Ottawa needs a public vision for the Flats

Governments too cosy with developers, says Ken Rubin.

This is not just another timeout on LeBreton Flats, in which the current players are benched, booted or rejuggled. This time, the game is over.

So let’s instead get going on a visionary, public-purposed plan for LeBreton.

Some “thanks” for this possibility must go to Ottawa Senators/Capital Sports Management Inc. owner Eugene Melnyk for effectively killing his downtown arena project on LeBreton.

No thanks can go to the National Capital Commission’s bungled plan for a “competitive” private-sector sell-off of this public land, for exclusive private development and gain. The NCC’s secretive role as a public developer needs to be drastically overhauled.

Governments, both local and federal, have for too long created abysmal results for the downtown capital area. Just look at the dismal wallto-wall buildings found in downtown Ottawa and the destructive impact the Place du Portage government complex has had on downtown Gatineau.

Leaving developers in charge, such as John Ruddy’s Trinity Development Group, leads to developments like the sterile sports/condo/ box store complex at Lansdowne. It gives such developers rights to put up more and higher buildings, such as at 900 Albert St., where three 65-storey, 56-storey and 27-storey towers are getting underway.

You do not have to look far to see how government gives developers public lands and zoning help. A classic case is that five more Claridge condo towers are going up on LeBreton Flats. Claridge Inc. got this land from the NCC for a mere $8 million in 2004 after the NCC desperately approved Claridge as the only bid received. Then the NCC, after much delay, gave the go-ahead to build ugly designed condos.

You do not need Melynk’s unproven allegations in his recently filed lawsuit to conclude that Ottawa building projects can be highly influenced by developers, lobbyists and political allies, and the LeBreton planning process was no exception to this.

What people want, however, is a less loaded and better effort toward a more positive planning approach for the last remaining prime downtown land in Ottawa. A lively, new downtown at LeBreton Flats could be different and exciting and have public purposes backed by creative plans. Private developers need not determine the fate of this prime public downtown land.

That means, for instance, not confining the joint federal-city library, as part of a multi-storey highrise, to a small city-owned property at 557-587 Wellington St., adjacent to LeBreton Flats. The library should instead be enlarged and moved and become the major, grandly designed tenant anchor at LeBreton, with direct access to the Pimisi light rail transit station. The library also needs to be part of a larger mandate for a community and national meeting and media communications place, and an accessible, adjacent year-round event place.

All of this would help make LeBreton Flats a destination. And right next to it would be the existing outdoor festival park.

Nor does the LeBreton area’s Indigenous experience need to be confined to a narrow strip of parkland along Wellington. That park, Pindigen Park, begins to create or reclaim Indigenous spaces and structures from Victoria Island to Chaudière Falls to LeBreton; it could help make the whole area a place with a renewed, edgy public and environmental purpose.

Such public purpose plans would also have room for affordable residences, interesting businesses and non-profits, and include a meeting place for federal, provincial and territorial partners. The public’s voice has been downplayed, with secrecy masking how development of the capital is run. Private expectations and entitlements should not be the basis to bring LeBreton alive.

The past voices of LeBreton Flats, be they Indigenous peoples or the residents and businesses who, more than five decades ago, were expropriated and evicted, need now to know a frontier meeting place and vibrant downtown centre can arise.

Ken Rubin is an award-winning access to information user and commentator who follows planning issues. He is reachable at kenrubin.ca.

Private developers need not determine the fate of this prime public downtown land.