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“15 highrise projects that could reshape Ottawa’s skyline”

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Best CCTV Security Camera in Brampton Best CCTV Camera in Brampton More than a dozen multi-tower skyscraper highrise projects are on the drawing board for Ottawa, and together they could change the city’s skyline from one end to the other. The plans could bring towers of 30 and even 40 storeys to Kanata and Orléans, and line O-Train routes with dense neighbourhoods packed with thousands of housing units. That’s if they go ahead in a tough financial environment. Just last year, Claridge cancelled a 30-storey tower project, citing higher interest rates. It had already scaled the project back from 39 storeys. There’s still no sign of construction on Richcraft’s the Sky project on the edge of Little Italy. That was approved eight years ago, with skyscrapers expected to reach 55 and 45 storeys. Trinity Centre, a LeBreton Flats development approved in 2018 with a towering 65-storey building, still hasn’t gotten off the ground. Neither developer responded to multiple requests for comment about whether those highrise projects are going ahead. But other companies are pitching new highrise projects now working their way through the city’s approvals process, and at least some proponents are confident that they’ll get built, sooner or later. “The market’s there in Ottawa, and if anything it’s just simply going to grow,” said Tim Smith of Urban Strategies Inc., an urban design consulting firm that has worked with the City of Ottawa and local developers. “Whatever the lull there is now is going to be a bit of a blip.” He said towers are at least part of the solution to affordability, as Canadian cities look to welcome record-high numbers of immigrants. As long as highrise projects make a real effort to enhance public space, the added density can energize communities. “There’s sort of a bit of an aversion to highrise developments coming into areas that historically have been mostly low-rise, but it really is the way that Canadian cities generally, and Ottawa in particular, needs to evolve,” Smith said. “You have to get beyond the height of buildings, and the towers, and recognize that the density that comes with those developments can have a real net benefit for an area. It supports the transit. It brings more life to local businesses.” 265 Centrum Toronto-based Bayview Group is looking to bring another highrise project to Orléans, the second ever after Brigil’s Petrie Landing development. But Bayview’s towers would be taller, rising 40, 35 and 30 storeys. Cheap CCTV Camera in Brampton An architect’s drawing of the proposed 265 Centrum development. (Fotenn) Home CCTV Camera in Brampton The site just east of Place d’Orléans shopping centre is within walking distance of a planned O-Train station and right in the middle of a city-designated development hub. Two of the towers would be purely residential, while the third also has office and ground-floor retail. Together they would contain more than 1,000 housing units, including some townhouse-like homes. A design brief says the towers are inspired by “floating chunks of ice in the Ottawa River,” with “prismatic geometries” that evoke the winter landscape. Sam Gulamani, managing director and general counsel for the Bayview Group, said the project still needs site plan approval from the city. After that, the group will determine whether the units will be condos or rentals. He couldn’t give a specific timeline for when construction would begin after approval. He pointed to financial head winds that make such highrise projects difficult in the short run, from higher interest rates weighing on demand to inflationary pressures on building costs. “In the long run, we’re very confident in Orléans and in this project,” he said. “We think that it adds something to the skyline in Orléans that hasn’t been there. We also think that there is a shortage of housing, so we’re building something that is going to be in demand. “We don’t get the approval just to sit on it,” he added. “We get the approval with the intent to build it.” Kanata North Main and Main Developments is proposing a 5.5 hectare project at March Road and Terry Fox Drive that would transform an area of Kanata North now spotted with low-to-mid-rise tech complexes. Best CCTV Camera in Brampton An architect’s rendering of March and Main’s 2,100-unit Kanata North development. (SvN Architects) Cheap CCTV Camera in Brampton A design from SvN Architects foresees five towers reaching up to 30 storeys, plus several mid-rise buildings, with 2,100 housing units in total. It also includes a public park, plazas, bike paths, retail at ground level and two office buildings. One of the few proposals located far from any planned O-Train station, the Kanata North project lies alongside a bus rapid transit corridor planned for March Road where the city is looking to direct mixed-use development to enliven the existing tech district. Main and Main didn’t respond to a request for comment about its plans. But Smith said highrise developments can make sense when strategically located, even in the most suburban of suburbs. “You have to pick your spots,” he said. “I’m not saying towers make sense everywhere in the suburbs. You don’t plop them into the middle of low-rise neighbourhoods that are healthy and sustainable and valued, but there are places on commercial corridors and commercial nodes where that kind of intensification generally is going to be appropriate.” Lansdowne 2.0 Three highrise towers are an integral part of the plan to finance a $332-million rebuild of the north-side stadium stands at Lansdowne Park, along with a new arena for the Ottawa 67’s. The city is looking to sell air rights over the stands that would permit towers of 40, 34 and 29 storeys. They’d sit above a podium loaded with commercial space. Home CCTV Camera in Brampton An artist’s rendering of the proposed Landowne 2.0 redevelopment. (Fotenn) Best CCTV Camera in Brampton The proposal has already received a stamp of approval from the last council that allowed staff to launch public consultations and seek a developer interested in buying the air rights. It will have to come back to council for final approval. 2000 City Park Ottawa-based Colonnade Bridgeport is applying for a zoning bylaw change that could allow it

