NOVA's 2-Billion Project Progresses.

From the Lambton Shield.

It’s been a year since NOVA Chemicals first announced its decision to build a new polyethylene facility—a second Advanced SCLAIRTECH  technology facility (AST2) located at the new Rokeby Site in St. Clair Township.

Now the company has provided an update on its progress. With preliminary work started in late 2017, since then the site has undergone a dramatic transformation.

Highlights include:

—A berm that was built to mitigate sound coming from the future facility.

—Trucks have delivered over 60,000 tonnes of gravel to create roadways and parking lots on-site.

—Rokeby Line was upgraded to accommodate increased traffic volumes.

—The new main access road into the site was built and opened.


Link to the rest here.

Image. NOVA handout.


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Road Diet, More Proposed Bike Lanes for Sarnia.

From Tyler Kula, Sarnia Observer.

City hall is eyeing another bike lanes project for Sarnia’s north, one that would link cycling lanes painted on Colborne Road earlier this year to a trail system in Point Edward.

The pitch comes as the County of Lambton is planning to reconstruct County Road 19 (Michigan Avenue), between Christina Street and Colborne Road in 2019, said David Jackson, Sarnia’s manager of development and transportation.

“It kind of gives us the opportunity to look at it now,” he said. “So we thought it was a great opportunity to tie in to the work we did last  year, to connect our network into the Point Edward trail system – which then also provides a nice loop around that area as well.”

The county has decided to go with a road diet, reducing the four-lane road to three, Jackson said, including a middle turn lane.

An average 5,500 vehicles use the corridor per day, he said, noting three-lane roads can handle that volume; they accommodate up to 20,000 vehicles per day.

A similar conversion was done on Colborne Road to create the bike lanes there.

There’s been a lot of positive feedback about that project, Jackson said, adding people have noted less speeding, better visibility, and more space for cyclists.

Link to the rest here.

Image. City of Sarnia Handout.

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The 'Missing Middle', a Housing Affordability Crisis.

From Diane Peters, TVO.


I need to grab a few housewarming gifts: two of my close friends just bought townhouses, and they’ll be moving soon. One scored an affordable three-bedroom with a tiny yard and pink carpeting in downtown Toronto that has room for her two kids and is close both to their schools and their dad. (Fear not — she’s already ripped up the carpet.) Another paid less than $350,000 for an almost-new Kitchener townhouse kitted out with stainless-steel appliances. 

Just blocks from her aging parents, it will accommodate a home office and the dog she never could have had in her old Toronto apartment.

My friends are finding new places to land in what’s known as missing-middle housing. Graham Haines, research manager for the City Building Institute at Ryerson University, defined it in a recent report as “housing that is appropriate and affordable for a range of household and family sizes, and incomes … The Missing Middle is multi-use housing in our already built neighbourhoods.”

Think townhouses and family-sized units in low-rise buildings — freehold, condo, or rental. Laneway houses, houses split into duplexes, walk-ups, and units above storefronts count, too. 

They’re often around 1,000 square feet or so. And they’re missing because we don’t just have enough of them.

“Over the last 10 to 15 years, the GTA has grown with a mix of typical suburban sprawl at the edge of our urban region and high-rise towers at the centre,” says Haines. Many municipalities’ development processes encourage this “tall or sprawl” approach — it’s pricey and time-consuming to get permits, and plans can be rejected, so it’s primarily big developers that are willing to take the risk, and then generally only for large condos or tracts of housing.

Meanwhile, Canadian families are getting smaller, and although many of our neighbourhoods house fewer people than they did a few decades ago, we resist density: in most cities, you can turn a duplex into a single-family home without telling anyone — but carving out, say, a basement apartment requires a permit at the very least.

Link to the rest here.

Image. Zach Neal. This is Tricar’s development on Front Street, Sarnia.

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