New plaza in Viallge of Carp is one step closer to reality

Posted Jan 26, 2012 By Laura Mueller

EMC News - Cris Karson is one step closer to making his dream of a full-service plaza in Carp a reality.

After being mired in red tape due to the approvals being tied in with the contentious plan to expand Ottawa's urban boundary, the city is finally set to sign off on a zoning change for the Karson Kartage and Konstruction yard in the village.

The change is one more step in the path towards constructing a Victorian-style plaza that Cris Karson, son of the construction company president Bill Karson, hopes to build at the site.

GROCERY STORE The plaza would be anchored by a grocery store in Cris Karson's mind, and it would include other businesses: "Whatever Carp needs," he said. That might even mean space for local merchants and artisans to sell their wares, he said.

The idea is to make the village more self sustaining and create the jobs and provide the services that will revitalize the small community.

"Carp needs something. If you live there, you know that all the day to day amenities that you need aren't there," Karson said.

Karson's plan mirrors what the 2004 community design plan suggested for Carp's future, At the time, Karson's agreed with the plan and has intended to move its trucking operation elsewhere, and has been working on a plan to make that happen ever since. In the meantime, the company was allowed to continue using its property as a trucking yard.

The latest zoning approval gives Karson the permission he needs to build a parking lot big enough to serve his proposed plaza.

The problem was that the Carp River flood plain extends into part of the Karson yard, and although the site has been used as a gravel parking lot for heavy trucks for years, any new construction wouldn't have been allowed to cross into the floodplain area.

Karson has been working with the city and Mississippi Valley Conservation (MVC) to amend the flood-plain boundary and get approvals for the parking lot within the edge of the flood plain.

The flood plain represents the area that could be waterlogged by the type of flooding experts estimate could take place once in 100 years: a "100-year flood plain."

The Karson family also owns the farmland across the river from the Karson yard, and received approval to excavate some land from that side of the river to re-balance the flood plain and make it less likely for water to flood the village side of the river, where the plaza would be.

West Carleton-March Coun. Eli El-Chantiry says the city and the MVC are both on board with the changes that were presented.

"They believe it will be healthier to the river, because right now you have trucks, and it doesn't matter how much you say they don't leak. Sometimes they leak oil," he said. "So this will be, in my opinion, healthier for the Carp River than the current situation we have there."

More work will also be done to re-vegetate the shoreline to aid water runoff and rebuild the plant life and wildlife habitat along the shore, where the gravel yard now runs right up to the shoreline, Karson said.

"We'd like to have a bit of a buffer," Karson said. "It will both spruce it up esthetically and serve as mitigation that the environmental impact on the river," he explained.

Delays mean the project is still a couple of years down the road, and the construction business has yet to secure another location (hopefully closer to it's quarry, Karson said) to move to.

But the family, which has raised several generations in the Village of Carp, is still "100 per cent committed" to the project, Karson said.

"Our cause is good. We want to help the village of carp expand into something that's self sustainable so people don't have to drive all the way to the city for things like groceries," Karson said. "We want to help make it run the way it should be ... It's deteriorating a little bit."

laura.mueller@metroland.com