Calling the NCC "locally based," the federal government said it intends to take over promotion of the capital, including events such as the annual Winterlude festival and the July 1 Canada Day show on Parliament Hill.

The NCC will maintain its other existing responsibilities for land-use planning and overseeing the capital region's official residences.

The budget says the shift will ensure that such events "draw on the cultural and social fabric of the whole of Canada."

[...]Current NCC employees who work in promoting the National Capital Region will simply become Canadian Heritage employees. It could entail moving as many as 100 employees and the associated resources.

The departure of Marie Lemay was announced on July 6. We are closing in on eight months later, still with no permanent replacement as day-to-day head of operations at the National Capital Commission. Where did the glamour go?

[...]The NCC announced this week it was eliminating 29 positions from the Crown corporation, some of them fairly senior. More shrinkage.

And earlier this month, there was a public pull-back on plans to expand the Greenbelt designation to more private land in the east, west and south ends - and this after years of study. Oopsies.

Add this to a report in January that the NCC is not even a player in Domtar's continuing efforts to unload its key holdings in the Ottawa River islands, principally Chaudière. That's just sad.

Taken together, a cynic might see an organization rolling merrily along like a moving bus without a driver or a road map. Where is it going?

In other words, even an organization that does many, many different things needs its eye on a prize. What is theirs?

The National Capital Commission has confirmed it will halt plans to expand Ottawa's greenbelt into surrounding private property.

The confirmation, in a letter to landowners this week, will be welcome news to a majority of residents who attended public consultations earlier this month to voice their opposition to the proposal, which would have seen the NCC applying Greenbelt designation to private property in Shirley's Bay, Mer Bleue and Carlsbad Springs without purchasing the land.

The National Capital Commission is looking at scrapping a proposed expansion of the Greenbelt after landowners at a consultation meeting reacted with a level of opposition which, according to NCC CEO Jean-François Trépanier, caught the federal agency by surprise.

"They started in this with all the good intentions," Trépanier said of NCC staff. "And we may have created more anxiety than we should have. I recognize that."

[...]The NCC isn't looking to buy the land - they have been up front about not having the money for large-scale land acquisitions anymore - but just to extend the Greenbelt designation to cover the land while it stays in private hands.

The purpose of the proposal, which would also include lands in the Mer Bleue, airport and Carlsbad Springs areas, is to conserve ecological areas and create more extensive natural habitats. The NCC adds, in their pitch, that landowners who join the Greenbelt stand to earn rebates on both income and property taxes for their land stewardship.

[...]Another landowner, Mary Kennedy, whose property is just off Highway 417, said she had just about completed the sale of her land when the buyer found out about the NCC proposal and backed out of the deal.

During the meeting, Kennedy asked NCC staff whether she could opt out of having her land in the Greenbelt.

It was with that question that the real trouble began.

One of the NCC planners in the room told Kennedy that she should send in an email and the NCC's legal department would have her parcel of land removed from the proposal. Relieved to hear that, Kennedy was just about to leave the church when she heard that some other landowners in the same room had received a different answer on the opt-out question from other members of the NCC team.

"One person said 'Yes,' that you can opt out," landowner Darlene Glason said at the meeting. "Another person said that the (NCC) board would decide whether an area would be designated or not designated."

[...]At the meeting, Sylvie Lalonde, the NCC's project manager on the file, told the Citizen that the Greenbelt designation could not be forced onto private land.

"We cannot force someone to be part of the Greenbelt," she said.

Later, she acknowledged that the landowner's rights were not actually guaranteed.

"I don't see the NCC board forcing a land designation, but I can't speak on behalf of the NCC board," she said.

Clarifying later, the NCC planners said the issue of whether a landowner had the right to opt out had not actually been resolved before the meeting was held.

What staff did assure landowners of during the meeting, however, was that it wouldn't make any difference, for planning purposes, whether their land was in the Greenbelt or not. The zoning of private land is not within the NCC's jurisdiction, they explained, and if a city council wants to change the zoning they can do so, without being held up by the Greenbelt designation.

[...]Glason said the landowners were frustrated that the NCC didn't have these issues worked out before inviting them to a meeting.

From the perspective of the landowners, she said, gaining an understanding of the law - what rights the landowners have and what the NCC is allowed and not allowed to do - must be the starting point of the conversation. There's no point talking about a conservation plan, she said, until those facts are laid out.

