All posts by MariaBoeira

A History Buff’s Beef: Going Modern in Historic Kitchissippi

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The charm of old, quaint, historic neighbourhoods tends to captivate people. There’s something special about living in a home that has seen many different sets of feet passing through its threshold generation upon generation.

In Ottawa, Kitchissippi ward is where this appeal seems to be the strongest – with the highest number of people living in homes built in the 1960’s or before – according to an analysis of 2011 National Household Survey data.

Map of Ottawa Wards by number of people living in private dwellings built in 1960 or before. Based on 2011 National Household Survey data - Created on ArcGIS Online by Carol Boeira
Map of Ottawa Wards by number of people living in private dwellings built in 1960 or before. Based on 2011 National Household Survey data – Created on ArcGIS Online by Carol Boeira

Dave Allston thrives off of this special fact. He’s a local history buff that began doing what he calls “house histories” during high school back in the 90s. He would trace down who the builder was, when the house was built, and chronicle who had lived in it.

Allston began by looking into his own home in Kitchissippi, which has been in his family for six generations.

“Last year we had someone over; he was a baby when the house was built in 1927. He came and saw the house his parents had bought. It was awesome to have him in the house and connect that ninety-year difference,” he said.

When people became interested in his work, Allston began a business out of putting together house histories for homeowners. Sometimes he would even come across eerie murder or suicide histories.

“People find it really neat … I’d warn them, but they’d say ‘tell me everything!’ There’d be a newspaper article with a picture of a body being carried out the front steps and they’d frame it up!” he laughed.

House histories took Allston thirty to forty hours each to complete, but he said he “could

Dave Allston - Kitchissippi local, house history researcher, author of the Kitchissipi Museum blog and history column writer for the Kitchissipi Times - Photo courtesy of Dave Allston
Dave Allston – Kitchissippi local, house history researcher, author of the Kitchissipi Museum blog and history column writer for the Kitchissipi Times – Photo courtesy of Dave Allston

never charge enough to make it worthwhile, and nor did I want to charge too much.”

As of this past January, Allston shifted to publishing two to three stories a week on his blog called the Kitchissippi Museum. He also writes history columns for Kitchissippi’s local paper.

But unfortunately, the ward may start running low on historic houses for Allston to dig his teeth into, with more of what he calls “modern boxes” popping up.

“I’m part of our community association here and we get alerts on when they’re putting up permits to demolish. There’s a couple every week that are going up,” said Allston.

In fact, according to City of Ottawa Construction, Demolition, and Pool Enclosure permit data, Kitchissippi has seen the
greatest number of demolitions out of any other ward in the city: 362 since January of 2011.

Demolitionsbywardpie“I pray for my heart every time I see a house get torn down,” said Allston.

He said the biggest problem for Kitchissippi is that people come for its “cozyness and quaintness,” but most have no problem paying for modern developments, so there’s a significant amount of money to be made in the area.

“Some people purchase homes in the area just to tear it down. They put up a double, sell each unit for $800 [thousand], and then take off with their half a million dollars in profit … They don’t care about the neighbourhood and what they’re doing to it,” said Allston.

Kitchissippi ward councillor Jeff Leiper said the loss of older homes is due to the city’s process of intensification and gentrification. Leiper said that in order to save old structures by designating them as heritage properties, the Ontario Heritage Act “sets a high bar.”

The Ontario Municipal Board recently approved a controversial 12-storey development on the corner of Island Park and Richmond/Wellington, which will demolish the oldest house on Wellington Street

According to Leiper, the house, while dating back to the 1890’s, was not worthy of protection simply because under the act, it did not meet the requirements.


Leiper said he hopes that during his term, he can work towards a “heritage overlay” – a protection of an entire neighbourhood – of Wellington Village, which he believes as a whole to be worthy.

As for Allston, he can rest assured that at least the oldest home in Kitchissippi – a stone house built by a Scottish farmer in 1828 – is still standing on Fuller Street, near Fairmont and Sherwood.

“There was many times where it was going to be torn down, but they’ve kept it up,” he said. “It’s got heritage status now and it’s in good shape so I think it can still last for a long time.”

uOttawa: many tickets, minimal spots

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Source: University of Ottawa

“I’m not surprised.”

That’s what passes through Catherine Larocque’s mind every time she’s standing there, looking at a dreaded white or yellow slip of paper placed neatly beneath her windshield wiper.

Larocque, a 22 year-old University of Ottawa nursing student, has received four parking tickets at the campus since her first semester in 2013.

She’s in the midst of her third year now, and says she now refuses to drive to school more than once or twice a week.

“It’s insane, the parking situation is brutal. I only drive now whenever it’s absolutely necessary,” she says.

Larocque isn’t alone in her frustrations.

In fact, based on an analysis of  City of Ottawa data on parking violations from 2012 to 2014, obtained through a freedom of information request,  people who park on University of Ottawa grounds are nearly twice as likely to get a parking ticket than those who attend most other post-secondary institutions in the city.

This does not include Carleton University, since it issues private parking tickets. Schools like uOttawa, Algonquin College and La Cité Collegiale all have shared parking enforcement and revenue sharing agreements with the city.

 

 

City of Ottawa tickets range from $40 to $450. From 2012 to 2014, uOttawa has issued about 30 thousand parking tickets. That’s a total of nearly $2 million in fines – an average of  $660 thousand per year.

Compared to Carleton and Algonquin, uOttawa also has one of the most expensive ranges of monthly student parking permit options. Its hourly prices are also 50 cents more than Algonquin and La Cité. Carleton’s is a full dollar cheaper, since they don’t have to abide by city standards.

