Failing intersection highlights planning 'chasm,' councillor says

City councillors on Ottawa's planning committee found themselves in an awkward catch-22 Thursday when they agreed to a new development nearHunt Club Road and Riverside Drive, knowing theintersectionalready saddled witha failing gradewill only get worse as a result.

The committeeapprovedTaggartGroup's application to add apartment buildings and car dealerships toa property already zoned for a retirement home and other commercial uses, but only aftercouncillorslearned they can't refuse such proposalsbased on traffic impact alone, so long as they're safe.

I think there is a chasm between our planning and transportation departments.- Coun. Riley Brockington

Resident Peggy Pratt told the committeeshe isworried about the impact on the intersection.

"Even without this development, it's bad enough and getting worse. And now we're going to just make it even worse without a good solution to handle [the added traffic]," Pratt said.

Coun. Laura Dudas had no qualms about Taggart's proposal, but agreed the intersection is already awful.

"It boggles my mind as to why we're intending to put more traffic into an intersection that's ... a failure," she said.

Staff told councillorsthat additional traffic signals to the north won't improve the intersection's F rating.

"The traffic that causes this ... isn't going away anytime soon," saidWally Dubyk, program manager of infrastructure approvals.

• Here are 4 of Ottawa's worst intersections
• More than 2,000 new homes planned for Riverside South

Coun. Riley Brockington, who represents the area, saidresidents have known for years that Taggart would eventually build on the 11.5-hectarelot at the northwest corner of Hunt Club and Riverside, but said residents can't understand why the city keeps green-lighting developments without first addressing the issue of traffic congestion.

"I think there is a chasm between our planning and transportation departments," Brockington said. "You can't exclusively approve a planning file just on planning merits. You have to look at the transportation network. In this case, it's failing."

Ottawa councillor slams 'chasm' between planning, transportation departments

6 years ago

Duration 0:49

Coun. Riley Brockington won't support a development proposal at Hunt Club Road and Riverside Drive, saying traffic congestion in the area will worsen. But Coun. Stephen Blais says the inconvenience of added traffic was not a reason for the planning committee to reject the proposal.

Better than previous plan

Developer Michelle Taggartacknowledged traffic is the "hot button issue" in the area, but pointed outthe additional 280 vehicles per hour expected to result from the developmentis an improvement over a previous plan, which predicted more than double that number.

Coun. Stephen Blais, who chairs the city'stransportation committee, agreed with staff that provincial planning rules precludemunicipalities from considering congestion when assessing such proposals.

"If we used inconvenience to deny planning, then basically no change would ever happen anywhere," Blais said.

He said the newTrillium Line LRT extension to Riverside South, as well as future widening of the Airport Parkway, will alleviate traffic in the area.

The councillorfor the area said those long-term planswon't address today's problems.

"That's not good enough," Brockington said.