[...]Trépanier said the agency approached the discussion with the landowners in a sincere attempt to find willing partners in the conservation effort. In fact, coercion was so far from their minds, he said, that they never thought to ready themselves for the legal questions.

The National Capital Commission has released 180 pages of documents on the renaming of the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway in August.

[...]Discussion of why the renaming was a good idea - why now? why this road? - has been redacted, never occurred, or sits in vaults beyond the reach of the Access to Information law.

[...]Citizen reporter Ian MacLeod asked for all records relating to the renaming of the Ottawa River Parkway from 2007 until late in 2012.

Good idea. It seemed, for one thing, to come out of the blue when it was rolled out at a morning press briefing by Baird on Aug. 15, 2012.

Indeed, from 2007 until the fall of 2011, there was no discussion. Zero. Not one word or memo.

Then came an op-ed piece in the Citizen from Bob Plamondon, an author often referred to as a "Tory insider."

[...]Days after publication, the wheels were turning at the NCC, with a lot of head-scratching about who needed to be consulted and why, and where the landmines might be buried.

The email trail touches a small army of NCC officials, from CEO Marie Lemay to chair Russell Mills to in-house lawyers to media staff, from VPs to secretaries. They don't, however, get far.

[...]Another staffer wrote an email to Corriveau, saying there had been requests to name various NCC spots after people like Karsh, or Elizabeth Manley or war veterans, and "we have always declined."

[...]NCC and Co. did a fairly good job of keeping the renaming secret, save for a leak to Le Droit just before the announcement.

Too good a job, apparently.

The day after the unveiling, complete with a Sir John A. look-alike, the RCMP were on the phone.

"(An officer) just called me regarding the Ottawa River Parkway name change," a media staffer wrote to corporate affairs. "He expressed his concern as they (and other emergency services) had not been advised of the name change."

Oops. Guess it would help to tell the police authority that actually patrols the parkway.

And so, as late as five and six days after the public unveiling, NCC staff were sending emails to the City of Ottawa, festival organizers, museums and others, letting them know the old street name had been pulled from under them.

Seriously? What terrible planning, especially for a national "planning" organization.

Nine months after Nicholas Hoare's Sussex Drive bookstore closed because the National Capital Commission wanted to nearly double its rent, the storefront remains empty.

"The NCC is currently in negotiations with interested parties," said spokesman Cédric Pelletier. "The location itself is popular."

At the same time, he said, the commission is "not in a position to provide a timeline" for when it might be rented. The NCC intends to find a tenant who'll pay market rent, though Pelletier wouldn't specify what that might be.

A flyer from Colliers, the commercial real-estate company, invites tenants to rent the space at 419 Sussex Dr. for about $6,500 a month to start, just more than Nicholas Hoare was paying as it ended its tenancy.

"It was a little more than $6,000, all-in," said Hoare last week from his warehouse in Montreal. "They wanted to raise it 72 per cent immediately and have it rise to a 93-per-cent increase by the end of five years. ... You should never take a lease that goes up that much."

The NCC has never confirmed the terms it was offering except to say that it made a business decision to charge market rent, but a 72-per-cent increase to a $6,000 monthly rent would have had the store paying $10,320 a month by now. Pelletier again declined last week to confirm or deny Hoare's numbers.

[...]Hoare is still angry about the way his relationship with the NCC broke down. He and the commission were good for each other, he said, with the bookstore providing an anchor for a stretch of Sussex that doesn't have much retail activity. "They were extremely keen to have us," he said. "They sought us out, not the other way around." The rent hike left him feeling "betrayed," he said.

Another frustration was the commission's insistence on a lease of just a few years: the custom shelves and lights and other accoutrements the store had, so essential to its boutique atmosphere, were expensive and Hoare wanted a long lease to amortize the cost. He has a 20-year lease for his store in Toronto, he said, but the NCC wouldn't ordinarily agree to more than three years at a time in Ottawa.

Also at Wednesday's public meeting, some board members questioned why NCC staff need seven years to complete the Capital Urban Lands Master Plan. It was begun in 2008 and is expected to be completed in 2015 and is meant to guide decisions about use and development of federal and NCC lands.

"I'm a little puzzled why this process has taken so long," said board member Richard Jennings.

"The climate and realities will change significantly," said board member Jason Sordi. "Are we confident that the whole process that will lead us to 2015 will continue to be fully relevant?"

