General Meeting – 25 July 2013

GREENSPACE ALLIANCE OF CANADA’S CAPITAL

Greenspace Watch

General Meeting

July 25, 2013

Hintonburg Community Centre

1064 Wellington Street West

K1Y 2Y3

 

Present: Erwin Dreessen (chair), Amy Kempster, Nicole DesRoches, Juan Pedro Unger, Elina Elnione (note taker).

Regrets: Sol Shuster and Jason Kania

The meeting commenced at 7:20 p.m.

1. Administration items

a. Minutes of June 27, 2013

Amy moved, seconded by Nicole, to approve the Minutes of June 27 as circulated. Approved.

b. Action items from the Minutes

– The Open House text on country lot subdivisions has been retrieved and was sent to Judy Makin, along with a suggested list of Ontario municipalities.

– Gatineau’s revised “Schéma d’amenagement” will be adopted in the fall. Nicole and Erwin attended the public meeting on July 3.

– Suggestions to intervene re Ottawa’s Wildlife Strategy were posted to the list. Council adopted the Strategy unchanged on July 17. No report yet on whether there was any debate.

– Nicole will still contact the NCC re the Urban Lands Master Plan. The report that went to the NCC’s Board of Directors on June 27 is now available on its web site. Public consultations will be held in October.

– Erwin still intends to pursue the MEC capacity grant option.

c. Treasurer’s report

Erwin moved, seconded by Juan, to pay $138.60 for room rental for July 2013-June 2014 at the Hintonburg Community Centre. Approved.

2. Endorsement letter for Ottawa Eco-Talent Network

A draft letter of support for this new network was circulated by email and was approved. Action: Erwin to finalize and send, with in the cover note a suggestion that the Université du Québec en Outaouais (formerly à Hull) could also be contacted; they offer a social science program including geography as well as a new program, “gestion durable des écosystèmes forestiers”.

3. Ottawa Official Plan review

a. Natural Linkages

Amendments are proposed to Schedules L1, L2 and L3 but no context is provided. One needs to view Nick Stow’s presentation at our June 8 Panel Discussion to see what was done. He also sent us the formal write-up of his methodology. Action: Erwin to post this to the web site. As for Annex 15 (the methodology for assessment of new urban land), it is not in the package provided even though, at the request of the City, the OMB ordered it to be part of the Official Plan. Post-meeting Note: Staff has informed us that Annex 15 will be dropped from the OP. Annex 12 (Protection of the Viewshed from Beechwood Cemetery) will be reconfirmed as being part of the OP.

b. Country Lot Estates

No report from Judy yet.

c. Significant woodlands

Amy provided some preliminary comments:

  • We need to look at the larger villages to see if any natural features are properly identified.
  • By requiring the presence of a water feature (in addition to interior size and age) the threshold for recognizing a wood lot as significant is quite high. Staff’s initial reply to our comments seemed to look for a criterion to restrict the number of eligible woodlots. Perhaps we could suggest a criterion of biodiversity and suggest that meeting 3 out of 4 criteria should suffice.
  • Woodlots on farm lands are not the issue as long as agricultural land is protected.

d. Transportation Master Plan – Greenbelt Roads, Western LRT

Deferred. The draft TMP will not be available until September.

e. Aggregates review

On first review, little appears to have changed in the OP text. The Schedules have to be examined more closely. Post-meeting note: A separate staff report, seen in draft by Amy, Erwin and Ken McRae and discussed with staff on June 4, is now available on the City’s web site at http://ottawa.ca/en/proposed-official-plan-bedrock-mineral-aggregate-resource-designations.

 

The meeting adjourned at 8:40 p.m.

 

Next meeting will be at the Hintonburg CC on Thursday, August 22, 2013, at 7:15 p.m.