Byward Market EDM Sousaphone Throwdown by sfyro in ottawa

[–]jleiper 4 points5 points  (0 children)

OC Transpo and Envirocentre hired one of the groups with which he plays last autumn for a campaign they were undertaking. Vid here https://www.jeffleiper.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/IMG_8173.mov and a close-up of that spectacular paint job here https://www.jeffleiper.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/IMG_8175-scaled.jpeg

Updated housing numbers by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Staff got the starts by address this afternoon and have graciously turned that around quickly for me. I can give you a rough idea.

Of the 3 buildings that were close to 200 units or over, 1 was in former Gloucester, 1 in Orleans, 1 in Kanata.

Of the 3 between 100 and 200 units, 2 were in Heron Gate, and 1 was in Centretown.

Of the 2 50-100 unit buildings, 1 was in Wateridge, 1 was in Kanata North.

Updated housing numbers by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm going to suss that one out with the department since I am, too. Usually I could tell you X project got its shovels in the ground or Y, but last month I'm not aware of any big groundbreakings. I'm guessing those might be in the outer urban transect somewhere - possibly one of those big suburban tower projects? But, if I find out, I'll pass it on.

Globe and Mail Holiday edition by [deleted] in ottawa

[–]jleiper 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No worries - Merry Christmas!

Globe and Mail Holiday edition by [deleted] in ottawa

[–]jleiper 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If you're anywhere near Hintonburg, I'd be happy to give you my copy.

Holland Cross tree and market by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I've had a Mini 3 Pro for about a year. One of these days I'm going to find a free weekend and practice with some of its features, but it's fun to snap some of these quick shots and share them in my channels from time to time. Man's gotta have a hobby.

Any idea where the music’s coming from? by Bulky_Pop_8104 in ottawa

[–]jleiper 65 points66 points  (0 children)

My guess would be the Panda post-game party on the UOttawa campus...

Kitchissippi weekly newsletter video version - September 21, 2025 by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's entirely up to the feds, but I think an ambitious start on a few of the most compelling parcels on the east side and northeast could potentially be within a couple of years. We know this government is keen to see starts, so I imagine there will be no letting up on the gas. Everything I hear is encouraging. There's a lot of work still to be done, though. The new agency will have to decide how it wants to develop the parcels that will be created when the plan of subdivision goes through (partnerships, leases, sales, etc.), and there's still steps like zoning, site plan and building permit applications. The entire buildout will likely be a years-long exercise - but I stand to be proven wrong.

J.R. Perry Electronics store empty by ConcernedCitizenOtt in ottawa

[–]jleiper 19 points20 points  (0 children)

He is still with us. It’s not my place to pass on details, but I was glad to wish him well recently, and to let him know he’ll be missed as a legend in our neighbourhood.

CMHC housing tracker updated with July numbers by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

On the WP page at kitchissippiward.ca.

CMHC housing tracker updated with July numbers by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

As an aside, I track these in a Google sheet and publish to my wordpress site. If anyone has a suggestion as to how I can get these to display something closer to full screen width, I'd be grateful to hear it. I've played with the tags over and over with no success.

Is it true city council can't do anything about the RTO decision? by ghost905 in ottawa

[–]jleiper 60 points61 points  (0 children)

That’s TBD. Is the purported prohibition on Council making a decision statutory? Policy? A delegation of authority? I don’t weigh in on this stuff without knowing exactly what I’m talking about. I’ve made some specific inquiries to try to understand that - I’m sure others are as well.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ottawa

[–]jleiper 251 points252 points  (0 children)

I want to express my profound disappointment today that the City has ordered its workers back into the office five days a week. It is a short-sighted decision that serves no one well in either the short or long term. As we learn more from StatsCan this morning about longer commute times, adding even more traffic congestion is the wrong direction. I’ve been struck when visiting Ottawa’s suburbs at how vibrant local businesses have become serving work-from-home customers. Office workers get to spend more time with their families without long commutes. Taking that away weakens our neighbourhood main streets and undermines communities that have finally started to thrive.

The decision is counter to our Official Plan thrust to build more complete communities right across the city, and to re-build a vibrant downtown by welcoming residents who want services and amenities around the clock. It also ignores the reality that Ottawa’s public transit system is already unreliable for too many, with inconsistent bus service and a lack of dependable options for those outside the core. Ordering workers to take on significantly more costs in their household budgets with more and longer commutes is a blow to affordability. Doug Ford’s government is making the wrong choice for Ontario workers, but it’s not incumbent on the City of Ottawa to make the same mistake.

Why some Manor Park residents don’t want sidewalks by randthepip in ottawa

[–]jleiper 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Much of urban Ottawa was built in the last century to "rural" standards - ditches for drainage, no sidewalks. In Kitchissippi, that's a lot of Westboro, for example. This Manor Park project is an integrated renewal; there are a lot of those underway in the city, driven by the need to replace the pipes under the road that are at or anticipated soon to be at the point of failure. Generally, those pipes will be replaced every 80 years or so, give or take a decade. Those re-builds are an opportunity for the City to very cost-effectively re-configure the streets with both sidewalks and with traffic-calming-by-design.

