By Derek Spalding, Ottawa Citizen, November 22, 2013
OTTAWA — City councillors on Thursday followed up on their push to create more green space by approving budget plans to invest heavily in public parks next year.
Members of the community and protective services committee approved its massive $1-billion 2014 operating budget and a $47.9-million capital budget. Both will be voted on by council later this month.
By Roberta Montpetit, Ottawa Citizen Letter to the Editor, November 22, 2013
Re: Kettle Island no solution, Nov. 20.I have been reading the letters concerning an alternate route for interprovincial truck movement with interest. I took a look at the map of the preferred route via Kettle Island and to my mind it is the one that makes most sense.
News -Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli announced on Nov. 13 at an Ottawa press conference that Ontarians will get to have their say on the proposed Energy East Pipeline.
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But doing so will not be easy, warns Ecology Ottawa\'s Ben Powless, who attended the press conference at city hall.
\"No matter how it\'s done, it\'s going to be a challenge to make sure every single community and every single voice is heard,\" said Powless. \"When TransCanada went through and did their open houses and public consultation, already very few people knew about it. They didn\'t really advertise them widely. I think that definitely needs to change.\"
For a place that can hold 17 million cubic metres of garbage, the Trail Road landfill doesn\'t smell nearly as bad as you might expect.
The city offered an up close tour of the site on Friday to show off the nitty gritty workings of the site. Garbage can\'t be piled higher than 130 metres above sea level at the dump. Right now, it measures about 109 metres.
Staff insist it’s really the gold standard of dumps, and say other cities are checking out what\'s being done in the capital. Officials from Mongolia are coming to the capital next week for that reason.
OTTAWA — OC Transpo is so mystified by how few people have signed up to have their Presto cards automatically loaded with monthly passes that it’s sending people out to the riders lined up at its kiosks for new passes to ask what they’re doing there.
One of the big selling points of the Presto “smart card” from the provincial government’s Metrolinx agency is that it can be set up to bill a user’s credit card each month for the price of a pass, or to automatically reload itself with cash when a user’s account is running low. It’s supposed to mean an end to the monthly lineups to buy new passes.
OTTAWA — Tartan Homes is getting national recognition for its track record in building energy-efficient homes.
The longtime Ottawa builder was named the new homes builder of the year this week in Natural Resources Canada’s 2013 Energy Star Market Transformation Awards.
OTTAWA — After an ugly, slow start, OC Transpo’s heavily promoted Presto fare-card system is just about up to full speed, the city’s general manager of transit John Manconi reported to the city’s transit commission this week. But a lot of niggles remain. We take a look at how Presto is performing.
The hard numbers
A+ Number of cards given out
A media tour of the Trail Road Landfill site and Plasco facility was conducted by the City of Ottawa on Friday, November 22, 2013. Plasco is the only operating commercial-scale conversion facility in the world that converts municipal solid waste into a consistent syngas that can run reciprocating gas engines to generate electricity.
OTTAWA — The city’s hopes for tall, dense neighbourhoods near its expensive light-rail stations are off to a slow start, with plans afoot to convert an old strip mall near Blair station into ... a new strip mall.The property illustrates a conflict between the city’s dreams of intensification near light-rail stations and economic reality. Shoppers City East on Ogilvie Road is at the far east end of the $2.1-billion LRT system the city now has under construction but it’s exactly the sort of place the city’s planners hope will be redeveloped for offices and condominiums. Anchored by a Shoppers Drug Mart, a Staples and a Giant Tiger, it’s surrounded by a vast parking lot. Over the years it’s had seven owners and not a lot of investment.
OTTAWA — The National Capital Commission’s board has unanimously approved a new master plan for the Greenbelt — a vision that promises to make maintaining the natural environment the No. 1 priority within the 20,600-hectare swath of forests, wetlands, farms and streams that encircles Ottawa’s urban core.
“This is a cornerstone of our planning framework,” NCC CEO Jean-François Trépanier said Wednesday as the plan was formally approved.
Canada’s poor environment record could hit energy exports, watchdog warns
Canada needs to re-evaluate and strengthen its commitment to its environmental record and policies.