Hundreds of people gathered for a rally yesterday at Ottawa’s Lansdowne Park. The catalyst for the rally was an unsolicited development proposal from a group called Lansdowne Live. I’m sure the group behind the proposal want to believe they are acting in the best interest of Lansdowne Park and that the citizens of Ottawa are unjustified in their opposition of the plans. Common sentiment is that Lansdowne Live is acting with its bank accounts in mind, negotiating a deal that would leave a 30-year-old site in the hands of the public right when it would be ready for its first major overhaul.
The real issue is that city council had initiated an international design competition which was suddenly and unexpectedly terminated by Lansdowne Live. A small group of city representatives are in closed-door negotiations with Lansdowne Live and have already begun approaching the federal government to explore funding options for the project — all without public consultation. The plans seem to be something of a moving target and what the public has seen does not look good. This includes turning a quiet residential street into the primary access route for a major box-mall shopping development and theatre complex, reduced parking for increased business and residential, and the expansion of seating in a vacant football stadium that has housed two failed CFL franchises in the last 15 years.
Jean Pigott calls Lansdowne Park the Living Room of Ottawa. It’s been a gathering place for more than 130 years. It’s where rural and urban came together for the first time at the Agricultural Fair, where Ottawa’s first professional baseball team played and where troops gathered before being shipped overseas. It’s 40-acres of public land next to the UNESCO World Heritage Rideau Canal. Lansdowne Park is such a heritage site that when city council voted many years ago to tear down the Aberdeen Pavilion (also known as the Cattle Castle) and a city manager unilaterally overruled the council’s vote, he was praised by the city as a hero for having saved the heritage and spirit of Lansdowne and millions of dollars were invested into the restoration of the pavilion.
Basically, the City of Ottawa and Lansdowne Live are endorsing a closed-door, sole-sourced development project for a major piece of prime public property. The same municipal government requires competitions for sidewalk construction. This makes Lansdowne Live a city issue, not just an issue for Glebe and Ottawa South residents. As one of the speakers at yesterday’s rally said, Lansdowne Live may be one of the best or perhaps the best option for developing Lansdowne Park. However, without an open and competitive process that embraces public input, noone will ever know.
The press was out en mass for yesterday’s rally and CJOH news ran a piece about it. If you pick up today’s Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun or Metro you won’t know the rally took place. There isn’t a single mention of the rally. With all due respect to the Ottawa Citizen and Lanark County, I would consider this issue to be significantly more important (certainly more current) than the 50th anniversary of the Inferno in Lanark, the Citizen’s front-page story. The rally did make front page news on 24 Hours.
Developer control of the city agenda is not really news here in Ottawa — at least, not for the last 30 years — nor is the absence of transparency or integrity in our elected officials. However, a major issue like this escaping the papers is a bit unusual, particularly on a semi-slow news day. Conspiracy theorist would suggest there’s developer advertising dollars at play. I think the local newspapers have failed to live up to their responsibility.
For more information, follow Friends of Lansdowne Park.
Couple of relevant stories:
One on Sunday, the day of the rally, broke the news that city councillors have been meeting with John Baird on the deal:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/City+officials+lobby+Baird+funding+redevelop+Lansdowne/1694405/story.html
And here’s our story on the rally from today’s newspaper (it was online last night):
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Baird+best+back+Lansdowne+Live+critics/1696204/story.html
Comment by David Reevely — June 15, 2009 @ 9:01 am
Thank you for the links, David. I still find it confusing that a significant story about politicians, municipal and federal, colluding to ignore process wouldn’t make it to the print edition — even the front page.
Comment by Mark — June 15, 2009 @ 9:24 am
I think the point Mark makes begs the question why such a big ticket issue seems to be flying under the ‘print’ medias attention. Odd when you consider how much space has been devoted to the O’Brien trial, and here we are talking about what happens to one of the biggest pieces of public property with a rather suspect decision making process.
What happens to Landsdowne is something that we the citizens of this city will have to live with for a very long time, and one would have thought the media would be shining a very bright light on the whole decision making process and the motives of those involved.
Comment by KeiferB — June 15, 2009 @ 3:44 pm
Both stories linked above WERE in the print edition, and the Baird story WAS on the front page. That’s why you know about the “collusion” you’re talking about here: it was on the front page of the Citizen.
And I don’t want to be argumentative, but the criticism — “If you pick up today’s Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun or Metro you won’t know the rally took place. There isn’t a single mention of the rally.” — is just wrong. Pick up a copy of Monday’s newspaper and a story covering the rally really is there.
We can debate where we played the story, on page 3 of the City section, but if we wanted to just ignore the rally, well, we’d have ignored it.
Instead, we ran a set-up piece in advance and sent a reporter to cover it, as we covered the somewhat similar Friends of Lansdowne rally a couple of weeks before (http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Entertainment/Group+calls+city+halt+talks+with+Lansdowne+Live+backers/1656211/story.html), and Clive Doucet’s press conference specifically attacking the procurement process last week (http://www.ottawacitizen.com/News/Whistleblower+cries+foul+over+deal/1675749/story.html).
Here’s a page compiling a bunch of our reporting on the stadium subject, focusing on the council vote to go ahead with the Lansdowne Live plan to the exclusion of others: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/stadium/index.html
I think this story, on who stood to make what and how taxpayers would be on the hook, is especially good: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Entertainment/What+stake+taxpayers+stadium+debate/1467611/story.html
All of these are web links, but all of these stories were in print as well.
Comment by David Reevely — June 15, 2009 @ 8:49 pm
Thanks for pointing out that the article is on page B3. I did indeed miss seeing it. I had checked the City section a couple of times and was probably expecting something a bit more obvious. The single column article does appear next to a 4-column full-colour photograph of kayakers on the Ottawa River and a 4-column, large-type, boldfaced headline about a bug infestation in the Experimental Farm.
I guess, as a citizen concerned about due process, I was expecting a more prominent play and was surprised that this current issue was displaced by the 50th anniversary of the fire in Lanark on the front page and the bug infestation lead story of the City section.
I think that any debate over how and where the story was played would best be had over a beer on a patio. Drop me a line if you’re interested.
Comment by Mark — June 16, 2009 @ 8:25 am
The 24 coverage was interesting, if only for the family name of the young protester. It’s somewhat unusual, and the same last name as a major group of developers in Ottawa.
Are some of the organizers of the anti-Lansdowne Live disgruntled developers, upset about being cut out of the action?
(For the record, I’m a firm supporter of the design competition; city staff should have been terminated for their decision to cancel the direction of city council. The city has no credibility whatsoever when it comes to running major projects)
Comment by David (not Reevely) — June 17, 2009 @ 10:28 am
I don’t know that any of the organizers are disgruntled developers. However, I wouldn’t blame them if they were.
Comment by Mark — June 18, 2009 @ 8:33 am