Keeping You Informed

Newsletter Date Councillor’s Newsletter July 8, 2016 KEEPING YOU INFORMED Councillor’s View INSIDE THIS ISSUE Medical Marijuana Dispensary to open in Stittsville 2 Dear Residents, Development Site Alteration By-law 3 Abbott St East Hydro Power Line Project 4 I would like to take a moment to explain the new Winter Stittsville Developments at Planning Committee 7 Operations Review which will be put forward as a 306 Livery St Apartment Proposal 8 motion to Council Wednesday, July 13. Prior to that Stittsville Medical Imaging Centre 11 meeting, I welcome your additional input. New Blackstone Bus Route/Fall 2016 OC Transpo Changes 12 Consultation Survey: Supervised Injection Sites 16 In 2014, the City of Ottawa’s Public Works department S.T.E.P. July focus on Cycling Safety/Red Lights 18 launched a Winter Operations Review (WOR) to ensure it …and more! provides efficient services in the most cost effective manner. The City’s review focused primarily on same time as Barrhaven roads, Kanata roads, Orleans operational adjustments that could be made without roads, etc. In addition, a pilot project of reverse plow- impacting levels of service. beats will enhance service for residents as neither side of a street will be disproportionately impacted by winter As it presently stands, the City of Ottawa is one of the operations consistently casting snow onto one side. largest road networks in the country with approximately 5621 km of roads, 2175 km of sidewalks Other noteworthy pieces of the Review include the and 233 km of Transitway and Highway. Roughly 236 attachments of plow blades to waste trucks as well as cm of snow falls each year. As such snow removal has less frequent overnight parking bans. always been one of the City’s most difficult challenges due to the unpredictability of winter storms. The proposed changes will save the City a budgeted $6 million with $0.5 million being reinvested into additional Ottawa has run over its winter operations budget the contractors to help speed up large quantity snow clean- last four years (2012-2015). The largest of which was ups. in 2013 when the City budgeted $55.3 million for winter operations but the final cost ran up to $79.2 The original motion had suggested a raise in the million. Maintenance Quality Standards from a current threshold of 7cm to 10cm. However, after review by the Presently, one of the major challenges is ensuring that Transportation committee and thanks to community all roads receive maintenance quickly and efficiently feedback, this item has now been removed from the during large snow storms when snow amasses at a Review. rapid pace across our large city. This particularly proves difficult when priority is given to some roads over I hope that this helps to explain the proposed changes in others – all roads receive the same service, just not all more detail. As always, I would like to welcome all at the same time. residents with any additional questions or input to email me at [email protected]. With the proposed changes in place, this would not be -Shad the case. Stittsville roads will receive service at the Page 2 Keeping You Informed Medical Marijuana Dispensary to Open in Stittsville As some of you may be aware, Ottawa’s sixth medical marijuana dispensary, Magna Terra, was recently announced to open soon on Iber Road. I feel it is important to state that while it is known to be our current Federal government’s plan to legalize marijuana sale in the near future, the drug – as well as its dispensaries - at the present time still remains illegal. To that end, I am not comfortable with an unlicensed business of this nature operating within our community at the present time. Although I can appreciate the medicinal qualities and pain relief these products may offer, there are sufficient distribution channels and networks already available to receive those medications such as Tweed, a licensed mail-order dispensary based in Smiths Falls. If/when these establishments obtain licenses, the federal government will put markers in terms of distribution that will facilitate operations. However, until that time, I will be working very closely with Ottawa Police Service and City of Ottawa By-Law departments to ensure that proper enforcement is in play. I have been in contact with the owners and have been assured that this particular facility will include a doctor on site and should only be servicing people with pre-existing prescriptions for purchase. In my initial conversations with owner, Franco Vigile, I had mentioned to him to go and consult with our planning department and to hold a public consultation session before moving forward. Keeping You Informed Page 3 I have now been advised that once opened, the owners will be inviting the public in to see their operations as an open house setting with no displays of product. Until that time, I will remain in communications with Mr. Vigile and will be providing community updates as those conversations progress. What is Stittsville’s opinion on medical marijuana dispensaries in our area? Please share with me your thoughts and ideas on the matter by emailing me at [email protected]. No specific date has been set as of yet regarding when the shop will open. Development Site Alteration By-law I am very pleased that the City is developing a site alteration by-law. This was a concern that I had raised to the City given the large development growth taking place in Stittsville and I am thankful to the community for first bringing this item to my attention. I feel it is very important that development industries ensure they are following proper guidelines with respect to site alteration. “Site alteration” is commonly defined as the placing or dumping of fill, the removal of topsoil, or changing the grade of land. Some municipalities also include vegetation removal in their definition of site alteration. It is a necessary part of land development and other normal human activities. The City has released a Discussion Paper on this matter with the following purpose: - Present some basic background information on site alteration and site alteration by-laws in Ontario, and the current situation in Ottawa; - Explain the guiding principles under which Ottawa’s site alteration by-law is being developed; - Consider the circumstances under which site alteration may not be appropriate; and, - Identify some potential minimum standards / best practices for site alteration. Page 4 Keeping You Informed I encourage residents to review the Discussion Paper on the City’s website for the Site Alteration By- law here. The City hopes that after reading this paper, that interested stakeholders and members of the public will join the discussion and help define appropriate parameters for site alteration activities in Ottawa. At this time, I would like to request any input on what parameters you think should be established for site alteration or any other factors the City should consider moving forward. Please contact myself and the City Planner, Amy MacPherson at [email protected] / 613-580-2424 ext. 14873. For more information about this project, you may also visit the City of Ottawa website. Abbott Street East Hydro Power Line Project A number of residents have contacted me with concerns with the planned above ground hydro power lines to be installed on the south side of Abbott Street East. In association with this project there are also planned works for power lines in the area, please see below for more details. On June 23 there was an Open House Information Session held in Stittsville to discuss this project, you can view the presentation from this meeting here. To provide some background information on this item, in 2007 Hydro Ottawa was proposing to install the power line on the north side of Abbott Street and the community expressed concern with this proposal given how close the power line would be to the residents facing and backing onto the north side of Abbott Street. At that time I requested that Hydro Ottawa please review alternatives as I would not support the line on the north side of the street given the closeness to houses. Now Hydro Ottawa has planned to install the power line on the south side of the street, while I know that some residents will also not be pleased with this plan I hope we can agree that it is better than the original proposal. Hydro Ottawa has advised that they require this pole line to increase reliability and provide power to other areas of Stittsville. I can appreciate that many residents would prefer to have these hydro lines placed underground however the reality is that this will unfortunately not be possible due to the high cost of such a Keeping You Informed Page 5 project. Hydro Ottawa estimates that to bury this line it would cost approximately $1,500,000 compared to the cost of $415,000 for overhead wires. Hydro Ottawa’s standard on collector roadways, such as Abbott Street East, is overhead pole lines. As per their Conditions of Service, Section 2.1.4: “Underground electrical system installation is an option, provided sufficient utility space is available, associated land rights are granted and the requestor pays the associated costs.” Therefore as Hydro Ottawa will not cover these costs and neither will the City, the only option would be for residents with properties along Abbott Street East to pay a levy to share the cost of burying the wires underground. A similar concern as was also raised on Maple Grove Road when residents were also concerned about overhead wires being installed on their road.

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