at Dalhousie Community Centre, 755 Somerset Street West, Room 33

Present: John Verbaas - Chair, Action Sandy Hill; Leslie Kirk - vice-chair, Old Ottawa East Community Association; Cam Robertson, Dow’s Lake Residents Association ; Jordan Charbonneau, Centretown Citizens Association

1.       Administrative

a.       Meeting Secretary – Leslie volunteered

b.      Approval of April 28, 2011 minutes – minutes approved

2.       Alta Vista Corridor: Report on meeting with David Chernushenko/Diane Holmes (Jordan/John)

-meeting was about proposal to work together on removal of Phase 2 & 3 of AVTC from TMP    

-Jordan attended; lots of other community associations represented as well

-David lead the meeting

-David has not given up on stopping the funding in next year’s budget for Phase 1 (hospital link)

-removing Phase 2 and 3 will require a lot of political work

-Jordan did not see what the role of community associations would be in this initiative

-any traffic engineers that would like to volunteer would be very welcomed to help with technical arguments

-apparently David McGuinty is opposed to the AVTC

-the meeting did not result in clear next steps

-John followed-up with Pierre Sadik (David Chernushenko’s office); Pierre thinks that getting a committee together would be a good idea

ACTION: John to follow up with David’s office to confirm that the Councillor’s office’s support and to confirm their involvement in organizing; learn about the technical requirement to remove planned roads from TMP (hoping for guidance from Diane Holmes’ office).

-CCC discussed/brainstormed some of the best arguments against AVTC (how can Queensway/Nicholas take extra volume; effect on access road to AVTC; quality of life for Lees apartments residents; induced traffic; demonstrating that “need” for this project is less clear than projected)

3.       Mid-town (Glebe-OECA) canal pedestrian bridge update (Leslie)

-first public open house to be held June 22, 2011 at St. Paul University

4.       417 Widening: Nicholas to the split (John)

-notice of project commencement has been issued

-apparently funding for this project is in 2012 Ontario budget

-a City Finance and Environment Committee report mentioned that the acceleration of LRT depends on the widening

-there will be a study examining how the widening will affect City infrastructure

-John described the project and it is a major undertaking

5.       Other business

a.       Purchase of more O-trains: Allan Mercier mentioned buying 6 more trains and extending O’train service to Riverside South, a report will be made, CCC preliminary thoughts are that this expansion are a positive but it is in no way a substitute for North-South light rail

b.      LRT acceleration: City is speeding up the project; plan is to have preliminary design in October 2011 (5 months earlier than original plan), stations open for public viewing in Spring 2017 and operational in 2018.

-City to meet new targets by having a single contract for the design, build and maintenance

-the prerequisites to move forward are: getting regulatory approval, developing staging and routing plan, finalizing agreements with federal and provincial governments & property acquisition (81 parcels of land to be transferred none of which are residential, 27 of the parcels worth more than $1M – City manager wants to get statutory authority to sign contract up to $2M to speed up this process)

c.       Next year’s CCC leadership/format

-who will be chair, vice-chair for next year (there is a “guideline” that a Chair should not serve more than 2 consecutive terms

-get more reps from  member community associations to attend meeting

- possibility of meeting every 2^nd month

Next Meeting: Wednesday June 29, 2011 – 7pm (Dalhousie Community Ctr – Room 6)