7 architects resign from city's design review panel

Seven architects on the City of Ottawa's 10-member urban design review panel have resigned, saying the city doesn't really value their expertise.

That leaves the panel with only three members, all landscape architects.

The panel was established in 2005 to oversee new downtown construction and ensure itconforms tothe city's urban design strategy.

But the architects say the panelwasn't able to have much effect on planning.

Architect Jane Thompson said Tuesday she and her colleagues just grew tired of being an afterthought.

"Often, yes, the staff would go on working on a project, get it to a certain point, and then someone would say, 'Oh, yes, we have to consult the design review panel,' by which point a lot of decisions had been made," Thompson said.

In a letter to planning committee chair Peter Hume, the seven architects said the design review process has been of "minor usefulness."

They said the city planners use the panel as a "convenient" excuse when they have to reject a design.

The recent Lansdowne Park redevelopment decision sent a strong signal to architects that the city doesn't really value their expertise, the letter said. Whilethe letterdid not criticize the plan itself, it said the city's approach was "a missed opportunity" to put its design strategy into practice.

City council voted Nov. 16 to start negotiating the terms of a private-public partnership with the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group to redevelop Landsdowne Park. Thecontroversial development planincludes the construction of a cluster of shops, cinemas, condominiums and townhouses and the revamping of Frank Clair stadium in an attempt to bring football back to the city.

Capital Ward Coun. Clive Doucet said the seven architects had no choice but to resign, because their professional reputations were at stake.

"They've become complicit in whitewashing the city's attempt to sort of look like it's having a design competition for Lansdowne Park and everything else when, in fact, it's not," Doucet said.

Hume said the mass resignations will slow the design review process even further.

"So, we're saddened by this resignation because we believed we were making progress," he said.

Hume said the architects were a valuable resource; he's asking for a meeting with the seven to find out what it would takefor them to return to the panel.