Infill Housing #11

Some day I will write something positive, something uplifting ....but not today.

It's official now. January 2019 is the snowiest on record for Ottawa, with 97 centimetres,  as of yesterday. It's impossible for city crews to keep up with the situation. Driving conditions are the worst I have ever seen. Many streets are simply impassible, with only one lane. Some are like cow paths with two wiggly ruts down the street. There's nowhere to park. Short drives have to be carefully planned out, to avoid getting stuck. It didn't snow today but it was cold and windy; about -24 with the windchill.

As I have mentioned before, Ottawa used to have a holiday from construction. Truck drivers would haul snow to the snow dump, not dirt. However, this is 2019, the era of extreme greed, so no time is wasted.
As the sun rose on Kenora Street this morning, this is what greeted us.

Today was the day they chose to backfill the construction site on our block.

So, in addition to the narrow street, lined with snowbanks, we had huge trucks blocking our way for most of the day.

The sidewalk plows are also missing in action.  

In the late afternoon I  set out for the nearby residential neighbourhood of Champlain Park. I had to alter my route because of a school bus, stuck in a snowbank. At one point I came to a corner and couldn't turn right or left because of a huge truck and trailer blocking both directions. My only option was to continue along the street, following this excavator as it rumbled along to its next conquest.

This city,  this area, is a madhouse today. As our neighbour said tonight, "With this cold, snow and extreme traffic challenges, you just want to stay inside. " 

Tomorrow is January 31st. Besides being our regular garbage day (Pity those poor drivers),   I suspect it is moving day for the new infill house across from us. That's what we need here - moving trucks!

Infill Housing #10

So, it's a truly wintry day here in Ottawa. This morning it was -38 with the windchill. Frostbite warnings were heard all morning on the radio. And yet, this morning there were guys working at the construction site on our street. Can you imagine having to work in these temperatures?

We were out of town last Friday so we missed the parade of cement trucks all day long, pouring the walls for the "linked" doubles.  In an effort to protect the cement from the approaching weekend snowstorm, the cement was covered in tarps.

On Sunday evening, while sitting in our living room, I kept hearing a strange sound. It was intermittent and resembled fireworks. I finally realized the sounds were coming from the construction site. Strong wind gusts were whipping the plastic tarps around. Here's what the site looks like today.

Yes, someone is going to pay well over a million dollars, for each of these places, built in these conditions!

Infill Housing #9

Happy New Year ! ?   on Kenora Street

Sorry, but this will be a very grinch-like post.

71 Kenora - All the work is on the inside now and the new owners will move in later this month. In the spring we'll have to deal with the asphalt pebbles scattered through our lawn, from the sidewalk plows, as they go over the rough patch from the gas line hook up. However, compared to what is happening up the street, the new single house across from us, is looking better all the time.


79 Kenora -

Demolition of this house took place on November 21st and excavation for the new dwellings ( a "linked double") quickly commenced.  I had a conversation with our councillor and voiced my concerns about the size and placement of the hole. He assured me that most of the time, when officials go out to inspect these infill digs, the contractors are digging according to their approved building permit. So, I came away from that conversation feeling that there was nothing to be done; I just had to just accept the fact that these huge doubles were going up.

So, we were pretty surprised to see this stop work order posted to the fence outside the property on November 30th.

Basically, the excavation and construction at 79 was found to be damaging the adjacent property, at 91. The ironic thing is that it is an infill house that has halted the progress of this latest infill project.

Here are a couple of photos of the original place at 91.  This was taken in April of 2011, just before it was torn down. It's in the middle of a hill but when I look back at this now, it really wasn't  a lot higher than the lovely yellow place at 79.

I'm not sure of the technical term but I assume that there was a lot of fill put into that lot. They seem to have raised the level of the property, because it certainly did tower over the lovely yellow house. There are new owners now. The couple that built it, ("We'll build something in keeping with the character of the street.") sold it, soon after the required time period for avoiding capital gains tax. As you can see from this side view, it's immense.

So basically, the workers at 79 dug too close to 91, causing damage to the walkway beside their house. Now they've got to brace and shore it up. These photos were taken on December 3rd.

What doesn't seem to concern current builders is that we live in Ottawa, a city with considerable winter snow and ice. While speaking to a construction worker one day, I asked about  building in those conditions and he said there is never any down time now. Years ago, they would have a break in the winter, but today's houses are built in any and all weather. Again, I'm no expert, but I'm guessing that houses built in dry conditions will probably fare better than houses built in rain, snow and ice. All that particle board getting wet? However as the saying goes, "time is money," so they build non-stop, to optimize their profits.  If this builder really cared about building a better quality dwelling, he could have rented the lovely yellow house until the spring. Instead he is now trying to repair  damage in lousy weather conditions.

This photo from December 20th shows the retaining wall they built. I think they call this shutting the barn door after the horse is out.

However, as I said, this is Ottawa in winter. The wall didn't last long. I took these photos on December 22nd, after a really rainy day. The rain quickly froze.

You can see the erosion of the soil. 

The site looked more like a swimming pool than a construction site. 

And the house beside this mess, #77, the one on the right side of this photo? I'm so upset about that one, I can't even write about it yet. It sold quickly.

I'll close with a quote from an engineer who told me that "All the houses around here were only ever meant to last about 60 years." He said that to me after I lamented the loss of 79. He stated that all our houses were not built according to today's standards and codes and basically he doesn't have a problem with all of them being replaced. With the current atmosphere, I'm afraid that's what's going to happen. All the houses in our area are going to be knocked down because builders like him can come along and build doubles and sell them for an obscene profit. As far as his opinion about houses having a sixty year life span - what about Europe? How long do people there live in their houses? We all go to Europe to marvel at buildings that are hundreds of years old.

This neighbourhood, which people are attracted to, for its old fashioned character, is disappearing. We made a conscious choice, thirty years ago, not to buy a bigger, cheaper house in the suburbs. Now the suburbs are coming to us, whether we want them or not.