Board member Peter Burgener dismissed NCC planner Madeleine Demers's presentation of a progress report on the plan.

"I don't think there's enough substance to even discuss," he said. "There are no ideas here. I don't see a plan here. I just see motherhood."

Demers described the plan's themes as conservation of natural areas, experience of the capital, connectivity and regional vitality.

"We have a very large workload and a very small group," said Thornton, defending the lengthy process.

The work has been interrupted a few times, she said. And, public consultation adds years to the planning process.

The principles may be motherhood, she said. "but they're important motherhood. People are counting on us to take care of the motherhood going into the future.

"How do we adapt and respond to a lot of those pressures of urbanization and demands, for example on parkways, without losing that legacy and that character that is known as the capital?"

The NCC: taking care of the motherhood.

The National Capital Commission is tweaking the way it manages its $100-million portfolio of rental properties. And it is inviting the property management industry to offer advice about how to do it.

The NCC rents out about 600 residential, commercial, agricultural, institutional and recreational properties in the National Capital Region.

They include about 240 single-family homes in the Greenbelt and Gatineau Park, 15 apartment units in the ByWard Market, and 94 commercial properties, many of them along Sussex Drive. There's also 5,400 hectares of agricultural land, mostly in the Greenbelt.

The properties are leased to individuals, institutions, government agencies, not-for-profit organizations and commercial operators for terms ranging from one to 99 years.

Collectively, they contributed a significant share of the $19.3 million in revenues the NCC earned in 2011-12 from rental operations and easements.

The NCC privatized its leasing and property management operations in 1996. Minto managed the rental properties until 2009, when a new contractor, Dell Management Solutions, took over.

With Dell's contract set to expire in March 2014, the NCC plans to invite bids for a new multi-year property management contract this spring, with a decision by the fall.

But this time, the NCC wants to split the contract into two parts: one for its residential properties, and the other for the commercial and other properties.

The NCC's board of directors approved a $4.9-million contract on Tuesday for the cleanup of 6.5 hectares bordered by Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway to the north, an open aqueduct to the south, Booth Street to the east and a stretch north of Preston Street to the west.

Using the contaminated soil to reshape and cap a former landfill on Ridge Road will save the majority of expensive landfilling costs, staff told the board during a teleconference meeting.

The remediation is the next step in a plan to clean up and develop LeBreton Flats, some of which has been done in a Claridge Homes development on land to the east. A further report on plans for the area is expected to go to the board in January.

Work under the contract approved Tuesday would see soil removed down to bedrock. The project is expected to be completed by December 2013, and will leave a fenced-off area that's between two and four metres deep, staff said, until decisions are made about who is building what.

The contaminated soil contains metals and hydrocarbons, according to environmental assessment documents, as most industrial and residential buildings at LeBreton Flats were destroyed by a fire in 1900 that left the area covered in ash. The following decades saw residential and commercial use that included service stations and scrap yards before all buildings were demolished in the 1960s, and parts of the site were used for snow dumping between 1970 and 1990.

No word on decisions about who is building what.

Two old buildings on Sussex Drive can't be demolished to widen the road where it curves east along the Ottawa River, city council's planning committee decided Tuesday morning.

[...]"It's time to stop the steady erosion of our unique and modest community," said resident Donna Kearns, one of numerous local history buffs and community-association types to argue against the move. "Each and every property is important."

She blamed the National Capital Commission, which has worked steadily to turn Sussex Drive into a major ceremonial avenue with Parliament at one end and Rideau Hall at the other, for denigrating local history in pursuit of a national goal. The commission "has behaved like the worst kind of landlord," buying up properties along Sussex and letting them fall apart because it plans to tear them down someday.

[...]if city council endorses the planning committee's vote, the city's staff and the NCC will have to come up with some combination of these moves, something Daigneault said after the meeting is a challenge they'll have to deal with.

The councillors' message couldn't have been clearer, with nearly all the committee members making a point of rejecting the plan before the vote.

"We can't say this is a heritage district and then proceed to figure out how to reduce the heritage district," Rideau-Rockcliffe Councillor Peter Clark said.

"The priority seems to be cars. It's almost as if the NCC's living in a fantasy world, where protecting the national interest is the same as protecting the interests of cars," agreed Kitchissippi's Katherine Hobbs.

There's some pretty rich irony in the fact that the National Capital Commission's "Mile of History" project includes decimating some of the city's history.

