Weekly newsletter: March 18, 2025
Greetings!
The beautiful cakes above were from an International Women’s Day event I attended two weeks ago at Carmelito Café, one of my favourite spots in the ward.
Interim property tax bills are due this Thursday, March 20. Property taxes may also be paid at a client service centre (eg. Ben Franklin Place, City Hall), online, or by mail. More information at Ottawa.ca↗.
Online payments by credit/debit include a 1.99 per cent service charge, which goes to Paymentus, the City’s online payment vendor. To avoid the charge, consider paying through your banking app instead.
Vacant unit tax declarations are also due on Thursday. Declarations may be completed online through ServiceOttawa, at Ottawa.ca/VUT↗, at a client service centre, or by calling 613-580-2444.
Chapman Mills and St. Emily school traffic
Addressing traffic concerns, especially at afternoon pick-up.
March Break provided some reprieve for parents, children, and nearby residents from school traffic, especially at afternoon pick-up.
While traffic issues happen at every school, I seem to have received the most feedback about Chapman Mills Public School and St. Emily Catholic School.
Interestingly, both schools are located in the same neighbourhood and have similar attendance boundaries that stretch south of the Jock River.
Both schools’ attendance areas are divided by the Jock River, which means children south of the river in Stonebridge have a physical barrier that significantly extends walking distances, not helped by the province’s recent changes to student transportation distances.
Unlike morning drop-off, where parents quickly come and go without much waiting, afternoon pick-up happens all at once, with many parents arriving early and parking on surrounding streets while they wait.
These issues are exacerbated by resource availability by both the police and by-law, and after major snowfalls before snow clearing or snowbank removal.
Feedback I have received ranges from vehicles not observing Highway Traffic Act regulations, like u-turning where prohibited and blocking traffic lanes by double parking, to by-law regulations, like parking where prohibited.
Much of the feedback also acknowledges most vehicles do take care to be safe and observe rules and posted signage, but there is a small percentage of vehicles that don’t.
I have met the Principals at both schools to discuss the ongoing issues. I believe both have exhausted the tools available to them. School administration have communicated reminders about safety at pick-up through their newsletters, while staff on site have also shared reminders in person, with varying results.
In the coming days, I will meet with our Community Police Officer and by-law to discuss the realm of possibilities to chip away at the issues. Though I’m not allowed to direct either of their operations, these conversations often lead to a team effort in trying to pull something together to address different issues.
Honestly, I think school traffic issues will never completely disappear, but it can be properly managed to mitigate concerns and prevent the worst from happening.
Greenbank Road realignment information session
Public information session at 6:45 pm on Thursday March 20 at the Nepean Sportsplex (postponed from February 13).
First proposed in the mid-2000s, the Greenbank Road realignment is a major road and water infrastructure project to serve the communities of Half Moon Bay and Quinn’s Pointe, which have rapidly grown since then.
Along with an expansion of the roadway to four lanes, Greenbank will be realigned to diverge west from its present-day alignment south of Jockvale Road, over a new bridge crossing the Jock River, through a new alignment south of the river, and end at Barnsdale Road about 750 metres west of the present-day Greenbank/Barnsdale intersection.
It will include median bus lanes (or at least space provisioned for it) and pathways.
In addition to the road project, new water infrastructure will be laid to add capacity and provide service redundancy to communities south of the Jock River. Currently, the entire Half Moon Bay and Quinn’s Pointe communities are served by one watermain under Longfields Drive.
Although the project is wholly in Barrhaven West, it will be an overall improvement to the capacity of the local road network.
Currently, the estimated timeline of phased construction starts in 2026 and will happen over multiple years, but final timelines may change as the project progresses.
Residents are invited to a public information session the evening of Thursday March 20 at the Nepean Sportsplex, Halls A and B. Doors open at 6:45 pm, with a short presentation beginning at 7:00 pm. Hope to see you there!
More information about the project, including drawings and results of previous public engagement, is available at Ottawa.ca↗.
Future complementing projects include the extension of Chapman Mills Drive and a new interchange at 416/Barnsdale, details of which will become available as they progress.
Seeking your feedback – lawn lights
A uniquely Nepean feature, with an important function in subdivisions approved before amalgamation. The house in the photo is not in Nepean (to avoid featuring an unsuspecting resident’s home).
Most subdivisions in the ward approved before amalgamation in 2001 have a common feature — lawn lights.
Not only are they an ornamental feature on front lawns across about two-thirds of the ward, but they also double as street lighting on inner residential streets built without streetlighting by the former City. A few streets have porch lights that stay on instead of lawn lights.
With proper streetlighting on collector streets only and by using marker lighting (corners and intersections) on residential streets, the former city of Nepean reduced its streetlighting-related costs.
One area (Grovehurst, Karendale, southern end of Oldfield, and Woodson) fell through the cracks of amalgamation and was approved by Nepean without streetlighting but had no lawn lights installed by Ottawa.
Back in October, a resident raised an interesting question: what requirements exist to 1) maintain the lights in working order, and 2) keep the light installed.
The former City of Nepean’s Property Standards By-law required lawn lights to remain installed and kept in good working order. Of course, that by-law no longer applies.
(Fun fact, the current Director of By-law Services started out as a Nepean By-law Officer!)
Since amalgamation, Ottawa’s Property Standards By-law requires electrical components to be kept in good working order, but there is no language requiring lawn lights to remain installed. That means while by-law can issue repair orders, they currently have no authority to issue orders to replace lawn lights that are removed.
Proper streetlighting is incredibly expensive to install, so it’s not something I’m pursuing right now. Also, since new streetlighting is budgeted into major infrastructure projects or new subdivision construction, there’s has been no budget for new streetlighting until this year (which is why it’s so challenging to address pathway lighting requests).
So, this had me thinking… Should our Property Standards By-law be amended to require lawn lights remain installed, considering they provide important streetlighting to the inner residential streets?
Such a by-law would likely come with a grandfather clause for residents who have already removed their lawn lights, and I feel it would be fairly easy to enforce, at least on the surface.
However, it does add even more administrative control over how a homeowner maintains their property, but at the same time, the lawn light requirement did exist before under Nepean.
I haven’t observed a trend of lawn lights being removed and residential streets going dark, so it’s far from a pressing matter, but it could become something to consider as our neighbourhoods age and residents retrofit their properties.
What do you think?
That’s all for this week. Spring officially begins on Thursday, but I hope it actually begins soon.
Take care!
-Wilson