HALF MOON BAY CATHOLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SITE PLAN CONTROL DESIGN BRIEF

Transcription

1 HALF MOON BAY CATHOLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SITE PLAN CONTROL DESIGN BRIEF February 12, 2015 BRYDEN MARTEL ARCHITECTS INCORPORATED 1066 somerset street west, suite 200, ottawa, ontario K1Y 4T3 tel: (613)

2 Half Moon Bay Catholic Elementary School, River Mist Road, Ottawa Page i TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION The Application Submission 1.2 Response to City Planning Criteria City of Ottawa Official Plan City of Ottawa Urban Design Guidelines for Barrhaven South Zoning By-Law City of Ottawa Private Approach By-Law Context Plan Site Context Site Description SECTION The Design Proposal Site Design Traffic Design Landscape Design Building Design SUMMARY

3 Half Moon Bay Catholic Elementary School, River Mist Road, Ottawa Page 1 SECTION The Application Submission The Ottawa Catholic School Board (OCSB) is in the process of purchasing a 2.77 hectare site on River Mist Road that is situated in the Barrhaven South community. The legal description of the property is Part of Lot 8, Concession 3 (Rideau Front), Geographic Township of Nepean City of Ottawa. The OCSB intends to construct a new elementary school on the site for occupancy by August of 2016 in preparation for the school year starting in September of that year. The subject property is situated in a draft plan of subdivision submitted to the City of Ottawa by Mattamy Homes Company. The Mattamy Homes Company has agreed to the OCSB submitting a Site Plan Control application for this property. The draft plan is currently under review by the City. See the drawing below dated June 25, The proposed single-storey school building is planned to face River Mist Road and side on Des Soldats Riendeau Street. An off-road lay-by will be provided for school busses at the front of the building. A parking lot is planned for staff and visitor parking to the south of the building and this will be accessible from River Mist Road. A fenced playground, including an asphalt play area and a large landscaped area will be developed to the west of the school building. This Design Brief has been prepared on behalf of the OCSB to support an Application for Site Plan Control for development of the school site and to demonstrate how the proposed development is in conformance with:

4 Half Moon Bay Catholic Elementary School, River Mist Road, Ottawa Page 2 Policies of the City of Ottawa Official Plan City of Ottawa Urban Design Guidelines for Barrhaven South City of Ottawa Zoning By-Law City of Ottawa Private Approach By-Law 1.2 Response to City of Ottawa Planning Criteria City of Ottawa Official Plan The site is located within the General Urban Area as shown on Schedule B - Urban Policy Plan. School construction is permitted within this designation as described in Policy 1 of General Urban Area of the Official Plan. In accordance with Annex 5 of the Official Plan, the site does fall within a Community Design Plan area and this is the Barrhaven South Community Design Plan City of Ottawa Urban Design Guidelines for Barrhaven South The Barrhaven South Community Design Plan (CDP) is the Council-approved guide to the longterm growth and development of Barrhaven South. The purpose of the CDP is to create a framework for the future development of these lands, which fulfills the policy directions outlined in the City s Official Plan and sets the specific objectives for the Barrhaven South community. The CDP provides the land use concept for these lands, as well as the servicing and transportation structure for future development. The Guiding Principles in the CDP establish the qualitative framework for the Land Use Plan. They represent value statements about the kind of urban environment that is desired for the community and include the following principle that is relevant to the proposed school development: Each neighbourhood will be designed around identifiable focal points areas of interest that attract residents and become memorable landmarks within the community. These nodes will organize neighbourhoods into legible districts, and may consist of a variety of activities/ amenities, for example, schools, parks, plazas, community facilities, and entrance features. These focal points will be well distributed within the community and easily accessible from homes both on foot or bicycle. The CDP establishes design guidelines that are based on two overarching themes: 1. Development should capitalize on the abundant natural features of the site, both existing and proposed. 2. Development should create a more urban, intimate environment. These broad, community-wide considerations are then followed with design guidelines related to specific land uses including general guidelines for institutional uses. All the general guidelines provided for institutional uses and schools have been adhered to in the design of the proposed elementary school development with the exception of the part of the guideline related to the amount of glazing on street facing facades. The guideline suggests a 50% level of glazing. For educational spaces this is considered excessive for a number of sound reasons. These include the need to manage distractions for students and the unfortunate increasing need to address the security of students within institutions. Furthermore, the Ontario Building Code requirements related to building envelope design, energy conservation and sustainability