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Source: Google Trends

“It’s an ongoing issue,” says Larocque. “Permits are too expensive and if I pay per hour, in most lots, I max out at 16 dollars.”

Claudine Thibault, administrative appeal officer at uOttawa’s parking services, says that each year the university conducts a survery to see what the parking prices are like downtown.

“We try to be like the prices around the area,” she says.

But price isn’t the only issue, says Larocque.

“There’s not enough parking … you can’t have all of your parking lots designated as only for pass holders. We’re always stuck having to look for obscure parking spots.”

Across the university’s Main, Lees and Alta Vista campuses, there are 12 permit holder lots, but only 8 visitor lots.

Declan Webber, a fourth-year biomedical student at uOttawa, agrees with Larocque, but says he often chooses the obscure and less convenient spots, parking in Sandy Hill rather than on campus.

“It’s free there. Many of the streets have signs saying ‘free one hour parking’, but you rarely get tickets for parking longer,” says Webber.

Over the four years of his studies, Webber has gotten two tickets doing this.

“I prefer to take the chance. It’s too expensive otherwise,” he says.

Thibault says that since five years ago, the university has been losing many outdoor lots due to construction, but she says there is no current plan to make more spaces available.

“They just closed another one of the parking lots to make a green space,” says Larocque. “Which is great, green spaces are awesome, but it just makes the parking situation worse.”

The University of Ottawa had just over 42 thousand students enrolled last year. Currently, it has 3,127 parking spots.

Thibault says that these issues come with such a centrally located downtown school.

“Students often want something near their classes, but we cannot accommodate everybody, and people end up getting fined,” she says.

If you’re hoping to cut your chances on getting a ticket next time you park on University of Ottawa property, try to take public transportation in months like March, where the school has, on average from 2012-2014, given the most amount of tickets. Year round, avoiding Lot “K” may be your next best bet. Check out this chart for more details:

 

Seniors, beware and report. Identity fraud rising in Canada.

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Answering the phone may never been the same for Ethel Jones again.

The call came in the middle of a quiet Tuesday afternoon, early in the summer of 2014. Mrs. Jones was greeted by a fast-speaking man. He said he was a representative from her bank, warning her about issues with some statements, and asking for information so that he could fix it. She brought over her husband Robert Jones, and together they calmly told the man their account number, their passwords, everything.

Mrs. Jones was 85, and in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

The man on the phone was a criminal.

“They thought, ‘Of Course!’ They trusted the man, they’re not used to technology and believed he was just trying to help,” said Kristie Jones, Mrs. Jones’ granddaughter, who told me this story due to her grandmother’s now severe stage of memory loss.

Five minutes after being scammed, Susan Coichrnoyer, Mrs. Jones’ daughter, called in to do a random check-in and got the details of the “very helpful man from the bank.”

There were zero dollars in their account. If Coichrnoyer had not contacted the bank immediately, and stopped the transfer mid transaction, “all of their money, their pension, everything would’ve been gone,” said Jones. “All in the span of 15 minutes.”

Identity fraud is not something new. But it is scams like these that are causing the national average to increase steadily over the past 3 years.

In fact, if you’re a resident of Toronto, your chances of being scammed have nearly doubled, going from a rate of 15.9 to 28.5 incidents per 100,000 people in just one year, according to an analysis of Statistics Canada data. It’s the city with the third highest identity fraud rate in all of Ontario.

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Unfortunately, Canada’s seniors are easy prey for the scammers, said Daniel Williams, Fraud Specialist from the Canadian Anti Fraud Centre (CAFC).

“Some types of fraud, like prize scams, historically its been 80 per cent of victims have been 60 plus,” said Williams. According to CAFC’s 2014 annual report, telephone/facsimile scams are the most probable ways criminals will try to steal information, with just over 22 thousand complaints and 4,557 victims this past year.

Williams says the only way to combat identity fraud and to see the national rate go down is to report.

“Let’s say we get the names (from law enforcement) of anywhere form 100 to 300 Canadians who have sent money directly to scammers with a suspect bank account. We go through our database and we’re lucky to see if its six, maybe seven people have reported. And these people are losing tens of thousands of dollars,” he said.

Williams says there are a multitude of reasons why people don’t report, but the very worst is the people who don’t realize they’ve been scammed.

“Prize scams geared towards victims in their late 60s, 70s, 80s, people who may be in various stages of memory loss, so the awareness to report isn’t there the way that it would be,” said Williams.

But there’s also the stigma of reporting. “Many people who realize that they’ve been scammed feel very embarrassed about it, they blame themselves,” he added.

Robert Jones, now 88, is an ex-military member. “He’s always been very sharp, always on point,” said Jones. “He was shocked. He was so disappointed in himself, he couldn’t believe he was so easily fooled,” she said.

Although, seniors aren’t the only ones that should be concerned.

“How many people put information on Facebook that ten years ago would have been considered personal and private … Now less and less is date of birth considered something of an identifier because its just so readily available,” said Williams.

According to CAFC’s 2014 report, 66% of the year’s total reported dollar loss was stolen via the Internet or email. “The Internet is the cheapest way for criminals to get a hold of people, and they love it,” said Williams.

From Kijiji ads selling couches to seniors on dating websites looking for new romance, “All of these things these people are doing online, the scammers are there circling like vultures. And there are many, many vultures,” said Williams.

“Google it!” he added. ““Scammers are evil, they’re nasty, they’re very successful, but they’re also very lazy. You receive an email telling you you’re getting an inheritance? Search the claim number. I guarantee once five people have been exposed to it, one of them has blogged about it.”