INNES-WALKLEY-HUNT CLUB CONNECTION ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

INNES-WALKLEY-HUNT CLUB CONNECTION ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT – STUDY RECOMMENDATIONS

ÉVALUATION ENVIRONNEMENTALE DE LA VOIE DE RACCORDEMENT INNES-WALKLEY-HUNT CLUB - RECOMMANDATIONS DE L’ÉTUDE

ACS2007-PTE-POL-0070 Innes (2), Gloucester-Southgate (10)

Appearing before Committee to give a PowerPoint Presentation and to answer questions on the aforementioned item were the following:

· Nancy Schepers, Deputy City Manager, Planning, Transit and the Environment (PTE)

· Vivi Chi, Manager, Transportation & Infrastructure Planning, PTE

· Peter Steacy, Program Manager, Transportation & Infrastructure Planning, PTE

· Steve Taylor and Chris Gordon - NCE/Genivar, Project Consultants

· Phil Pawliuk, Area Engineer, Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO), Study Partner with the City for this project

· François Cyr, National Capital Commission (NCC).

Following an introduction by Mr. Steacy, the project consultants gave a detailed PowerPoint Presentation on the aforementioned environmental assessment (EA) Study, copy of which is on file with the City Clerk.

Mr. Steacy noted staff worked very closely with the NCC, a key stakeholder in this project to bring forward the recommendations of this study and a recommended plan that staff feels would strengthen an effective balance addressing the mobility needs of the City’s growing community between the eastern and southern sectors and respecting the unique and natural social features of the surrounding landscape within which this project lies. He also noted this study dates back to the former Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton days. It was identified in the 1997 Regional Official Plan and Transportation Master Plan and this undertaking is to address the vehicular travel demand between the eastern and southern sectors.

Mr. Taylor started his presentation by providing some clarification on NCE/Genivar corporate changes. In July, NCE changed ownership and became part of the Genivar Group, a large Canadian based consulting engineering firm and NCE is going to become the transportation group for that company in Ontario. He is quite proud that NCE Ottawa will become the centre of excellence for Ontario marketplace for transportation.

Mr. Gordon then began the presentation by outlining a brief introduction of the study and generally describing the need that was identified throughout the course of the study for future transportation infrastructure. Mr. Taylor then discussed the EA process, the recommended plan, consultation activities undertaken throughout the exercise and the couple of the next steps for the EA as well as future steps.

After the presentation, the Committee heard from the following delegation:

Eric Dormer, Hunt Club Park Community Association, speaking in favour of the report recommendations, made the following comments:

· Hunt Club Park is the community that is on the very corner of Hunt Club Road East and the “T” junction with Hawthorne Road. It is the very south-eastern corner of the old City of Ottawa before amalgamation.

· The extension of Hunt Club Road East out to the 417 will have a direct impact on the Hunt Club Park community.

· Every summer, the intersection at Walkley Road and Hawthorne Road has to be resurfaced because of the number of 18-wheelers that make the 90-degree turn on to and off of Hawthorne Road, which literally dig up and chew out the asphalt on that road.

· The number of trucks will continue to increase.

· The original plan for the 417 was to have it come into Hunt Club Road that would become the ring road to take those vehicles out into the heavy industry park located beside the Hunt Club Park Community.

· The proposed road/extension would help with those 18-wheelers coming from and to Montreal, from the other end of the City into the heavy industry park and reduce the traffic at Walkley Road.

· Outside of this study, the Province has approved a garbage compacting facility on Hawthorne Road, which would be taking, at peak volume, 80 local garbage trucks driving through the building, dumping their loads on the ground, and front-end loaders would re-load them into compacters; the compacted garbage would then be put into 45-foot trailers to be taken over to the Trail Road dumpsite.

· His Association is in full support of the garbage compacting facility but it would be one more example of increased heavy vehicle traffic on that roadway.

· The expansion at the bottom would help to get in and out of the community.

· Proper sound attenuation would help the community to deal with the heavy traffic.

Councillor Legendre was surprised me to hear the delegation’s statement about the chewing up of Walkley/Hawthorne and its need for repair every year. He asked that Public Works and Services Department Staff be contacted in order to confirm the situation for him before the end of the meeting.

Councillor Deans asked the delegation to comment on the fact that the report does not address sound attenuation. Mr. Dormer replied that, in his particular part of the road, there will be more traffic coming down from the east end of the City directly to his end of the City, however right now, because the traffic cannot get through any other way to go to the south end, it is eventually getting down to Hunt Club. It may increase somewhat on the very east end, however most of that traffic is now coming down on either Innes Road, the 417, St. Laurent Blvd., through that area and getting to Hunt Club Road if they have to get into that area or they are traversing across their part over to Bank Street. There may be some additional traffic but he personally does not think it is going to be enough because it is already busy now. It is almost bumper-to-bumper as it goes down Hunt Club Road at peak hours. He believes an increased speed to get more traffic through or a road widening for some parts of Hunt Club Road would be required as anticipated in the Transportation Master Plan.

