Here’s a good column by Jonathan McLeod that appeared in the Citizen on Saturday. (Of course, we all know that Stittsville is already a great neighbourhood!) Here’s an excerpt:
And though residential development along Stittsville Main Street has grown at a slower pace than the rest of the area, the CDP seeks to have more and more people living there, including some affordable housing, helping to create a demographically-rich community. With proper attention to various modes of transportation (a focus on walking and bicycling, while also leveraging the city’s transit system), it will be easier for more and more people to make a life in Stittsville, and make a living without leaving.
The point is to create a suburban village. It is not to turn Stittsville into Hintonburg. At its core, this is a village with a suburb growing up around it. The new CDP builds off this foundation, further enhancing the daily life of residents.
In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs likens the seeming chaos and disorder of the daily life of a thriving city street to “…an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole.”
The city cannot force people to dance, but with the right planning, we can set the stage for a wonderful show.
Read the full column, or read our previous coverage of the Stittsville Main Street Community Design Plan (CDP).
The Stittsville Main Street CDP and accompanying Official Plan and zoning bylaw amendments will be presented at the City of Ottawa’s planning committee meeting on July 7. If they’re approved, city council would vote on the plan on August 26.
The CDP was approved at this week’s Planning Committee meeting. Next step is to get full council approval at the next city council meeting at the end of August.