There is no clear vision for Lincoln Fields
Kathy Vandergrift & Lisa Monette
Updated: August 22, 2019
Lincoln Fields is on track to become the next casualty of the city’s piecemeal, reactive approach to urban development. This large area is about one third the size of LeBreton Flats and will soon be redeveloped by RioCan. It’s a key site of LRT Phase 2 as the intersection of the east/west and north/south lines.
There is huge potential to make this a vibrant, connected and future-oriented hub. But this potential is threatened because there is no clear vision for this area, and the city’s planning processes are not designed to allow this vision to take shape.
This Sept. 4, the city’s committee of adjustment will make decisions about bylaw variances for the interim phase of the Lincoln Fields redevelopment. Later this fall, the planning committee and city council will consider the entire interim site plan. The full site plans are still vague concepts and pretty drawings, although to date, RioCan has shown some openness to engaging with neighbouring communities.
In the meantime, other developers are moving forward with proposals to build a 13-storey apartment building adjacent to the site (four storeys over the current allowable height) and a three-storey apartment building across Carling with no parking. In surrounding neighbourhoods, single-family homes continue to be replaced by buildings with four semi-detached units (each with basement suites). This is without further planning for local infrastructure such as parking and sidewalks, or concern for the mature trees and diminishing greenspace that once characterized these areas.
At this point, linking the Lincoln Fields Station to the mall remains a good intention, as does friendly street access for nearby residents, and bike and pedestrian connectivity. The development of a broader city plan for the Lincoln Fields/Carling Street area has already been postponed and won’t begin until the fall. By the time it is completed, many of these projects will already be moving ahead, cramping the space for innovation and cohesion. City planners have already told residents the plan itself will only serve as a guideline and is likely to be changed when developers make their formal proposals.
These processes are all being undertaken independently of each other; no city office is charged with taking a big picture view of this development. When neighbouring community associations and residents flag issues, our concerns are often acknowledged but dismissed because they fall outside the narrow mandates of individual departments. LRT issues are addressed to one office, concerns about the impact on greenspace to another. Parking problems, we are told, will be solved after development through complaints to 311 and parking fines. Climate change? City council just declared a climate change emergency, but the committee of adjustment can only consider the technical impacts of developers’ requests, not the climate and environmental impacts that result.
West-end residents want the redevelopment of Lincoln Fields to be thoughtfully planned, accessible to the residents of nearby neighbourhoods, and integrated with transit. If the city wants this and other redevelopment to be successful, then we need to see the city align its processes and start planning for that success.
Lisa Monette serves as president of the Queensway Terrace North Community Association, and Kathy Vandergrift serves as vice-president and head of the planning committee for the association.
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/monette-the-city-has-no-clear-plan-for-lincoln-fields
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