In response to questions from Councillors Doucet, the following clarifications were provided:

· This extension would serve the entire east urban community, who would choose to travel to the west and south. It will serve people, who are currently using two routes - Innes Road to the 417 and through the greenbelt. 1,500 cars would end up taking this route in the north end and down to about 1,000 in the south end because some will siphon off at Walkley Road, that assumes 41% modal split above the existing 33% modal split crossing the Greens Creek.

· The project would cost approximately $100 million including the Ministry of Transportation’s component of the project.

· It is premature to determine how much MTO would fund. There will be discussion on partnership and funding once approvals are in place.

· Should MTO participate in a partnership with the City, it would be likely on the interchange component and not the roadway component.

· As indicated on Page 4 of the Report, it would cost the City $23M in Phase I and $19M in Phase II for the Highway 417 Interchange; therefore $42M of the $100M is associated with the Interchange.

· As part of the EA process, it was required to look at alternative planning solutions.

· The conclusion from the study was a variety of solutions including transit and road capacity to serve the population employment that is forecasted in that area would be needed.

· The alternative solutions are listed on Page 13 of the Report.

Councillor Doucet asked that staff provide to him for discussion during budget deliberations the costs of this roadway, the Rockland extension, the Carleton Place HWY 7 construction, and how many people all those serve, as well as for boulevard des allumettes in Hull. With that information, he wants to prove that spending half a billion dollars to serve about 50,000 is outrageous. He expressed dissatisfaction and advised that he is not voting in favour of this, and is going to debate this at Council.

In response to questions from Councillor Bloess, the following clarifications were provided:

· Federal Government approval is necessary because of Federal lands requirement.

· Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ (DFO) approval would also be required.

· There will be some small land requirements for Phase I because land previously acquired has been varied.

· NCC Staff has indicated that they do not have a problem with Phase I of the project. However, Phase II would require more liaisons with the NCC because again it is not in the Greenbelt Master Plan (GMP) but this is going to be a planning tool that the City will have in place as the NCC comes up to review the GMP.

· Design and fulfillment of the Federal approvals requirement for the Phase I project is included in the 2008 Budget.

· The Federal approval will all be tied into the detailed design process because they do have to review the detailed design as part of the screening for Federal review. For a project of this nature, the design phase would take 18 months to 2 years to fill.

· The final Federal approvals would be down to details; they would not sign off for the fisheries work, and for the Federal EA until they actually have working drawings that get down to the square metres of what the compensation is going to be.

· The big picture - acceptance of the Phase I project is in place with the completion of this project.

· To have money on the table in 2009 would be very nice but realistically the construction tender and the start probably would not happen until early 2010.

· City budget approval and Federal approval would happen in parallel.

· There is no funds identified in MTO 5-year program for this interchange, but plans do change from year to year. Once the EA and Federal approvals are in place, funding discussions would begin.

· As soon as the application for Federal approval is submitted, NCC will look at it and depending if the exact location, and land negotiations are agreed upon, they will move ahead with approvals, modifications to the GMP, NCC Board approval and transaction approval. The 18-month timeframe specified by staff seems to be reasonable.

· NCC’s concerns relate to the entire project but mainly on Phase II.

· Funding has not been part of the picture for NCC because this is not NCC parkway but a City arterial road, therefore it is not in their plan to either fund or partially fund that project.

· Noise levels on Hunt Club Road west of Hawthorne Road were investigated as part of this study. The resultant noise level changes experienced by receivers adjacent to Hunt Club Road will be less than 1 dBA. Changes of this magnitude will be imperceptible to the average human ear. Based on the MTO and City of Ottawa Noise guidelines, no mitigation is recommended.

· Sound level changes in the corridor are going to be associated with growth in the community. Sound levels will generally rise as traffic volumes increase but it would not be substantial from a sound perspective because only a huge change of traffic lines on existing road would have a significant or perceptible change in sound levels. The increase would be modest.

Responding to questions from Councillor Legendre, the following clarifications were provided:

· There is some resurfacing required at the Walkley/Hawthorne Intersection annually due to heavy vehicle traffic, and staff would provide more detailed information on this matter to the Councillor.

· There is no parkway in the NCR Plan for Innes/Walkley/Hunt Club parkway. Although in the past NCC did provide funding for this type of projects, it has not done so over the last few years, however fundings were directed more towards repairing existing parkways. Funding of this project would have to come from the Federal and Provincial Governments, not the NCC.

· 87%, or more, of this project would be on NCC land. Any part of the project involving NCC land would require Federal land approval, including the portion in Phase I.

· NCC did not agree with the six lanes north of Hunt Club mentioned in the Greenbelt Master Plan along the 417-east corridor for the Innes/Walkley/Blair connection during past discussions between NCC and RMOC.

· The estimated costs for the second Highway Interchange in Phase II is for the second half of Hunt Club; the interchange would have to be expanded to build the lanes to widen the bridge.

In response to Councillor Cullen’s questions, Deputy City Manager Schepers and Mr. Taylor confirmed the following:

· Although this project would look like an NCC parkway going through the greenbelt, negotiations are being held MTO in terms of the interchange and there is no funding contribution expected from the NCC for this project.