[...]Building a straighter Sussex means that the NCC plans to tear down two properties it owns at 273 and 275-79 Sussex, both of which are in the Lowertown West Heritage Conservation District. Neither building has individual heritage status. Instead, they are considered so-called "Category 3," which in heritage-speak means they add to the character of a historic district.

The attractive, detached home at 273 Sussex was built by local grocers in 1949, but it's likely not as important to the history of that neighbourhood as the rowhouses at 275-79. They're modest but charming. And at more than 100 years old, they are the last remaining example of the working-class housing that once existed all along Sussex. If they disappear, so will a part of this city's history - there will be no visual reminder of the character of the street, which is exactly what the conservation district is supposed to protect.

[...]The city insists that Sussex be four lanes wide to accommodate traffic, while the NCC insists on sidewalks being 3.6 metres wide (for pedestrians, benches and light posts) and having separate, 1.5 metre-wide cycling lanes. It's worth mentioning that this segment of Sussex, between Cathcart and Bolton streets - across from the Royal Canadian Mint - is beyond the prime tourist area and sees little foot traffic.

The NCC says moving the building is too expensive, although that's a relative concept. Is $750,000 to move the rowhouse "expensive" when seen in the context of the $30-million price tag for Sussex Drive project?

The real problem is that heritage considerations are all too often an afterthought. Instead of starting from the premise that the Sussex rowhouses were protected by the conservation district, the city and the NCC drafted their criteria for the project first, and only then tried to figure out if they could save the building.

[...]The issue goes to planning committee next Tuesday. Here's a strategy they might consider: wait.

This streetscaping project has been on the books since 1962. That's right - 50 years.

What's the rush now?

The NCC doesn't have any immediate plans for the site other than flattening the homes, although it proposes to develop the land a few years down the road. If everyone can't come to a solution at this moment, why not straighten Sussex when the property is redeveloped? That way, a developer can help to defray the costs of moving the rowhouse, or at least keeping the facade.

A 50 year plan to straighten a road + No plan for the site of the demolished buildings = Another stop on the NCC Watch Confederation Boulevard Walking Tour of NCC Planning Disasters.

These houses form part of a portfolio of some 240 NCC residential properties that the commission owns with the intention of "renaturalizing" the areas, said Mary Ann Waterston, director of real estate management at the NCC.

[...]The NCC leases out the houses and performs periodic assessments of the dwelling conditions. Once the house requires extensive work such as a roof replacement, the NCC terminates the lease and puts the building on a list for demolition.
"The intent is they would be demolished at the end of their lifecycle (to) return the land," she says.

The properties are 4052 Old Richmond Rd., 3836 Carling Ave., 2675 (529) Robertson Rd., 2835 (649) Robertson Rd., 27 Moodie Dr.

Heritage advocates accused the city and National Capital Commission of paving over a compelling national story as they plan to demolish three Sussex Drive homes to widen the road.

[...]The widening is a longstanding project led the NCC to purchase the three homes in the 1980s as part of a plan to redevelop the "Mile of History" section of Confederation Boulevard.

But during an Ottawa Built Heritage Advisory Committee meeting on Sept. 20, heritage advocates said the project attempts to rewrite Canada's history where a compelling national narrative already exists.

The committee rejected city staff's recommendation to allow the demolitions. That recommendation will go to the planning committee and then city council for final approval.

[...]"It makes you wonder why the national interest couldn't be to protect what they have already almost erased," said Chris Mulholland, heritage committee chairman. "If you erase all the heritage that's there, what's worth having it as a national boulevard?"

Retaining the homes, especially 277 Sussex Dr., would "speak eloquently to the humble roots of our country," said Leslie Maitland, president of Heritage Ottawa.

"The history of Ottawa is more than embassies," she said.

[...]A plan to widen the road has been in the works since the 1960s due to the need to increase safety at the curve, said John Smit, manager of urban development review. The $30 million worth of changes will better accommodate cyclists and pedestrians, he said. There will be bike lanes in both directions and the sidewalks will be up to three metres wide.

The speed limit in that 1.5-kilometre section is currently 40 kilometres per hour and the city plans to increase it to 50 kilometre per hour after the curve is straightened out.

David Jeanes, a heritage advocate who spoke at the meeting as president of Transport Action Canada, said the transportation rationale for the project is flawed.

The natural traffic calming of the curve slows traffic down as it approaches one of the few pedestrian crossings in the area.

