Infill Housing #16

Our summer of construction was actually a little quieter than expected. That's because the planned renovation at Elmdale School has not started yet. For families affected by the relocation to a distant school, this delay is a major disappointment. Although I'm very weary of the construction in our area, it seems a shame that project has missed out on Ottawa's best months for working outside.

However,  here on Kenora Street it was business as usual. Most days there were maybe ten or twelve trucks and pieces of construction equipment parked up and down the street.

A typical summer day. On the right is the landscaping job at #73. The street is blocked off because of the work at #79.

This view of the commotion at #79 shows the tree at #77. That's the tree that we'd love to save, but we'll probably be told it is too damaged to keep. It looks pretty healthy to us and hides a multitude of sins.

Many days we felt trapped in our own home. It would have been pleasant to sit or perhaps even nap on the verandah, on those perfect summer days. However, we often stayed inside, with the windows closed, become of the ongoing construction chaos. It's not that they tore down the next two houses, slated for demolition this summer. No, instead we endured the exceedingly slow progress of the two projects at #79 and #73.

It's hard to say which aspect of living in a construction zone that I mind the most:

1. the hassle of having large vehicles all over the street, often blocking driveways,
2. the dust and dirt that blows everywhere
3. the workers who sometimes leave garbage around
4. the cement that was allowed to flow down our street
5. the NOISE !

I'd have to say it's the noise. That's the worst. There are different noises every day. As I write this, someone is loading heavy metal objects into a truck, resulting in loud, jarring, clanging  smashes.
Believe me, if there is a noisy way to do something, these guys will do it. Remember the old days when you would shovel dirt into a wheelbarrow? Gone. Now you have to listen to a mini excavator that beeps constantly, as it scrapes across the pavement to load the wheelbarrow, one painstaking load at a time.

The absolute worst day of the summer was the day we endured this particular procedure. Workers parked their vehicle on the lawn of the lovely house (#77) awaiting demolition and ran a hose out to the backyard. When asked, they told me they were removing fill from the back yard at 79. This was accomplished, not with your old fashioned digging but by sucking the dirt out with this truck/hose contraption. The noise was horrific, absolutely horrific. Inside our house, with all the windows closed, you could not hear yourself think. It went on all day long.

The house across from us (#73) has been under construction since May of 2018. It is their landscaping that dragged on so long. It wasn't the owners' fault. There were problems with the wrong materials being ordered, a change in design for the back yard etc. For most of the summer we looked at this.

The landscaping was finally finished sometime in September. Last week there was a cement truck and other equipment there, to repair the sidewalk in front of the house. They have replaced a couple of sections of sidewalk but there are more damaged sections to be replaced. Apparently developers have to pay for the sidewalk sections that they damage.  The city will be back to replace the other sections at a later date.

With the landscaping finally complete at # 73, we can be thankful that project is finished. However the doubles at #79 are nowhere near the finish line. There are always trucks there, with workers coming and going.

Here's the worst thought of all. There is no end in sight. Even when they finally finish # 79, we have two other properties on our block to go through the same horrible process.