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“New health plan for federal workers has some members feeling like they ‘fell through the cracks'”

Because of changes to the Public Service Health Care Plan, Louise Sullivan said her husband Mike is giving up the majority of his physiotherapy treatments which, after a stroke eight years ago, have allowed him to retain some mobility and regain some independence. Louise Sullivan stretches a brace across her husband’s knee, then holds his arm while he attempts to hobble from their living room to the kitchen and back. Michael Fairhead is noticeably exhausted. As is she. The Ottawa couple — both retired federal public servants in their mid-sixties — used to live an active life, travelling the world before Fairhead lost function in most of his right side after a stroke eight years ago. But Sullivan believes what little mobility he still has would not have been possible without years of intensive physiotherapy, something she says will now be reduced significantly after the government of Canada made a series of changes to the country’s largest health insurance plan — the Public Service Health Care Plan (PSHCP). “Without the physio, what’s going to happen is his body is going to atrophy,” she said. “What I’m really worried about is he’s going to get to the point where he won’t be able to do anything on his own and I will be left doing all the things that he can now do.” Sullivan and Fairhead are among the 1.7 million federal workers, retirees and dependents who saw their insurance provider switch from Sun Life to Canada Life on July 1, and with it changes to what services and drugs are covered, how they’re approved and what happens when they need to talk to an agent. The Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS), which oversees labour relations between the federal government and the public sector, said changes made to the PSHCP, including claim limits, coverage terms and eligibility, were approved in the fall of 2022 — independent of the switch to Canada Life. Those changes came into effect after Canada Life won a tender to administer the plan. Still, CBC News has heard from dozens of members who say they’re frustrated by both the government and the insurance provider. Louise Sullivan worries that her husband, Michael Fairhead, pictured here, will regress without continued intensive physiotherapy, something she can no longer afford under the Public Service Health Care Plan’s coverage changes. (Jean Delisle/CBC) In Fairhead’s case, coverage for his physiotherapy used to be practically unlimited. Under the previous terms, the couple was covered at 80 per cent for claims up to $500 and claims over $1,000. Now, it’s capped at $1,500 annually. The cost for his physiotherapy last year was more than $14,000, according to Sullivan. In response to the new cap, Sullivan said she’s made the difficult decision to cut his physiotherapy from three days a week to once a week at most. While she plans to help him with whatever exercise she can, she knows she won’t be able to make up for the difference. “That’s my biggest fear is that he’s going to get to the point where he’s going to be so sore and so stiff that he won’t even want to get out of bed and that will devastate me,” she said. Along with coverage limits, the new plan dictates people must choose generic drugs. Beverley Cormier, 59, recently switched to a new medication to help with flare-ups for her rheumatoid arthritis. Under her husband’s plan, the first month was covered at 80 per cent by Sun Life, but when the next 30 days were set to go through, she learned from the drug’s maker, Pfizer, that it had been declined by Canada Life. “It’s really hard how you can explain to people how one day you feel really good and then the next day you can hardly move and this medication was making such a big difference in such a short amount of time,” she said, her voice cracking. That medication comes with a $1,700 a month price tag. Cormier had only been on the medication for a month before the terms of the plan changed. Her husband, Norm Cormier — a veteran who worked for the military for 27 years — contemplated coming out of retirement to find another job. Not being able to get through to an agent at Canada Life after being denied twice for the medication compounded the frustration. Canada Life has since covered the drug after CBC asked Treasury Board President Mona Fortier’s office about it. The TBS told CBC the medication requires prior approval. “When it’s your medication and you’re suffering, you just want somebody to tell you something,” Beverley Cormier said. She did suffer. Because of the delay getting the medication approved, she went 10 days without it, resulting in a debilitating flare-up. Susan Judges, 52, is also eligible for the plan because her husband is a veteran. She had to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket for medications before problems with her plan were resolved earlier this month. Despite calling four to five times a day since the switchover and sending emails, it took weeks before anyone from the company responded. Louise Sullivan tries to assist her husband, Michael Fairhead, with some of his daily exercises. The struggle to get out of his wheelchair and shuffle a few metres might as well be a marathon — one she fears he’ll lose the ability to even attempt. (Jean Delisle/CBC) “I feel like we fell through the cracks,” she told CBC. Yet, she still faces weeks before being reimbursed the $300 because of ongoing problems with their enrolment — a decision between paying for food or medication. “I’ve maxed out my credit cards paying for the little medication that I do have right now,” said Judges. The multitude of worries and frustrations are ones Roy Goodall has heard over the last few weeks. “It’s a terrible situation,” said the president of the National Association of Federal Retirees. “I don’t envy the people who are faced with this.” He said the association plans to address the cap on physio coverage with the government when there’s a review of coverage in two years. In the meantime,