· The consultant’s mandate was to get the environmental clearance for the project. The issues of future funding, cost sharing and purchases have not been part of the discussions to date.

· The estimated costs provided include land assembly and are subject to negotiations.

· Negotiations, not just with MTO, but also with NCC, would be part of the process.

In response to questions from Councillor Bédard, staff and the consultant provided the following answers:

· Statistics for growth projection were based on information available in the Official Plan at the initiation of the four-year study, not the recent census.

· The timing of this project is not being accelerated.

· Technical advice from the consultant to both the City and the Province, as clients, was that using the 417 Corridor is not a feasible option.

· NCC approval would still be required for Phase I because it involves land acquisition.

· NCC approval could be reached at the staff level because the connection to the 417 was already endorsed. It is just a matter of a readjustment of what was previously accepted.

· Phase I of this project has been set up so that there can be a Phase II.

· Phase I would be out for tender near the end of 2009. It is anticipated to take two years to build and incorporating the structural elements of the interchanges, etc. so Phase I could be open by the fall of 2011.

· The Phase II, if followed right in sequence, may take approximately another five years, but the timing is not currently identified in the long-range projections.

In response to Chair McRae’s question on traffic and its impact, Mr. Taylor explained cautiously that, if the project opens one day, there should be very little change to traffic volumes because those trips are already on the road system currently. People are choosing to travel along Hunt Club Road, Hawthorne Road to Walkley Rd and then choosing one of three routes once they get to Walkley Road, some people are going through the greenbelt to get to the eastern community, some are going up to Innes Road. As the communities, both in the east and the west, continue to grow, it is expected that the growth on this link is going to occur, but that growth would have occurred on Hunt Club Road and the existing road facilities irrespective if this link is in place. The changes are modest and the growth will occur but it was going to occur anyway if population employment is allowed to grow in those two communities.

Chair McRae asked that the above statement be recorded verbatim in the minutes so that it is not perceived that this is not creating an easier route for people to go on to Hunt Club, but rather a good project citywide.

Councillor Doucet then read the following motion that he proposed to bring forward:

WHEREAS the communities along Hunt Club Road between Hunt Club Bridge and Hawthorne Road already experience high levels of noise due to the large volume of traffic in this area.

AND WHEREAS the proposed extension of Hunt Club Road to connect with Walkley Road, Innes Road and Highway 417 will create an increased volume of traffic resulting in even higher noise levels for these existing communities.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT as a condition of Phase I approval, sound attenuation features will be added along the section of roadway between Hawthorne Road and the Hunt Club Bridge (Riverside Drive) where they currently do not exist. Further, where sound attenuation features are in existence, they will be retrofitted to mitigate the noise that will be produced by the increased volume of traffic projected from the extension of this roadway.

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the need for sound attenuation be evaluated during the design phase along sections of the Blackburn Bypass where measures are not currently in place.

Chair McRae also read the following two motions being proposed by Councillor Legendre:

1. That Transportation Committee recommend Council approval of a connection from Hunt Club to the 417 only at this time.

2. That Transportation Committee recommend Council that it direct staff to engage the NCC in discussion regarding their mandate for ‘parkway’ parkway style roadways in the NCR.

Discussion then ensued on the aforementioned proposed motions.

In addressing Councillor Legendre’s Motion #1, Deputy City Manager Schepers advised that this is a huge change in terms of the process in the current position. She also advised that filing this EA would allow the corridor to be protected and it would not mean that the City would be compelled to build any one piece of it at all. If Committee is concerned about the second phase, she suggested Committee direct staff, prior to proceeding with this project to come back and reconfirm, at which point an addendum could be done. She cautioned Committee with the need to respect the process, to file this now and to give direction to staff that clearly indicates the concerns.

After a lengthy debate, Councillor Legendre agreed to withdraw his first motion. The Committee then considered the following motions:

Moved by Councillor C. Doucet:

WHEREAS the communities along Hunt Club Road between Hunt Club Bridge and Hawthorne Road already experience high levels of noise due to the large volume of traffic in this area.

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the need for sound attenuation be evaluated during the design phase along sections of the Blackburn Bypass where measures are not currently in place.

CARRIED

Moved by Councillor J. Legendre

That Committee recommend to Council that it direct staff to engage the NCC in discussions regarding their mandate for ‘parkway’ style pathways in the National Capital Region.

CARRIED

The Committee then voted on the following report recommendations, as amended by the aforementioned motions:

That Transportation Committee recommend Council:

1. Receive the findings of the joint City/Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) Innes-Walkley-Hunt Club Connection Environmental Assessment Study as detailed herein;

2. Approve the Study Recommended Plan as illustrated in Documents 2(a) through 2(g) inclusive, and;

3. Direct staff to prepare the Environmental Study Report for the Innes-Walkley-Hunt Club Environmental Assessment and post it for the 30-day public review period, in accordance with the Ontario Environmental Assessment Act.

CARRIED, as amended

YEAS (6): Councillors R. Bloess, M. Wilkinson, A. Cullen, D. Thompson, C. Leadman, M. McRae

NAYS (2): Councillors L. Legendre, C. Doucet