5 Half Moon Bay Catholic Elementary School, River Mist Road, Ottawa Page 3 encourage a limitation on glazing areas. The required envelope performance can be achieved with 50% glazing but the sustainability of such a move is questionable. Triple glazing would be one of the countermeasures that could be used but significant costs are involved. The level of glazing provided in the proposed design is 14.1% Zoning By-Law The subject property is currently zoned DR, Development Reserve Zone. It is however understood that the subject property will become zoned I1A which is a Subzone of the Minor Institutional Zone. The purpose of the Minor Institutional Zone is to: (1) permit a range of community uses, institutional accommodation and emergency service uses to locate in areas designated in General Urban Area or Central Area in the Official Plan; and (2) minimize the impact of these minor institutional uses located in close proximity to residential uses by ensuring that such uses are of a scale and intensity that is compatible with neighbourhood character. Schools are a permitted use within the provisions of the Zoning By-Law for the I1A Institutional Zone. The maximum building height allowed in the zone is 11 metres. The zone regulations require a minimum front, interior side and rear yard setbacks of 7.5 metres. Corner side yard setbacks are required to be 4.5 metres. Maximum allowable lot coverage is 35%. The front yard setback proposed is 11.8 metres; the corner side yard setback is 22.3 metres; the interior side yard setback is 58.8 metres; the rear yard setback is metres; the lot coverage is 16.6%. The proposed building height is 7.75 metres which is the height of the centrally located gymnasium. Part 4 of the Zoning By-Law stipulates parking, queuing and loading provisions. The proposed parking lot contains 86 parking spaces, which exceeds the requirement of the By-Law for 1.5 spaces per classroom in an elementary school, calculated as follows: Number of classrooms in the school 22 Number of portables (Possible future) 8 Total classrooms and portables 30 Total required parking spaces (1.5 x 30) 45 Total parking spaces provided 86 The parking in excess of zoning requirements is proposed based on the experience of the OCSB with actual requirements for elementary schools of this population in similar communities. In order to manage the impact of the parking the zoning bylaw allowance for reduced sizes of parking spaces has been taken advantage of in the design. One loading space has been provided. The By-Law requires one loading space for school buildings up to 4,999 square metres in area. The area of the proposed school is 4,602.2 square metres.

6 Half Moon Bay Catholic Elementary School, River Mist Road, Ottawa Page 4 The Zoning By-Law requires 1 bicycle parking space per 100 square metres in area for a school building. Therefore, the minimum number of bicycle spaces required would be 46. Forty-eight are proposed for this Site Plan Application. The development as proposed conforms to the requirements of the City of Ottawa Zoning By-Law City of Ottawa Private Approach By-Law The design of the three private approaches to the site conform to the regulations of the City s Private Approach By-Law. The Official Plan designates River Mist Road and Des Soldats Riendeau Street as a collectors. For the frontage along River Mist Road of metres the By-Law allows one two-way private approach and two one-way private approaches, or two two-way private approaches. If the frontage was 240 metres the letter of the By-law would permit the following: two two-way approaches and two one-way approaches or three two-way approaches or one two-way approach and four one-way approaches. Two two-way approaches and one one-way private approach are proposed along this frontage although the frontage is short of the 140 metres by 11 metres. The background to this proposal is as follows. Three main vehicular movements are required to be accommodated on this school site. Looking at these with reference to the time when they occur on normal school days they are. The arrival of the support and teaching staff. Conveniently located parking for this group also doubles as visitor parking during the course of the day. Support and teaching staff are the first to arrive on site and generally the last to leave in the course of the day. The second and third vehicular movements occur essentially in parallel. They are the arrival and departure of school busses and the student drop-off and pick-up activity associated with students who neither walk to the school nor use the school busses. A segregated school bus drop-off loop that accommodates 7 school busses is located off River Mist Road and is designed for one way traffic with a wide disembarking apron that is linked to the fenced playground on the west side of the building. The student drop-off area is separated from the school bus activity and is located to offer access to the South entry of the school building. If there was sufficient frontage for the school site the ideal arrangement of accesses would be as follows: 1 two-way access for staff and visitors 2 one-way accesses for school busses 1 two-way access for student drop-offs and pick-ups The proposed compromise that does not meet the letter of the Private Approach By-Law is: 1 two-way access for staff and visitors 1 one-way access for school busses 1 two-way access for school bus egress and student drop-offs and pick-ups

7 Half Moon Bay Catholic Elementary School, River Mist Road, Ottawa Page 5 This proposed compromise of combining school bus egress with the drop-off entry and exit has been found to be very workable on many school sites that the OCSB has where a similar arrangements are made use of. It should be noted that the school busses generally leave and enter at only one time in the morning and one time in the afternoon. River Mist Road is a collector road, therefore the requirements of sentence 25. (l) (ii) apply to the site. The nearest distance between a two-way private approach and any other private approach is 15 metres. The approaches on River Mist Road all meet this criteria. Also, the nearest limit of a private approach to an intersecting street line is to be no less than 18 metres. Again this requirement is satisfied. In summary the size and placement of the private approaches on the site are in general conformance with the By-Law. 1.3 Context Plan Site Context The site is located within the developing Barrhaven South community. This community is part of the South Urban Community and lies generally South of the Jock River, East of Provincial Highway 416, West of Greenbank Road and North of an irregular boundary that lies North of Barnsdale Road. The community is laid out generally in an orthogonal pattern parallel to major arterial roads, interrupted by some curvilinear streets. The proposed school site is on River Mist Road at the intersection of Des Soldats Riendeau Street. The site has no buildings directly adjacent to it at this time but housing is already in place on the North side of Des Soldats Riendeau Street opposite the school site. The nature of development to the South of the site is unknown and the draft plan of subdivision shows residential development to the West of the site and residential development coupled with a neighbourhood park to the East of the site Site Description The site is 2.77 hectares in size and is generally rectangular in shape with the long dimension oriented approximately North-South. There are no existing buildings on the site. The topography is generally sloping from the South to the North. Non-native soils appear to have been deposited on the site in mounds. The site has been subject to recent developer construction traffic and material storage and is otherwise covered with weeds and grasses. Des Soldats Riendeau Street is constructed and a short extent of River Mist Road runs South from the intersection with Des Soldats Riendeau Street. Photographs of the site and surroundings are shown below. Refer to the key plan below for photograph locations.

