The following notice prepared by the Stage 2 team will be mailed to residents who will be most affected by the addition of berms in Connaught Park.
In spring 2020, the consortium Kiewit-Eurovia-Vinci (KEV), the contractor building the Stage 2 LRT project for the City of Ottawa, initiated a proposal to build enhanced land berms on NCC property in the area of Connaught Park. Their proposal was presented to the Queensway Terrace North community in early spring. In August, however, KEV withdrew their proposal for the enhanced berms in Connaught Park.
Having heard from the Ward Councillor and community’s level of interest in the enhanced berms, the City decided to pursue a new plan for enhanced berming within Connaught Park.
The City of Ottawa’s Rail Construction Program Office (RCP) is now leading this initiative and has re-evaluated the timelines for the project. While it was initially suggested that the berms needed to be completed quickly, the timeline has been re-assessed and now includes time for public engagement in design, with construction planned for 2022.
We have received a great deal of feedback both through KEV’s original consultation process and to the City directly about the importance of the berms to provide visual mitigation of the LRT system, and also on the importance of pathway connections, maintaining existing trees and adequate drainage swales, lighting, recreational uses, and other topics. In order to ensure all of this feedback as well as input from landscape architects, utilities and other technical experts are considered in an updated design, the City is forming advisory committees for this project.
The first advisory committee is an internal Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) . TACs are opportunities for various City departments and services to provide input on proposed designs. These contributions help ensure that designs that are shared with the public during consultations have already addressed technical concerns about underground utilities, maintenance, etc.
The second is an external Public Advisory Committee (PAC) which will convene in early December, with a second meeting to take place in early 2021. PACs are smaller meetings comprised of representatives of communities, interest groups and associations who will review the proposed designs, provide comments and concerns to be addressed in updates. Members of the PAC will in turn relay what they learn to the groups they represent.
It is the work undertaken at both of these meetings that will help direct the design process; the TACs and PACs will continue into 2021 as required. Once the design has been finalized, photo-realistic renderings of the various berms and their view will be developed. At this point there will also be a Public Information Session, where the City will present the new designs and renderings, discuss how we landed on them, and outline the next steps and timelines for construction.
Members of the public with questions or wishing to comment on the current working design for the berm are welcome at any time to write to the City at stage2@Ottawa.ca.
