City staff are recommending councillors reject a proposed 17-storey hotel in the ByWard Market, arguing the project wouldn’t fit with planning and heritage policies for the Lowertown neighbourhood.
Bayview Ottawa Holdings has proposed a Hampton Inn by Hilton hotel on the site of a surface parking lot at 116 York St. and is seeking a zoning bylaw amendment to raise the height limits on the site to 60 metres, amend the heritage overlay requirements and reduce loading space provisions.
In a report prepared for the first planning committee meeting of the year, staff wrote that the planned hotel lacks the necessary angular height plane or setbacks to transition well between neighbouring buildings and is ultimately incompatible with the area. In addition, the lot size of slightly more than 1,000 square metres is well below the 1,800 square metres recommended for high-rise development in Ottawa.
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“The scale, massing and height does not relate well to neighbouring properties,” the report reads.
Ten of the 11 comments staff received on the application were opposed to the development proposal.
Members of the city’s planning committee will consider the report on Jan. 23.