The city is moving forward on a plan to rezone land to allow 660 housing units on Riverside Drive under a busy flightpath despite concerns from the Ottawa International Airport Authority over “constant” overhead noise.
The city’s planning and housing committee voted to approve the zoning amendment, which would add single detached and semi-detached dwellings to the development, which already calls for four apartment towers between nine and 17 storeys.
The proposed development would be about 950 metres from the airport’s longest runway and within the “circuit loop” for general aviation and flight training, airport authority vice-president Joel Tkach said at the June 18 committee session.
The proposed site at 3930 and 3960 Riverside Dr. is north of Hunt Club Road and on the west side of Riverside Drive along the Rideau River, just west of the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club.
The land lies within the line of “noise exposure forecast and noise exposure prediction,” but outside the airport’s “operating influence zone,” Tkach said, and residences would require noise-warning clauses.
Tkach urged councillors to vote against the development.
“On average, 80 aircraft movements occur here daily at altitudes between 50 and 150 metres. Although the proposed residential development land lies just barely outside the boundary of the airport operating influence zone, noise does not respect arbitrary lines on a map,” he said.
“We’ve seen the fallout when homes encroach on airports,” Tkach said, citing similar issues in Montreal and Toronto, which have “endured waves of complaints, political pressures and resulting curfews, and therefore lost air service.
“The consequences are real: fewer flights, reduced cargo capacity, diminished global connections and lost jobs.”
Tkach said commercial or light industrial development would be “the obvious function” for the land, “not housing.”
“We confirm that residents will endure constant overhead traffic from heavy jets and low-flying single-engine aircraft,” he said.
City staff recommended councillors approve the amendment to permit the single detached and semi-detached units as “additionally permitted uses” on the site and establish new height allowances for the four mid- to high-rise apartments along with parkland, open space and environmental protection dedications.
Hunt Club Community Association president Audrey Belanger told councillors her group was in favour of project and had been working with home builder Taggart Group for years on the proposal.
“We need housing, we need it inside our urban boundaries,” Belanger said. The 660 housing units would be “significant and very welcome.”
Paul Black, principal planner with Fotenn Planning and Design, told the committee that residential uses were already permitted for the land and the site was previously zoned to permit high-rise residential units in 2019.
“The zoning bylaw amendment before you today is to seek permission to add additional unit types — being semi-detached and detached homes — to the mix of permitted residential uses on the property and to refine the height schedule to better reflect the airport’s federal zoning regulation. That is what’s before you, not whether to permit residential uses or not. Residential uses are permitted on the site today.”
The committee voted to approve the amendment, with councillors Laura Dudas, Cathy Curry and Wilson Lo dissenting. The changes would still require full council approval, with the staff report set to be heard at the June 25 meeting.
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