Iraqi diplomats get first approvals for new Rockcliffe residence, Centretown embassy
By David Reevely, OTTAWA CITIZEN December 12, 2013
OTTAWA — Iraqi government plans to spruce up the country’s presence in Ottawa with both a new embassy and a new Rockcliffe residence for the ambassador got approval from the city’s committee on heritage buildings Thursday, though the residence’s future isn’t certain yet.
Iraq had previously tried to build a new house for its ambassador on the site of one it already owns: a low-slung building on Lansdowne Road in Rockcliffe that was built for grocery magnate Bertram Loeb, which had been left to rot while relations between Canada and Iraq suffered after Iraq’s 1991 invasion of Kuwait. City council rejected an attempt to tear it down and build a new one after neighbours complained and an examination found that although the house was in very bad shape, with a flooded basement, it was structurally sound and could be salvaged.
The new project is also in Rockcliffe, at the corner of Birch Avenue and Pond Street, on five empty lots that were subdivided in the 1980s but never built on. It only needs city approval because Rockcliffe Park is a “heritage district,” an area where any major building plans get a look-over lest they disrupt the overall feel of the area.
This doesn’t, said city heritage expert Lesley Collins. Rockcliffe’s character is mostly about its big trees and houses set far back on big lots, and the plan for a 1,500-square-metre building respects that by protecting the trees that have grown up on the vacant lots. “There was a real effort to do that here,” Collins told the committee. The house is to have a four-foot fence — no more than that, Collins said — and some freshly planted evergreens, too, so that, unlike now, there will be more than bare trees in the winter.
It doesn’t need any zoning or other allowances, she said: If it weren’t in Rockcliffe, it would just take a simple building permit for the Iraqis to get started.
It’s hideous, complained Steve Rogers, who lives across the street.
“It looks like a Holiday Inn Express, or a strip mall,” he said, rather than a house. Rockcliffe’s architecture is very varied but the Iraqis’ plans are way out of line. It’s “of a size and of a design that’s in no way consistent with the character of the neighbourhood.”
More importantly, he said, he and his neighbours only found out about the proposal last Friday, barely enough time even to learn about it let alone figure out what they think. He asked for the committee to put off making a decision.
Coun. Jan Harder, who chairs the committee, explained that although the law says city council only needs to vote on the plans by Feb. 11, the heritage panel needed to vote Thursday because it’s taking a long break over Christmas, and so are the city council planning committee it reports to and, indeed, city council.
So the committee voted and approved the proposal unanimously. Architect Julian Jacobs promised to see whether there’s anywhere to squeeze in more vegetation, particularly more evergreens.
The new embassy is to replace Iraq’s dilapidated mission on McLeod Street in Centretown. It sailed through a unanimous committee vote without a discussion: The Iraqis already had approval to build a previous version, a glassy version of a Mesopotamian ziggurat, and just needed agreement for design changes that include more bricks and some tweaks to the dimensions.
[email protected]
ottawacitizen.com/greaterottawa
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/...+Rockcliffe+residence/9278942/story.html
Prev
What a disappointment, after seeing the awesome glass building originally proposed.
It's not bad, actually, but it doesn't stand out like the other one does. The other one looks a lot like Frank Gehry's IAC Building in New York and would have really stood out as a unique building in Ottawa.
Linear Mode