If cyclists aren't comfortable sharing the road with motorists, there are side street options nearby. The city could get away with including chevron markings called "sharrows" that indicate cyclists and motorists should share the road, Jeanes said.

"Do the sidewalks need to be widened? What is the pedestrian volume here?" Jeanes asked. "Here, it has not been shown that transportation trumps heritage."

[...]The demolitions will also mean a $14,000 reduction in annual tax revenue for the city.

Planners are looking to tear down rental homes owned by the National Capital Commission at 273 and 275-279 Sussex Dr. for a project that includes adding two cycling lanes to a curved stretch of road near Bolton and Cathcart streets as part of larger improvement work between King Edward Avenue and St. Patrick Street. The project is led by the city with NCC involvement.

In July, the NCC's board endorsed the idea of knocking down the homes for the work, and the plans now go to the city government for approval to remove the buildings from the Lowertown West Heritage Conservation District.

Although such demolitions should not be supported "as a general principle," the city's planning department says various issues are at stake, and safety, transportation and the NCC's wishes to complete its ceremonial route are most important.

"The Department supports the proposed roadway and the demolitions it entails as it will solve a safety issue that has been identified for decades, will provide mobility choices through its incorporation of dedicated bike lanes and will support the NCC in its goal of completing Confederation Boulevard," staff say in a report going to the Ottawa built heritage advisory committee on Thursday.
"In addition, the proposed interim landscaped area will enhance the pedestrian experience in the area by providing views across the river from a green, park-like setting."

[...]As conditions of approval, staff recommend the buildings be documented before they're torn down, and the leftover vacant space landscaped until the NCC decides what it wants to do with it.

"Such landscaping would serve a number of purposes in the interim: enhancing the pedestrian experience by providing an opportunity to experience the views across the Ottawa River towards the historic Alexandra Bridge and beyond to the Gatineau Hills; animating this portion of the street; and, masking the side and back yards of the adjacent properties on Bolton and Cathcart," the report states.

So, a park on the new, wider, straighter and faster Confederation Boulevard - until the NCC gets around to deciding who gets to put their embassy there - and more work for city archivists. What could be better?

It is important to note that the Sussex Drive Reconstruction Project is a project piloted by the City of Ottawa on an Arterial Road. The NCC's contribution to this project is the specific elements associated with Confederation Boulevard added to the urban reconstruction, which is usually under City responsibility.

The need for a larger right-of-way in this sector for road reconstruction purposes dates back to the early sixties. The buildings in question were situated on the planned right-of-way and it was for this reason that expropriation notices were issued at that time. The buildings were finally acquired in 1980.

The residential vocation of these properties has been continuously maintained since their acquisition. The vocation of all NCC properties in this sector, as defined in the 2005 Canada's Capital Core Area Sector Plan, is residential in nature. We stopped leasing the houses when we learned that the reconstruction project was to go ahead.

As part of our objectives to build a user-friendly and safe capital for all active transportation enthusiasts, whether they are pedestrians or cyclists, the NCC strongly supports the bicycle lane that is included in the reconstruction project.

Rest assured that we have asked the City of Ottawa to examine several scenarios, including the one mentioned in your correspondence, in order to preserve the residences between 273 and 279 Sussex Drive. The City of Ottawa, which is responsible for traffic on its territory, has not accepted any of the scenarios to preserve our properties and the dedicated bicycle lane.

The NCC position all along, then, amounted to:

• It's hardly anything to do with us!
• It's been the plan for ages!
• Bicycles! Group hug!
• The City! Ever tried to say no to them?!

One supposes that we should thank the NCC for their incompetence in taking 20 years to act on an expropriation on behalf of the City, which is finally getting around to executing some neanderthal plan from the 60s. This is all nonsense of course. When the City asked to put light rail next to the recently renamed Sir John A. Macdonald commuter freeway, the NCC somewhere found the stones to say No. And the NCC expropriated all the properties along Sussex ages ago because they thought the Embassies of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia would look ever so much nicer and more official looking.

The Lowertown Community Association followed up with another letter; the NCC never saw fit to respond.

Sachin Anand was as surprised as anyone when he got word that the National Capital Commission was going to allow him to serve alcohol by the side of the Rideau Canal.

Yet as of last weekend, Anand and his business partner, Jason Victor, were indeed pouring beer and wine on the east bank of the UNESCO World Heritage site, practically in the shadow of the Ottawa Convention Centre. The old high-school friends' new venture, Pop Up Patios, is the result of an NCC initiative to liven up the shorelines of the canal.

