Monday, June 13, 2011

520 Bronson rooftop garden

Here's a photo of 520 Bronson, across from Flora, which is a 7-storey apartment building owned by the CCOC. (This photo was in the Images of Bronson photoset I linked to here)

The last time Google's eye in the sky took a photo of the building, 520 Bronson didn't have a rooftop garden, and I assume it still didn't until recently.

[Edit: The City of Ottawa's eMap application, which has higher-resolution aerial photos, shows that there is some greenery on the roof, though not covering it entirely.]

The building has a lot of wheelchair users, which is unfortunate because the sidewalks aren't wide enough to be cleared of snow in the winter.

In late May, the garden was replanted for the season.

Late last week, there were some workers sitting on a dumpster full of dirt next to the building. What were they doing with it?

I do believe they were installing a green roof and/or rooftop garden, which is a common sight for CCOC apartment buildings, including its latest development, Beaver Barracks.

[Edit: Ray from CCOC notes in the comments that they are actually taking down the old green roof to add solar panels, after which they will restore the greenery and garden plots]

Pretty cool, eh? As for the building itself, I hear the tenants on the back side of the building tend to stay longer than those whose windows and balconies face Bronson Avenue. No wonder the CCOC is one of the partners of Rescue Bronson Avenue!

1 comment:

  1. Hi Charles,

    It's actually a green roof coming down, not going up.

    We're replacing the roof this summer, and adding photovoltaic cells, so all the planter boxes are coming down. Once the new roof is in place, and the solar panels installed, the greenery and garden plots will also be restored.

    -Ray

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