5.0 Greenspace Network Strategy

As shown in Section 3.2, Area Statistics, the Ottawa River Parkway plays a vital role in the provision of open space for the community. With a total area of 70.6 hectares, the corridor accounts for 80% of the total green space in the planning area. This corridor is also within 400 metres of most residents, one of the guiding principles of the Official Plan.

Although the Ottawa River Parkway constitutes a valuable amenity for area residents, it does not replace the adequate provision of parks and green spaces at the neighbourhood level. As the population of the planning area increases in the future, consistent with the intensification policies of the Official Plan, it will become important to preserve, improve and add to, where possible, all available green spaces, whether or not they are City-owned property. Presently the actual ratio of City-owned or leased parks to population meets the OP target as it approximates 2 hectares per 1000 individuals. However, this ratio includes Rochester Field, which is NCC-owned land. As noted in Section 3.2, the larger Ottawa West area, including Richmond Road/ Westboro, is deficient in City-owned park space.

With this context the key element of the greenspace network strategy is to take advantage of the presence of the Ottawa River Parkway and to consider Richmond Road and Byron Tramway Park as a gateway to this corridor. The Richmond Road/Byron corridor should reinforce the link between the community and the federal NCC recreational pathway system through green streets and pathway connections.

Also, as noted in Section 3.4, the City has existing policies concerning park preservation and improvement and the development of additional parkland in communities undergoing intensification. Those policies should be applied to the Richmond Road/Westboro area, including investing cash-in-lieu of parkland funds, generated by development, toward the improvement of park and recreational facilities in the planning area.

As shown on Map 8, the components of the proposed greenspace network feature:

Richmond Road/Byron Tramway Park
A restored streetscape for Richmond Road, which will become a well-defined avenue through the enhancement of Byron Tramway Park on its south side and the provision of a new, widened (where possible) and tree-lined sidewalk on its north side.

Byron Tramway Park landscaping should be enhanced with new trees and shrubs. The extension of the recreational pathway westward from Redwood to Richardson should be added to the 2007 Capital Works program of the Parks and Recreation Branch.

Atlantis-Selby and Rochester Field/Maplelawn as confirmed green space
The confirmation of all of the Rochester Field/Maplelawn parcel and the Atlantis-Selby lands as two major components of the community’s green space network and gateways to the Ottawa River Parkway. The means of confirming these sites as green space will be determined via discussions among the City, the NCC (the landowner, with federal authority for land use planning of these sites), and affected community groups as an implementation measure of this CDP.

Green Streets linking Richmond and the Ottawa River
The transformation of key local streets such as Ambleside Drive, New Orchard, Woodroffe, Lockhart, Cleary, Berkley, Kirchoffer and Lanark Avenues into green streets through tree planting, and the landscaping and provision of a two-metre sidewalk and dedicated on-road cycle-lanes or signed cycle route designation, as appropriate. Opportunities for other streetscape elements include enhanced bus stop areas, benches, shrubs, floral beds, etc.

These improvements will help create informal pedestrian/ cycling links between local parks, the community and the Ottawa River, but do not involve extending streets to Richmond Road. Together these improvements will help address the greenspace needs of a growing population resulting from the intensification proposals of the CDP.