Heatherington.
“This is a project I feel passionately about,” she said, adding the city could start with the south end neighbourhood and apply whatever lessons are learned through the revitalization and redevelopment to other neighbourhoods across the city.
Deans initially submitted this idea for consideration — the draft document named Heatherington specifically, she said — but it was later changed by the mayor or city manager’s office to something more generic.
She says she agreed to the “placeholder wording” that appears in the document so it could be printed. “I don’t think anyone construed that as me acquiescing,” she said.
Planning is the second standing committee to approve the strategic initiatives that fall under its portfolio. There are 63 initiatives in all, totaling more than $37 million for 2015 (there’s an additional $25 million each for 2016, 2017 and 2018).
Council will have the final say on July 8.
