News & Announcements

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation is hosting an information session on February 26 at St. Anthony's Banquet Hall (523 St. Anthony Street) to present its preferred options for repairing Queensway bridges from Holland Avenue east. In our ward, they'll outline plans for the Holland, Parkdale, Fairmont, Bayswater and O-Train bridges, as well as for several in Somerset ward.

Since Saturday, I've been working with city staff to deal with a few complaints about odour from sewer lining work getting into residents' homes. This morning, the City distributed the following note to the affected areas, with contact info if you have concerns. Of course, you can always contact me as well at jeff.leiper@ottawa.ca. The work has been stopped, and I am looking forward to finding out and reporting back to you why this has happened.

Notice to owner/resident

Sewer Repair and Rehabilitation Work

Contract No. ISD13-3007

Tomorrow at Planning Committee, we’ll consider approval of the Richcraft proposal for the Dow Honda site on Carling Avenue.

As part of the process, City staff have prepared a report that recommends approval of the building. In that report, staff have referred to a recommendation made by the developer to consider extending Sherwood Avenue through the Queen Juliana Park to Prince of Wales Drive.

We received the update below from our snow crews a little bit ago. However you're getting to work or school, take care!

Road conditions are in good shape this morning. Salt trucks and plows will continue to clean up the areas where snow removal took place, the road conditions are mostly wet.

Priority and residential sidewalks have been opened up over night. Our day shift will be going over all sidewalk beats again to clean them up and apply salt and or abrasives.

We received the update from the snow crews below with respect to snow ploughing on roads and sidewalks. Take care walking, cycling or driving out there! Want more info on snow maintenance? Visit http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/transportation-and-parking/road-and-sidewalk-maintenance/snow-removal-and-disposal.

Thank you to everyone who came to the inaugural Kitchissippi Forum on January 17 2015. It was a great Saturday and lovely to see many in the community come and join in discussions. After the forum, Jeff and the team received really great feedback about how we can adapt the forum for next quarter and we will certainly take this into account.

It's time to start working on safer streets in Kitchissippi.

One of the key issues I heard about during the campaign was the prevalence of traffic safety issues in the ward. The ward email box is filled with requests to help with dangerous intersections, very fast/high-volume cut-through traffic on residential streets and near schools, and other issues of pedestrian and cycling safety.

Since nearly the instant I won last fall’s election, pedestrian and cyclist safety has been a constant refrain in the emails and phone calls we’ve gotten. Everyone has a story about an unsafe intersection, a fast street, a dangerous sidewalk.

We’re very close to hiring a coordinator on contract to begin helping us inventory all the problems, but one of the underlying issues I heard over and over at the door was the unsafe speeds at which cars travel in residential neighbourhoods.

Here are the current applications for variances and divisions being heard at the February 18th Committee of Adjustment.  Please contact Jeff at Jeff.Leiper@ottawa.ca with any questions or concerns you may have.

One of the common themes that I and other Councillors heard at the door past election was an appetite for greater resident input into shaping the budget. In response, Councillors McKenney, Nussbaum, Fleury, Chernushenko and I have engaged Citizen's Academy to lead an interactive discussion that explores the City's budgeting process. We anticipate that it will help residents identify their priorities, consider trade-offs, and gain awareness into the budget-making process.