"Initially, I expected them to be a much harder sell," Anand says of the NCC bureaucrats. "But they have been extremely pleasurable to work with."
You read that right: A pleasure. The NCC. But there was plenty of red tape, right?

Apparently, not so much.

"When we submitted the design for the patio, the NCC was back to us pretty quickly," Anand says. "The choice of furniture was up to us, but considering it's a site where people take a lot of photos, they wanted to make sure that it doesn't look too rag-tag, that it has a certain amount of class."

Also singing the NCC's praises these days is Colin Goodfellow. The commission bought into his ambitious concept for a large cedar deck and faux beach (it's more of a large sandbox), also on the east side of the canal. Just north of the Corktown footbridge, it was also chosen as one of the five NCC's features along the canal.

Goodfellow's project, called 8 Locks Flat, got off the ground just this past weekend and is still a work in progress.

[...]"The NCC bent over backwards to be supportive," says Goodfellow, who is, amazingly, also the CEO of the Kemptville Hospital. [...]The commission approved the project within two days of receiving Goodfellow's engineer's report.

[...]The NCC is again keeping eye on the capital's esthetic with the canal-side attractions, but this time, taxpayers aren't paying a cent. The NCC is allowing the proponents to use the land for three seasons (which run anywhere from May to October, depending on the project) and providing staff support. But the operators are taking all the financial risk.

Certainly, waterside parks are necessary components of good urban quality of place. But too much green can become just as much a barrier as industry or railway tracks.

Ottawa's so-called "Parkways" along the Ottawa River, a product of the car-focused and deeply flawed Gréber Plan of 1950, are primarily low-speed controlled-access freeways. Similarly, the canal roads, especially Colonel By Drive with only a narrow path between road and water, operate as commuter arterials. On the sunniest of summer days, beyond the beaches, only a minuscule percentage of Ottawans can be found along any of the city's numerous waterways. A decent latte, much less a meal, cannot be had along the over 60 kilometres of trails along the Ottawa or Rideau Rivers; and the canal is little better.

The American Project for Public Spaces, in its guide How to Transform a Waterfront, argues for the "power of 10," that is, there should be at least 10 "destinations" along a successful waterfront. A focus on connected destinations, rather than "open space," they argue, is a requirement for success. "Creating these connections ... entails mixing uses (such as housing, parks, entertainment and retail) and mixing partners (such as public institutions and local business owners)."

[...]Unlike many cities, Ottawa appears frozen in a planning time warp. Internationally, comparable cities such as Helsinki and Copenhagen are embracing their waterways as places for living, learning, working and playing.

[...]A prime candidate would be anchored by the long-in-planning brownfield redevelopment of the city-owned Bayview Yards but extended across NCC lands to the Ottawa River and out the peninsula leading to Bell Island. The Ottawa River Parkway would swing inward to become a more pedestrian friendly boulevard. Mid-rise residential blocks - including condos, rentals, co-ops and social housing - with street based retail, commercial services and cultural facilities would extend daily life to the shoreline although quays, interspersed with softer but quality landscape architecture would remain public spaces.

Descending from homes or professional offices beside the river, residents could join visitors from other parts of the city at outdoor terraces on the public quays for a Bridgehead coffee or a meal at a three-star restaurant featuring local produce from a market square. Perhaps, as at Selkirk Waters in Victoria, people could launch or rent a kayak to paddle Lazy Bay or the nearby Islands.

The cycle shop next door will tune up your bike before a daylong ride or a morning commute across the converted railway trestle bridge, again copying Victoria's Galloping Goose trail bridge. Of course, the Gatineau side of this bridge could also emerge as its own bayside village, thus creating twinned communities linked by the trestle.

In addition, village development of the Hurdman Station lands and the NCC's un-poetically named riverside National Interest Land Mass could include a pedestrian bridge across the Rideau River to city-owned vacant land on the north shore. While this also serves to finally put to rest the lamentable Vanier "Parkway" plan, I would still envisage a village friendly tram - as can be found in downtown Portland, Oregon, or countless European cities - linking Lees Station to Hunt Club. At the northeastern edge of our new village, the existing Hurdman pedestrian trestle bridge connects into the University of Ottawa's south campus.

The NCC recently authorized some food trucks to operate near the canal, and has solid long-term plans to set up some folding chairs at undisclosed locations.

