Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

New micro patios, parks coming soon to Ottawa streets

Ottawa Citizen

By Matthew Pearson, Ottawa Citizen, April 26, 2016

Some Ottawa neighbourhoods are about to become livelier this summer with the unveiling of about a dozen new micro-parks and patios.

Taking a page from San Francisco, New York and Montreal, the city’s Streetside Spots pilot project will see about a dozen on-street parking spaces repurposed between now and October.

This year’s spots include four parklets – public spaces that will contain everything from seating and greenery to games tables and music — and seven patios for restaurants and cafes that don’t already have patios.

Committee approves pair of 26-storey, car-free towers in ByWard Market

Ottawa Citizen

By Matthew Pearson, Ottawa Citizen, April 26, 2016

The city’s planning committee has approved a car-free development in the ByWard Market.

Textbook Student Suites wants to build two, 26-storey towers at 256 Rideau St. and 211 Besserer St., to be joined by a three-storey podium, to create 275 units intended for students. There would also be a 529-square metre retail space on the ground floor.

City memo to nature lovers in Ottawa: Wear goggles, don’t touch anything

Ottawa Citizen

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, April 27, 2016

If you go down to the woods this summer, the City of Ottawa wants you in full hazmat gear. With goggles. Gloves, too. And don’t touch any wild flowers. And stay in parks with groomed paths.

Ottawa is worried about wild parsnip, a weed that’s all over the region. The city is spending about $200,000 this year to mow and spray it because getting its sap on one’s skin and then exposing it to strong sunlight for an extended period causes burns and blisters in some people.

New website offers insight into Ottawa's local issues

Metro News

By Emma Jackson, Ottawa Metro News, April 25, 2016

Hungry for local data? A new website can help.The Community Foundation has compiled data from Statistics Canada, private research and public resources to paint a picture of Ottawa’s wealth, health and quality of life on its new platform, ottawainsights.ca.

The website covers everything from the rising cost of transit to the sharp jump in mental health visits to CHEO.

Ottawa beekeeping taking off with sold-out courses and hive rentals

Metro News

By Haley Ritchie, Ottawa Metro News, April 25, 2016

Expect to hear more buzzing in Ottawa this summer – interest in bees growing so fast that educational programs have sold out across the city.

Marianne and Matt Gee of Gee’s Bees said their “Host a Hive” program, started last summer, has been so popular they’re already almost at max capacity.

“People are now more aware of the problems facing the honey bee population and they want to help,” she said. “In our business, instead of seeing one farmer with 10,000 hives we want to see 10,000 people with one bee hive.”

Community housing gets $12.2-million for energy retrofits

By Melissa Murray, Ottawa Community News, April 25, 2016

Ottawa Community Housing’s CEO had reason to give out 12 million thank-yous last week.

Stéphane Giguère, CEO of the city's public housing corporation, shook hands with the area’s MPPs following an announcement on April 22, as the City of Ottawa received more than $12.2 million from the province’s Green Investment Fund for social housing energy retrofits, including the replacement of boilers, insulation and windows — money that would be coming in OCH’s direction.

Kitchissippi residents are calling for city to crack down on cutting of mature trees

By Jennifer McIntosh, Ottawa Community News, April 25, 2016

A group of Kitchissippi residents wants to speak for the trees.The city’s urban tree conservation policy, meant to protect mature trees from being chopped down during development, is flawed and ineffective, critics say.

A permit is required to cut down "distinctive" trees under the bylaw. That means, a tree that measures more than 10 centimetres in a diameter on private lots that are less than one hectare and trees that measure more than 50 cm on lots that are more than a hectare.

New Tomlinson Construction Waste Recovery Centre off Carp Road

By John Curry, Ottawa Community News, April 24, 2016

It could be the most technologically advanced facility of its kind in North America.

The new, soon-to-open Tomlinson Construction Waste Recovery Centre off Carp Road just north of Richardson Sideroad will have the capability to divert more than 110,000 tonnes of construction and demolition materials away from landfills while recovering or recycling a minimum of 80 percent of the materials being processed.

3 moose collisions in 3 days prompt warning from Killaloe police - Ottawa - CBC News

By CBC News Ottawa, April 25, 2016

Police are warning motorists driving on eastern Ontario highways to be aware of moose crossings after three collisions in the last week involving the large mammals.

The three collisions happened over a three-day span in the monitored by the Killaloe detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police.

Ottawa's cigarette butt waste program needs work, BIA says - Ottawa - CBC News

By Stu Mills, CBC News Ottawa, April 25, 2016

The city program charged with cleaning up hundreds of thousands of cigarette butts tossed onto Ottawa streets every year is cumbersome and ineffective, according to the Bank Street BIA.

And a city councillor agrees, saying it's likely time for a change.In spite of the fact there are fewer smokers these days — and that a growing number of them are smoking paperless e-cigarettes — the waste from traditional cigarette butts is staggering.

Of the 2.6 million butts generated daily in Ottawa, city staff estimate about 780,000 of them end up littered on the ground every day.

uOttawa to seek ways to ‘shift’ fossil fuel investments; rejects full divestment

Ottawa Citizen

By Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen, April 26, 2016

The University of Ottawa Board of Governors voted Monday to try to ‘shift’ the school’s investments in fossil fuel industries, but stopped short of full divestment as many campus activists had pushed it to do.

“We are reducing the carbon footprint of our entire investment portfolio by at least 30 per cent by 2030 – in line with Canada’s national climate commitment,” chairman Robert Giroux said in a statement released Monday evening. “This will reduce far more greenhouse gases (GHGs) than divesting from fossil fuel companies. Solving this problem will require reducing carbon emissions across the whole economy.”

Kemsley: Why I like to drive for Uber

Ottawa Citizen

By Hilary Kemsley, Ottawa Citizen, April 23, 2016

Ottawa city council’s Uber debate leans in the direction of taxi-like regulation. Users and Uber drivers have been ignored and forgotten. The costs concomitant with regulation will downgrade the quality of life of Ottawa’s most vulnerable — new Canadians, students and people hovering around the poverty line.

I am an Uber driver. I know.