Today the Glebe and Old Ottawa South Community Associations announced that they have negotiated changes to the Lansdowne Park development that will help reduce some of the negative impacts on their respective communities. The City of Ottawa has agreed to the changes on the condition that the associations drop their appeals of the zoning to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). You can read the full press release here.

Both neighbourhood associations have stated that they remain gravely concerned about the impact of the redevelopment on their communities. However they have chosen to drop their appeals due to the "expensive,difficult and unpredictable" nature of the OMB process which is stacked against community associations.

The withdrawal of the community associations does not mean that the OMB appeal process is over. Three individuals--Dr. Frank Johnson, Mr. John Rive and Ms. Catherine Caule--have announced that they are continuing with their appeals on the grounds that the Lansdowne Partnership Plan does not conform to Ottawa's Official Plan. The OMB hearing will begin on May 9, 2011.

There is no relationship between the City's settlement with the local community associations on some of the zoning issues and the Friends of Lansdowne Legal Challenge. The Friends of Lansdowne is a city-wide organization and our application to the Ontario Superior Court contends that the City of Ottawa acted unlawfully in approving the Lansdowne Partnership Plan because it broke its own procurement rules, gave preferential treatment, or bonuses, to a group of developers and acted in bad faith by failing to protect the public interest. The court case goes ahead on June 21-23, 2011.

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