8 Half Moon Bay Catholic Elementary School, River Mist Road, Ottawa Page 6 A B C D E F G H I J K L M

9 Half Moon Bay Catholic Elementary School, River Mist Road, Ottawa Page 7

10 Half Moon Bay Catholic Elementary School, River Mist Road, Ottawa Page 8 SECTION The Design Proposal Site Design As depicted in the Site Plan a single storey school of 4,602.2 square metres is proposed to be located facing River Mist Road and sited against Des Soldats Riendeau Street. The building is consciously sited parallel to River Mist Road and thus is at an angel to Des Soldats Riendeau Street. The mass of the building is used to anchor and reinforce the street corner. This placement also positions the main facade of the building directly across the road from the proposed neighbourhood park on the East side of River Mist Road Traffic Design A school bus drop-off is placed off River Mist Road to accommodate the required number of school busses that will serve the school. One-way traffic is proposed for the bus drop-off from North to South. A parking lot for 83 vehicles is placed to the South of the school and is accessible from a distinct two-way access from River Mist Road. This parking area is for staff and visitors. Vehicular access is also provided to the South of the school building for a number of purposes. Three barrier-free parking spaces are located here in close proximity to the South entry to the school. This is also the location for a drop-off area. Again close proximity to a building entry is essential. Another critical function for this access point is fire department access to the building that conforms to the requirements of the Ontario Building Code. The City prohibition of establishing a double function for the school bus drop-off so that it functions as the fire lane for the building necessitates a separate location for fire department access. Lastly garbage removal activities are accommodate from this access point. Pedestrian access to the site is accommodated through sidewalk connections to the proposed sidewalks on River Mist Road and Des Soldats Riendeau Street. Crosswalks are proposed for pedestrians crossing the access to the parking lot and bus lane. Access tot he fenced play yard is gained from the South and North sides of the school It is proposed that the gates will be equipped with locks and access to the site is to be controlled by the OCSB. Bicycle parking for 48 bicycles is provided both in the front and rear of the school adjacent to sidewalk accesses to the site Landscape Design An asphalt play area is to be provided on the West side of the building, with an open grass and landscaped play area beyond. Trees are proposed to provide visual screening on the property lines adjacent to residential development. Trees are also proposed on the south side of a sand play area for shade. Street planting is understood to be the responsibility of the subdivision developer. Trees are proposed on the East, North and West sides of the main parking as visual screens. Landscaping will also be used to accentuate the main entrance of the school and to define exterior teaching areas both within the paved play area and the grassed yards for outdoor education when weather

11 Half Moon Bay Catholic Elementary School, River Mist Road, Ottawa Page 9 permits. Garden plots are planned in a separately fenced area in the yard for student instruction. An area has been reserved at the street corner of the site for the introduction of a public art feature that would act as a distinctive neighbourhood reference point. The OCSB is open to discussions regarding this. Refer to the Landscape Plan for details Building Design This elementary school is designed as a single storey building to create a strong sense of an educational community and facilitate easy internal circulation by the young occupants and any building users who rely on a fully accessible environment. Building elevations are submitted with this application for Site Plan Approval. The building is to be clad on all facades in two different clay brick colours used to break the building massing into visually separate blocks. The facades will be animated by brightly coloured bands of glazed concrete block in an pixilated pattern. The primary entrance is accented with a curvilinear flowing metal canopy that contrasts with the rectilinear character of the building massing. The gymnasium walls rise above the lower roof and are proposed to be clad in ribbed light grey coloured metal siding.

12 Half Moon Bay Catholic Elementary School, River Mist Road, Ottawa Page 10 SUMMARY The proposal for Site Plan Control complies with the City of Ottawa Official Plan, the City of Ottawa Urban Design Guidelines for Barrhaven South, the City of Ottawa Zoning By-Law, and the City of Ottawa Private Approach By-Law. The proposed development is therefore considered appropriate for the site. Prepared by: David J. Bryden B.Sc., B.Arch., OAQ, OAA, MRAIC

13 BRYDEN MARTEL ARCHITECTS INCORPORATED 1066 somerset street west, suite 200, ottawa, ontario K1Y 4T3 tel: (613)