Happy New Years to our Wellington Village residents!
Your Wellington Village Community Association remains strong and active on your behalf. A small but busy board of directors has helped lead several key initiatives in the community in 2023, and we thought it would be worthwhile celebrating our accomplishments over the past year.
Neighbours for Tunney’s is a community action group founded by the neighbouring community associations around Tunney’s Pasture, and the WVCA continues to play a key role on the committee. The redevelopment of Tunney’s Pasture remains one of the WVCA’s primary focuses for the near future. As these redevelopment plans slowly come together, we continue to gather Wellington Village resident input on concerns and wishes for the future of the vast Tunney’s site. We have a seat at the table of what’s known as the Communities Perspectives Group (CPG), where this input is shared directly with government shareholders, namely the Canada Lands Company and Public Services and Procurement Canada. The WVCA participated in several CPG meetings in 2023, as well as the Public Engagement Sessions held on site at Tunney’s in November. We are planning to send out another resident survey in 2024, and will continue to push the government on the concerns of neighbouring residents on issues such as green space, Ottawa River access, recreation space, traffic, and zoning, all of which will have a substantial, direct impact on the residents of Wellington Village. (http://www.neighboursfortunneys.ca/)
The WVCA also led a hugely successful Jane’s Walk in June, providing a walking tour that highlighted both the historical and future planning details of the Tunney’s Pasture site. The was the most well-attended Jane’s Walk in Ottawa in 2023, and showed the high level of interest in the site – not only with local residents, but with visitors from across the city curious to learn more about this important future piece of Ottawa development space.
The Spencer Street Parkette at the corner of Huron Avenue North was a tremendous success for the WVCA, and we look forward to working with the City on what equipment and features will appear in the park. The house and garage have been demolished within the last week and consultation with the community will be happening soon, so that Wellington Village residents can begin using this long-awaited park space. The northern half of Wellington Village has been without a local park since the loss of Grange park nearly 30 years ago!
The WVCA was proud to support the Byron Avenue Pumpkin Walk through financial and volunteer support. This amazing Wellington Village event has exploded in popularity over time, well beyond the capacity of creator Anita Grace to do it all on her own. We were happy to contribute to this great event, which had its biggest year yet with nearly 1,000 pumpkins!
We also helped contribute to other causes in the neighbourhood, such as parking problems around Elmdale School when snow clearing became an issue, reviewing and contributing to property development applications, and the renewal of Caroline Avenue and Huron Avenue North.
We will continue to work hard for you in 2024 and encourage you to reach out anytime with questions or concerns.
We are also looking for individuals interested in contributing to the WVCA, either to specific issues, or to the Board more broadly. Your local knowledge, your expertise in areas of community planning, or simply your enthusiasm to make Wellington Village a better place would go a long way in helping our board, and we would love to have you! Please email president@wvca.ca for more info.
Cheers and all the best in 2024!