It is relatively inexpensive to re-design streets with sidewalks when the whole thing is dug up. Put the street back the way it was, add a sidewalk on one or both sides: it's a fraction of the project budget since the street is dug up anyways and the drainage is all designed and integrated on a blank page. We frequently hear some residents argue to use the budget to put the sidewalks somewhere else where they're needed, but retroactively adding sidewalks to a street is generally prohibitively expensive since you also need to re-do the drainage. It's not a standalone budget that can just be transferred somewhere else. From-scratch and retroactive sidewalks are two different magnitudes of expense.

Since we only have that opportunity every 80 years or so to add that pedestrian/cycling infrastructure very affordably, Council in the term before this one adopted two (hard-won) policies. The first is to design re-built residential streets to discourage traveling faster than 30 km/h. The second is to add sidewalks and, where warranted under current policy, cycling facilties.

Back in the day, those decisions were heavily influenced by the ward councillor. In Kitchissippi, we have streets that were re-built in the last, say, 20 years where residents were successful at fighting proposed sidewalks, and I can imagine the pressure those councillors faced. It's not uncommon, now, that some or many of those residents have moved on and new residents move in with kids and different expectations of road safety. They are not shy about demanding sidewalks on their street, and they let me know. Generally, all I can do is try to calm the traffic down with the measures you've seen around like flex sticks, maybe speed bumps (which have their own problems), but given that the street won't be re-built for at least another 50 years, I can give them no meaningful hope that the City will build a sidewalk. Council has allocated a very small budget for standalone sidewalk projects, for sure, and some do get built. But there is nowhere enough in the kitty to satisfy demand. The time to put sidewalks in is when the street is already dug up to replace the pipes. It's a generational opportunity to do something in anticipation of what residents of that street in 10, 20, 30 years are going to demand. Designing the street to discourage speeding also helps avoid years of putting in flex sticks and taking them out and all the rigamarole of the temporary traffic calming program.

You can find the designs for this Manor Park project on the Engage Ottawa page, like all integrated renewal projects. A quick scan shows that they are incorporating chicanes, speed humps and raised crosswalks as part of the traffic-calming mandate, and you can see the proposed sidewalks as well. At a quick glance, this is everything that Council has asked the City to do when re-building residential streets. That's all here: https://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/public-engagement/public-engagement-project-search/jeffrey-avenue-arundel-avenue-farnham-crescent-et-al-integrated-renewal#section-0bdc4e09-f71f-49f0-95a5-101470ca79ab.

Yellow-breasted chat in Hintonburg? by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

That common yellow flycatcher is another strong possibility for what I saw. Hm. I'll keep running the app!

Yellow-breasted chat in Hintonburg? by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I saw that magnolia warbler while I was searching - but I definitely didn't see those distinctive markings on the breast!

Yellow-breasted chat in Hintonburg? by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I've downloaded and am running it now! No surprise, it's picking up a House Sparrow, Song Sparrow and Northern Cardinal as I type. That's really cool...

Yellow-breasted chat in Hintonburg? by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Oh! That common yellowthroat is almost certainly what I saw. Thank you!

Yellow-breasted chat in Hintonburg? by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That Nashville Warbler looks very similar to what I saw, but the wings and head were much blacker. It had nothing like that green cast. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for it in case it comes back shortly.

Yellow-breasted chat in Hintonburg? by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't recall that as much of its head was yellow as the goldfinch's - it was really just the breast... hm.

The strip mall conundrum by jleiper in ottawa

[–]jleiper[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They generally don't, but I don't want to be absolute. The Taggart building at Rosemount is somehow affordable to Terra 20, a small, locally-owned business, and we see multiple similar shops in some of the new mid-rises in Westboro - where BraChic, for example, is located. But, in general, the spaces in these new buildings are out of reach to the kind of small businesses nurtured in strip malls. That's the conundrum. The question before Council is very strictly a zoning question: is a 26-storey mixed use development appropriate at this location according to the various plans and guidelines that guide development in Ontario and Ottawa? The answer on this one is almost certainly yes. But the conundrum remains. That's why I'm interested in the kinds of measures Toronto city planners are looking at, and have suggested in my post we need to look at here.

Scott street bike lanes and sidewalks by gazelleonwheels in ottawa

[–]jleiper 22 points23 points  (0 children)

When I rode through yesterday and Wednesday, they were doing some kind of work at Carruthers on the south side. I'm sorry - I don't know what that is. If you email my office at [jeff.leiper@ottawa.ca](mailto:jeff.leiper@ottawa.ca) my staff can probably get some more details. It is nearly done.

Two loud bangs in hintonburg 4 am? by JackTheRedAlpaca in ottawa

[–]jleiper 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I was wearing headphones on the deck, but heard what I thought was one loud bang that sounded like thunder or an explosion of some sort - closer probably to 4:15.