DND GETTING PARKING SPACES

Leased lots part of west-end solution

The Defence Department will lease parking lots on Ottawa’s west side to deal with major parking problems at its new headquarters and is looking at building a parkade at the former Nortel campus.

The new Department of National Defence headquarters on Carling Avenue only has parking for about half of the 9,300 employees who will eventually work there.

As a short-term solution, leasing agreements have been negotiated for parking lots in the vicinity, the DND has confirmed, to eventually provide up to 1,300 parking spaces. The longer-term solution would see the construction of a parkade on the headquarters’ campus that would be able to hold 1,500 vehicles.

The first leased parking site, with 392 spaces, will be available Oct. 1. It is located about eight kilometres from the headquarters, said spokesman Maj. Mario Couture. The department is setting up a shuttle bus to transport employees to the site.

“The longer-term solution for the creation of a parkade will increase the potential on-site spaces at NDHQ (Carling) by another 1,500,” Couture wrote in an email.

There’s no final tally on what the parkade would cost taxpayers.

The federal government spent $800 million on acquiring and outfitting the former Nortel complex for the DND’s needs.

It has argued that it will see substantial savings from consolidating many of the department’s employees into one site.

Defence planners, however, failed to account for enough parking for the department’s employees.

Some DND employees and Canadian Forces personnel had already voiced concern over the move to the former Nortel site, pointing out that many live in Orléans and the commute would be long. A June 2011 briefing note prepared for then-defence deputy minister Robert Fonberg described the Carling Avenue site as a “relatively remote location.”

A number of DND employees who contacted this newspaper voiced their frustration that the department’s senior leadership had around eight years to sort out the parking issues but failed.

To cover some of the costs of the leased lots, the monthly parking fees for all DND and Canadian Forces staff at the Carling Avenue headquarters will be increased from the current $35. Costs are still being determined and a new fee will be announced to employees in the near future.

Efforts are also underway, in collaboration with OC Transpo, to improve bus routes to the area, Couture added.

Defence officials have acknowledged that some staff have left for other jobs in the federal government because of concerns about parking or because they did not want to work in the west end of Ottawa. Figures on how many staff have left were not available, Couture said.

The department will continue to operate its downtown Ottawa headquarters at 101 Colonel By, but many of those in the office towers will be heading to the Carling headquarters.

The parking situation has created various problems at the Carling headquarters. Earlier this year, thousands of DND employees had to scramble after the department informed them they would lose their parking spaces and would have to apply for new spots in a lottery. To prepare for the expected parking crunch, the department informed the 3,000 employees who had been working at the campus for the past two years that their $35-a-month parking passes would expire in May and they were required to apply for a chance to win a new spot. Priority was to be given to expectant mothers and those with disabilities or limited mobility, as well as employees who agree to carpool. The remaining passes for single-vehicle drivers were awarded at random in a lottery. Some public servants referred to the lottery as a “Hunger Games of Parking”, a reference to the popular film in which districts in a future world are required to select individuals who fight to the death.

The defence campus consists of about 28 hectares once owned by Nortel and 120 hectares leased from the National Capital Commission.