1. Legal Action Launched

Today the Friends of Lansdowne initiated legal proceedings against the City of Ottawa. We believe the City has broken its own rules, acted in bad faith and failed to protect the public interest. See the press release, application and summary of concerns here.

2. Please Support the Cause

We need your financial support to cover legal costs. Please make a donation to Friends of Lansdowne c/o Ted Lupinski CA, 137 Second Ave, Suite 2, Ottawa K1S 2H4.

If you would like to meet with us to discuss a possible donation, or if you could help fundraise, please drop us a line at friendsoflansdowne@gmail.com.

3. Online Petition

A group of nearby residents have started a petition against the rezoning. They have 500 signatures on hard copy petitions and have just launched an online version: www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/160/762/967/

4. Update on Air Rights

On Tuesday Sept. 7, the City of Ottawa's Corporate Services and Environment Committee approved a two-stage process for auctioning off development rights to nearly 300,000 sq. ft of residential and office space at Lansdowne. Due to our interventions, one change was made. The motion now makes it clear that the city prefers to lease the air rights rather than sell them. But the bottom line is that the City is approving a process for massive private development on public land, even before the rezoning is approved. The air rights motion does not have to go to Council; staff have delegated authority to implement this.

5. Rezoning: Tuesday, September 14, 9:30 a.m.

The rezoning of Lansdowne Park to permit intensive retail, residential and office uses is being considered by the City's Planning and Environment Committee this coming Tuesday, September 14 at a meeting which starts at 9 a.m. . With the rezoning application, the City is also trying to remove heritage overlays for the site and shortcut the normal process for decommissioning the park along Holmwood from Bank to O'Connor.

Please attend the committee to make a 5-minute presentation if you can. Register to speak or send a written submission to Caitlin.Salter-MacDonald@ottawa.ca. Or send messages directly to the committee members:

peter.hume@ottawa.ca, peggy.feltmate@ottawa.ca,michel.bellemare@ottwa.ca, clive.doucet@ottawa.ca, diane.holmes@ottawa.ca, gord.hunter@ottawa.ca, bob.monette@ottawa.ca, shad.qadri@ottawa.ca.

We have a chance of getting a reasonable hearing from this committee since many of the members have been opposed to the current process. Note too that rezoning applications can be appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board.

Read the rezoning report here.

A few concerns:

• Rezoning is being done before there is an integrated site plan and without this plan, and without any public information/presentations showing mock-ups of what is being proposed; there should be a public meeting to discuss the rezoning.
• Is such a radical change a simple rezoning; or should it be an amendment to the official plan.
• The proposed creation of a special Leisure sub- zone that permits shopping, offices, restaurants and hotels, is possibly a dangerous precedent for the city. Will other leisure spaces be open to this sort of change?
• The scale and density of development is much greater than has previously been revealed.
• The rezoning report completely dismisses heritage concerns. It proposes removing heritage overlays and relocating the Horticulture building without any rationale.
• The traditional main street zoning along Bank Street is completely disregarded.
• The urban park will have the same zoning as the commercial parts of Lansdowne--this means the park use is not protected.
• The development is incompatible with the neighbourhood, is not supported by adequate transportation infrastructure, and fails to respect the official plan.