LeBreton Flats - Actually the NCC is getting it right
We need to hit that sweet spot between some development that is smart, inclusive and environmentally sustainable on the one hand, and a big great natural park on the other. Despite criticism, the NCC's approach makes this possible.
Brigitte Pellerin
Updated: September 18, 2019
It didn’t take me long, when I moved to Ottawa 19 years ago, to realize that criticizing the National Capital Commission was sort of a thing around here. And no doubt it is often well-deserved. But on the latest plan to redevelop LeBreton Flats, I say hold your horses. The NCC appears to be headed in the right direction.
The Citizen recently ran an oped by former ministers John Baird and John Manley, urging the NCC to go big, bold, public and green. Don’t build condos (or, worse, an arena), build a park, they wrote.
I agree. But so does the NCC. When I chatted earlier this year with Katie Paris, director of Major Real Estate Development and lucky woman in charge of this particular potato, she talked of five guiding criteria for the site, which I’m paraphrasing slightly:
• Create a vibrant, inclusive community with lively public spaces. This means a mix of housing, very much including the affordable kind, senior housing and rental, along with services such as day cares, grocery stores, etc. The idea is that people could live and work right there on the site.
• Honour the past, both industrial/working class and Indigenous.
• Nature and environmental responsibility. The emphasis is to protect our natural heritage, promote climate resilience and aim for carbon neutrality.
• Ensure connections, both in the physical sense of transportation (access to LRT and transit) but also in the sense of having public spaces where people naturally interact with others in a relaxing, car-free zone.
• And that large public natural space everyone wants.
You’ll notice there are no arenas on that particular list. Yes, there will be housing. But not just condos. It’s not going to be an enclave for the rich which, incidentally, the area around Central Park in New York City kind of is.
And speaking of that park. Almost everyone you ask will say yes, of course we should have our own version of Central Park or Chicago’s Millennium Park in our nation’s capital. Katie Paris wants it too. But also the other stuff. “We don’t have to choose, we can have it all,” she said. A great natural park, a destination, something we’ll cherish for generations, but also a place for people from all walks of life to live, play, learn, work and hang out. Cafés, museums, cultural establishments, skateparks and benches to sit on in the sun and eat your lunch.
I’ve been to Central Park, to Hyde Park, the Washington Mall, and the Champs-Élysées. Love ’em all. However I do take Katie Paris’s point that one issue with such a park is that we in Ottawa don’t have the population density of New York City or London, and that can be a problem. Without sufficient population density, you run the risk of having your lovely park sit empty much of the time. I mean, look at Sparks Street after 6 p.m. on a weekday. It’s a great place to go to play urban football. Or cause mischief.
Oh yes. That.
We need to hit that sweet spot between some development that is smart, inclusive and environmentally sustainable on the one hand and a big great natural park on the other. But how?
Katie Paris looks to the French capital for inspiration. Specifically, the Clichy-Batignolles “eco-district” in the 17th arrondissement, on the site of an old train yard. It’s roughly twice the size of LeBreton Flats and includes 10 hectares of park space, 38,000 square metres of public spaces, 3,400 housing units, office spaces, a court house, as well as establishments such as cafés, cultural attractions and recreational facilities.
We can do something like this in Ottawa. A place with open and inclusive space, lots of nature and public art, somewhere we can breathe deeply, relax, and bask in the natural glory of the Ottawa River.
The public has and is being consulted on LeBreton Flats. I urge anyone with an opinion to participate. By all means let’s keep the NCC’s feet to the fire on this, and hold it to that healthy, public and green vision. But let’s also acknowledge that on the whole, this time, they’ve got the big vision right.
Brigitte Pellerin is an Ottawa writer.
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/co...tting-it-right
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