Kanata school lands rezoning sparks more discussion at Council

Rezoning issues related to the
Kanata School property were
part of Monday's Council session

Whether LNG goes ahead or not will be the deciding factor when it comes to development of the old Kanata school lands, with proponents suggesting that a positive announcement will provide for faster and fuller development than would a negative announcement.

That was one of the main take aways from Monday evening's discussion of zoning issues related to the land in question off of Ottawa Avenue on the city's east side.

As we've outlined from our Council review for this week, land use became a major focus of Monday evening's work, the proposed development of the Kanata school  provided for another fairly long overview, this time with Councillor Cunningham taking the point position on the discussion.

Councillor Cunningham had concerns over handing over the control of the land use for that area, fearing of block upon block of apartment buildings and calling up on the image of a ghetto area being created and noted a significant lack of green space currently listed as part of any potential development of the site.

"We're rezoning a piece of property here and giving them a carte blanche to just put in apartment blocks and nothing else in there, I'm all for development in this area and its a great development but I would like to see a mixture ...  I would like to see a sprinkling of each type of zoning in this area as its a very very large piece of land, we're going to create a ghetto here if we just put all apartment blocks in there"  -- Councillor Barry Cunningham on land use issues related to the Kanata School property

Councillor Thorkelson echoed some of Councillor Cunningham's concerns on the issue, taking the opportunity to again reinforce some of her previous issues with how the City has been approaching land development in the city.

Councillor Niesh offered up a slightly different look at the potential of housing for the east side area, highlighting the long list of lost housing units in the city over the years, such as the Elizabeth Apartments and other now demolished sites spread across the city.

He suggested that a development on the Kanata school land could help replace some of that lost housing and that with its proximity to transit in the community that any decision to move forward with the process would be a simple one to make.

At the end of the near twenty minutes of discussion Council voted to move forward with the first reading of the proposed amendment, instruction the applicant to hold and Information meeting and for staff to conduct more referrals into the proposed application.

You can learn more about the proposed development from Monday's Agenda package the Kanata School amendment starts on page fifty.

For more background on Monday's discussion at council see the City Council Video Page, the topic gets a review from the one hour twenty minute mark until 1 hour thirty eight minutes.



Further information on housing issues of the Northwest can be found from our Housing archive.

While more background on council discussions can be found on our Council archive page.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review