NCC reveals LeBreton draft master plan, as the redesigning begins
Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: November 21, 2019
Eight months after abandoning years of fruitless work and going back to the drawing board, the National Capital Commission has the concept map of a new plan for rebuilding LeBreton Flats.
Commissioners were lining up on Thursday to say that this time, it’s far better than all of the previous plans — with a better chance of actually being built.
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson kept repeating that it has “wow factor,” though he has some suggestions, too.
The draft master concept plan shows areas of different types of development. It doesn’t yet have precise details, or developers, or a hockey arena — though there is a space labelled “Potential Events Centre” that could have an arena some day, if things work out that way.
Asked whether Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk would be involved in development, Watson said: “I don’t think so. He seems to have lost interest in moving downtown from what I’m told. Ultimately he owns the team now and if he is not going to move the team, then we are going to have to keep the space longer (as) green space. But it shouldn’t be boarded up and locked off from the public.”
He said the NCC should preserve the potential arena site “until that time when it’s either a new (Senators) owner or the NHL steps in or Mr. Melnyk changes his mind.”
The plan differs from previous LeBreton plans in that it divides the site into seven distinct areas — “bite-sized pieces,” as one commissioner put it. This does not oblige the NCC to develop the whole site in a single take-it-or-leave-it chunk.
More than 40 per cent of the site will be public green space.
The NCC is looking for public reaction. Details about the plan and how to provide reaction are
online.
The seven areas are:
• A central Aqueduct District, with entertainment and dining. It will feature an “urban playground” and “skatable landscape” along with lofts for artists’ studios or law offices, and a variety of cafés and restaurants.
“People can relax in the cafés and watch the action in the urban playground,” said Katie Paris, director of the NCC’s Building LeBreton office. The plan envisions a canoe portage, and a place to land a kayak if visitors decide to arrive by water.
• LeBreton Place, a little to the west, a large theatre, music centre, sports facility or cultural institution;
• Parking to the west;
• The Potential Events Centre, to the southwest. Mayor Jim Watson said he would like to see the Ottawa Senators play there some day.
• Albert District, for homes, offices and shops along Albert Street;
• Library District, at the site’s east end, with the future public library; and
• Flats District, “a pedestrian-oriented, primarily residential district” on the northern part of the site.
The apartments and condos would be in towers ranging from 12 to 40 storeys. The NCC is following the theory that “density pays for amenities.”
Tobi Nussbaum, the NCC’s chief executive, said the plan “ensures that the NCC is ambitious in its approach, cohesive in its planning and focused on feasibility, as it works to create a new dynamic community and Capital destination, minutes from downtown.”
There was enthusiasm all around the NCC table.
“So far we’re really on the right track here,” said Michael Foderick, a planning and development lawyer from Toronto.
“It is a coherent vision.”
He praised the planners for coming up with a plan where the NCC will keep long-term control of the site, “and not just hand it over to a private-sector developer” which may not carry the original vision into the long term.
“It’s realistic,” he said. And without naming the recent plan by RendezVous LeBreton, which collapsed after four years of planning, he added that this time, it’s not a case where “when we kick the tires, the whole car falls apart … It’s real.”
“If I were moving today and that were built, that’s where I would move,” said Denis Vaillancourt of Clarence-Rockland.
“There’s a tremendous amount of potential in the spaces and venues that you are creating,” said commission member Deborah Morrison.
And then the mayor weighed in.
“What excites me the most about this are the public spaces,” he said.
“Wow factor” means there is more than homes and retail space, he said.
And NHL hockey?
“It’s important that we not give up hope that the (Senators’) arena could move downtown,” he said, noting that the trend across North America is to bring sports downtown. “In the interim, that (potential arena site) should be parkland.
He also cautioned that developers should not look to city hall for too much funding.
RendezVous LeBreton proposed an Abilities Centre and a Sensplex, and “the assumption was that the City of Ottawa was going to pay for those. That was a false assumption.”
Watson also wants 25 per cent of the housing to be affordable. In the end, there should be “upwards of 8,000” people living at LeBreton, he said — just as there were more than 50 years ago, when the federal government threw them all out.
Watson also wants a further major attraction near the Canadian War Museum. More “wow factor that will bring people to the whole site,” he said. He would have liked to see the Canada Science and Technology Museum there, “but that horse is out of the barn.”
“I think we’ve come up with a winner here,” said Larry Beasley, who teaches planning at the University of British Columbia.
He called it a “complete community” that has “a real integration with the existing neighbourhood.” The previous plan, he said, was cut off from its surroundings — “a separate thing floating out there.”
In January, the NCC board will put out a call for development proposals for the Library District.
tspears@postmedia.com
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