Lemay will step down next month as the NCC's chief executive to become Associate Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, one of a spate of senior public service appointments made Friday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Lemay told NCC employees that she is leaving the commission after 4 1/2 years "with mixed feelings," but she is secure in her own mind that her mission to drag the much maligned agency into a new era of accountability, openness and relevance is done. She told the Citizen that what's considered her defining project - a new plan to succeed Jacques Gréber's 1950 capital blueprint - is in good hands and would be completed as planned.

"The challenge I had when I came in was to champion openness and transparency, and if I look at the organization today and what it was, I am very proud of what we have done. I am leaving an organization that has a total different way of thinking ... a whole cultural shift in how we do business," Lemay said in an interview.

"We've become a much more nimble and flexible organization, we've become open and transparent and the way we do things is part of who we are. I am quite confident that we are not going back, no matter who steps (into) that role."

[...]Lemay championed many things, but said she is proudest of the BIXI bike-sharing program, of buying more land in Gatineau Park to prevent development, and of the ambitious new plan for the capital's next 50 years.

While many praised Lemay's infectious enthusiasm, critics said she lacked the vision to do the big things that really define great capitals. Waterfront development, redevelopment of Sparks Street and animation of Ottawa's shorelines were not far advanced under her leadership. University of Ottawa professor Gilles Paquet, who chaired the review panel that led to her appointment, once said that Lemay's NCC became too "timid" to do much good.

Lemay dismissed that criticism Friday, saying like most people, she wanted things to happen fast. But the reality is that the NCC can't just wave a magic wand and things would happen, she said. It operates in a complex world of different players and conflicting interests.

"There are some things that you'd like to happen faster. There are so many good ideas and projects and you want to see these happen, but you have to be realistic because there are different players," she said.
"You have to learn to be a little patient."

Lemay can be certainly credited for not overstaying her welcome, unlike the late unlamented imperial chairmanship of Marcel Beaudry.

Planners have settled on the idea of demolishing NCC-owned rental homes at 273 and 275-279 Sussex Dr., and adding cycling lanes to the four lanes of traffic. Green space would be created by some of the area left vacant once the homes were knocked down, the board heard.

No real improvements have been made in the area since the 1960s, NCC project manager Richard Daigneault told board members. A staff report to the board said that the need to fix the curve to improve sightlines and make the road safer was first identified that same decade.

"Lane widths are inadequate and the curvature of the road does not meet design and safety standards," it says.

Residents and heritage advocates have raised concerns about the potential loss of the homes, which sit in the Lowertown West Heritage Conservation District. Former governor general Adrienne Clarkson lived in one of them for a brief period while growing up.

The city and NCC looked at other options that would save the homes, such as building a cantilevered road and installing shared lanes, but found they were too expensive or didn't provide adequate safety.

Reducing the number of vehicle lanes was the NCC's preferred approach, but the city said that would cause too many traffic problems, especially at rush hour.

Just one more small step in the destruction of Lowertown. While road-widening and straightening to increase traffic speeds is absolutely typical of the City, the NCC's record of managing the properties that they expropriated in this area is pretty poor. As this classic from the Citizen archives makes clear, by allowing the demolition of these last two houses, the NCC is simply finishing the job they started decades ago.

One section of The Mill Street Brew Pub was standing room only as Heritage Ottawa members and residents gathered to reflect on a time when LeBreton Flats was a thriving community complete with homes, businesses and churches.

On April 19, they paid tribute to the community and marked 50 years since the LeBreton expropriations in 1962, which were intended to make way for urban renewal.

[...]Ottawa author Phil Jenkins spoke first about the history of the flats, starting 11,000 years ago when the area was under the sea.

[...]He showed paintings by an artist named Ralph Wallace Burton, who was a friend of The Group of Seven's A.Y. Jackson, and who painted the flats before they disappeared.

"After April 19, 1962, 2,800 people received notices from the National Capital Commission saying as of yesterday, the title of your home as been expropriated and the NCC holds titles to the house you're in," Jenkins said.

Jenkins also spoke about the last building to come down - which sparked memories from former residents of the flats who were at the commemoration.
"The last building to come down was the Duke House and it held its last St. Patrick's Day party in 1965," said Jenkins.

Roger Picton, an urban geography professor at Trent University, spoke next about the reconstruction of Ottawa's urban landscape and planning after the Second World War.

