Campaign updates

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On Monday January 18 I spoke with Councillor Jeff Leiper on the phone about the expansion of Ev Tremblay park. I appreciated him reaching out to me to set up the call. 

On the call we discussed the fact that prior to the sale of the old Humane Society lot on Champagne (before his time as councillor), the neighbourhood plan stated that “Ev Tremblay Park will be expanded through the provisions of the Parklands By-law should the Humane Society decide to vacate their building.” And yet, when the property was actually sold, there was no documented evidence that a purchase was even considered by the city and certainly no public consultations about it. 

I stressed this is exactly the situation community members want to avoid repeating if the Champagne and Beech property becomes available – a quiet sale and the start of development eliminating the possibility of park expansion without the community having a say. 

While Councillor Leiper didn’t think a rezoning of the Champagne and Beech property below the current six stories would withstand a challenge to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT), he said he would explore with city planners whether in the course of re-doing the master plan a more explicit reference could be added to expanding Ev Tremblay park into a smaller parcelof the Champagne and Beech lot, as indicated as a ‘potential’ in schedule C to the current Preston-Carling District Secondary Plan.  

We also discussed the $2M+ in a city fund from cash-in-lieu payments from condo developers specifically targeted to the Preston-Carling corridor (not the Kitchissippi ward in general). While he said it is also earmarked to support a new ‘square park’ on Booth, I stressed that residents in the new condos on Champagne use Ev Tremblay park and weren’t going to divert to a new small parcel of greenspace on Booth if it gets built. Therefore it is imperative that funds be allocated to expand and improve the park of community members impacted directly by development as well as the new residents brought in by development.

I look forward to hearing back from Councillor Leiper about his conversation with city planners, but continue to push for a formal mechanism to be put in place to ensure the Champagne and Beech property cannot be sold to a developer without the city consulting the community about park expansion into that lot. 

[Edited for accuracy Jan 30, 2021]

Last week I communicated with the Civic Hospital Neighbourhood Association and confirmed that the same thing this petition is trying to stop happening with the Beech and Champagne lot, happened with the (now) Envie lot. 

CHNA members confirmed that prior to the sale of the Humane Society lot to the developers of the Envie towers, the Preston-Champagne Secondary Plan explicitly stated that “Ev Tremblay Park will be expanded through the provisions of the Parklands By-law should the Humane Society decide to vacate their building” [reference].

But instead of exploring expansion when the Humane Society lot came up for sale, there is no evidence the city looked into it at all [ed]. 

In fact CHNA submitted an access to information request in 2014 to find out what deliberations the city hand undertaken to consider purchasing the property [ed], but got no documents back, implying no analysis or deliberations had actually taken place. 

Details:
Documented CHNA feedback to the city at the time on the rezoning of the Humane Society [reference] stated explicitly:

• [Changes to the neighbourhood plan to facilitate the rezoning] removes the following sentence from the Preston-Champagne Secondary Plan: “Ev Tremblay Park will be expanded through the provisions of the Parklands By-law should the Humane Society decide to vacate their building”. 
• CHNA finds this sentence compellingly straightforward as to the policy regarding the future of the Humane Society site in the event that the site was to come onto the market. 
• CHNA cannot understand how this straightforward dictum from the Official Plan could have been ignored or how this land sale could have occurred. The community was not advised of any change in policy. 
• CHNA assumes that the Humane Society and the developer who ultimately purchased the property (Ashcroft) would have done due diligence and have been aware about this official instruction as would the City’s Planning Department. 
• CHNA is submitting an Access to Information request to find out who from the City was involved in circumventing the Official Plan and allowing this transaction to take place.

Later CHNA records confirm CHNA submitted an ATIP request looking for any discussion within the city of the Official Plan direction re: the Humane Society property. No record of a discussion was found, which means that no one reviewed the plan or, if it was reviewed, it was ignored [reference].

All of this reinforces the need for the city to clearly and publicly commit now to exploring the purchase of the Beech and Champagne lot if it comes up for sale, to achieve the neighbourhood plan which still  states that Ev Tremblay park will be expanded. 

We don’t want history to repeat itself!

City councillor Jeff Leiper reached out to me about the petition on January 12th 2021. He clarified that the 2018 amendment to the neighbourhood's secondary plan which permits a 6 story building on Beech and Champagne was not specifically about the 6 stories, and that that reference was actually included in a historical 2014 version of the plan which he had access to. 

This is a useful clarification and I have updated this website and acknowledge my initial error, however the same concern still stands. The city had public plans to expand Ev Tremblay park in 2013, but then they later formalized a neighbourhood plan allowing for condos on both sides of the park while still stating in the very same plan that “Ev Tremblay Park will be enhanced and expanded.”  

When this version of the plan went before council in 2014, there were two possible modes of expansion for Ev Tremblay park – south into the former Ottawa Humane Society, or west into the current parcel on Beech and Champagne. The south lot was subsequently sold and  filled by the two Envie towers which go right up to the border with the park, and so there is only one direction left to expand. 

The intent of this petition remains the same - to get the city to commit to seriously exploring the expansion of the park before allowing another mid-rise condo to be built.