New Plans for Ottawa's Future Lees LRT Station

Construction of Ottawa's Light Rapid Transit (LRT) is well under-way.  After years and years, heck almost a decade of debates and analysis, the question has changed from "Will the LRT ever be built?" to "When will the LRT be ready?".  According to the Light Rail's official website, the answer is June 2017 (for the stations in and close to downtown Ottawa.

In anticipation of this new rapid public transit system, the city is starting to look at the areas immediately around the 13 different stations.  In one of my past blog posts (which you can read here), I referred to a study conducted by Don Campbell from REIN (Real Estate Investment Network) where it was noted that the properties within 500 m of transit stations saw increase in both equity growth and potential rental earnings.  It's fairly simple to conclude why - being close to a major public transit station is important to a lot of people, especially those that don't have or want a car and/or those who are looking to cut down on transportation costs.  So it's no surprise that the city planning department is focusing on these areas to allow for higher density zoning to prepare for and increase the number of potential LRT-riders.  We have already seen it happen at Dow's Lake (I should clarify: Dow's Lake isn't near one of the future LRT stations, but it is next to the O-Train's Carling station.  The O-Train and LRT will intersect a few minutes north of the Carling station at the Bayview station) and we have seen higher density building be approved downtown near the Downtown East & West stations.  According to a recent article in the Ottawa Citizen (which can be read here), Ottawa's planning department is looking at the area around the Lees stations - this is already a fairly high density area; Lees station will be just outside of the University of Ottawa's campus, not far from some of the taller apartment buildings in Ottawa and a lot of student housing.  Despite that area already having high density zoning, the new proposed City plan for that area calls for 20-, 30- and even 45-storey buildings.  Councilor David Chernushenko, whose Captial ward includes the Lees station, has raised concerns about the increased crime and over-all appearance that this plan may bring and would prefer to see 8-storey buildings instead.  The City's planning department will be presenting it's final plan for that area in November 2013.

Thanks for reading.

Taylor Bennett
Sales Representative - Bennett Pros 
www.BennettPros.com
Taylor@bennettpros.com
@OttawaTails