Lansdowne plan feedback sought

Ottawa residents will have a chance to offer opinions on a plan to build condominium towers, townhomes, shops, cafs and restaurants at Lansdowne Park.

The City of Ottawa will hold about half a dozen town hall meetings across the city between Sept. 21 and Sept. 25 as well as an online forum on the Lansdowne Partnership Plan before the proposal goes back to city council in November.

"I think there's terrific opportunity for people to respond,"Roger Greenberg, one of the developers behind the plan, said Thursday.

The plan is a public-private partnership between the city and the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group. Under it, the city would continue to own the site on the east side of Bank Streetalong the north shore of the Rideau Canal in Ottawa's Glebe neighbourhood, just south of downtown. But it would offer a 30-year lease to the group, which would contribute $125 million, matching the city's own contribution.

The proposal calls for renovations to Frank Clair Stadium, green space to replace the parking lots that cover much of the park andconstruction of residential and commercial developments. It would fill the 19th century Aberdeen Pavilion with restaurants and provide a permanent home for the Ottawa Farmer's Market. Parking would be moved underground.

Greenberg said he and other members of the group are "absolutely" open to changes based on the consultations.

The only essential element of the plan from their perspective is a place to play football and soccer, he said Thursday. The group has been awarded a Canadian Football League franchise conditional on an agreement with the city on a suitable stadium and has also applied for a United Soccer Leagues First Division (USL-1) soccer franchise.

"The rest is what is in the best interests of the city," Greenberg said.

'This is a sales job'

But Will Murray, a spokesman for Friends of Lansdowne Park, a group that opposes the plan, said the very short time frame for the consultations and the type of consultations being considered show the plan's backers aren't serious about hearing from the public.

"This isn't a consultation. This a sales job," he said Thursday. "They'll be there to answer our questions, but not with a view to actually changing or modifying or taking what we actually want to happen to Lansdowne Park into proper consideration."

He thinks the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park should have been put out for public tender, worries that the public-private partnership arrangement will cost taxpayers in the end, and doesn't think the current planincludes what local residents want.

"They want to put a mall on Lansdowne Park," Murray said. "It's way too much."

Greenberg said the retail and housing components of the project are "modest" and consistent with the city's planning documents.