[...]Lori Thornton of the NCC spoke about how it plans to revive the LeBreton Flats area as a signature development for the city.

She also outlined the NCC's challenges. Ideas for the area have come up in the past, but didn't work out, like a National Defence headquarters during the mid-1960s to mid-1970s and a possible new Museum of Nature building, Thornton said.

"One major issue that was fully understated at the time of acquisition was the extent of the soil and groundwater contamination of the site," Thornton said. "When you have one-third to a half of the site as railway use, they leave behind the nastiest stuff you can imagine, and there were a range of other industries in the area."

Now, she said there are many regulations and laws, and levels of certain substances that are acceptable to have in soil if the site is to be developed.
"You really, really have to clean up the site," Thornton said.

She added that there have also been issues of ownership on the flats after expropriation, with the regional government taking over regional roads in 1969 and the lands also being owned by the NCC and the city.

Finally, she said another major challenge relates to the city's light rail transit plans.

"Light rail is hopefully coming and will be great, but the LeBreton plan has to adapt," Thornton said.

Gilles Paquet, an expert in public management and professor at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, said he hopes the public brings transportation up at the NCC's annual public meeting where the organization is welcoming citizens to learn more about its initiatives and directly address its board members with ideas and comments.

"There has been very, very timid action taken by the NCC over the past few years on the key issue of transportation," he said. "They've had a number of interesting improvements in doing business by offering these public consultations, but the substance of what they've achieved is very minimal."
The hundreds of buses that clutter the bridges between Ottawa and Gatineau on a daily basis, Paquet said, are creating chaos on the roads and hindering the growth of the city.

"We still live in the chaos and nothing has been done to coordinate starting work on the both sides of the river," he said. "I would rather hear they're working on a light train that links Ottawa and Gatineau. Then we would have a real transportation hub."

A major reconstruction project scheduled for a section of Sussex Drive in Lowertown has put the future of several Lowertown houses, including former governor general Adrienne Clarkson's first Canadian home, in doubt.
The city is planning to widen and add cycling lanes along Sussex, a project that would see National Capital Commission-owned houses at 273, 275, 277 and 279 Sussex Dr. demolished.

[...]The properties set to be demolished lie within the Lowertown West Heritage Conservation District and will require the NCC to apply to the city under the Ontario Heritage Act to obtain permission to have the buildings torn down.
This application is scheduled to happen in the summer and will be accompanied by a Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment.

According to Ziad Ghadban, an infrastructure services manager for the city, the project would not be able to go ahead as designed without the demolition of the buildings.

"The need is to correct the curvature and alignment of Sussex Drive between the Royal Canadian Mint and Boteler Street in order to include safe and continuous dedicated 1.5-metre cycling lanes in each direction," Ghadban said. "The dedicated cycling lanes would not be possible without the realignment."

Members of the Lowertown Community Association, however, aren't convinced. The group doesn't want to see Clarkson's former home or any of the other homes demolished.

In a letter addressed to the National Capital Commission, the city and area politicians, association president Marc Aubin made an appeal for the homes to be saved.

"Taken as a whole, losing another one or two buildings is not going to affect this neighbourhood's heritage," Aubin wrote. "However, when one considers how much has already been lost... then the question becomes are we reaching a point where it has become meaningless to call this a heritage district?"
As for the city's claims the demolitions are necessary to accommodate the cycling lanes, the letter expressed the association's stance that the need to preserve Lowertown's heritage should be paramount.

There are many reasons why bookstores are struggling these days, reasons that have nothing to do with the NCC. A Nicholas Hoare store in Montreal is, reportedly, also set to close.

But in Ottawa, it doesn't help that the NCC is raising the rent by 72 per cent, according to what an employee told the Citizen. Other stores and restaurants in the area complain that the NCC, like some other landlords, requires businesses to pay extra whenever their revenues exceed a set amount. It's an approach that penalizes businesses for doing well.

The NCC does have a responsibility to get market value for its properties, and a spokesman points out that anything else might be criticized as an unfair business practice. It's a fair point, but it illuminates the contradiction inherent in state ownership of commercial properties. If the NCC's bound to push rents to the limit the market will bear, the private sector could do that on its own.

If there's a need for a state landlord in the area, there must be considerations other than money in play. If not, Canadians should rethink whether it really needs the federal government to act as a commercial landlord, especially at a time when government should be getting smaller.

It's true that bookstores have to adapt to a changing market, but there's no reason to make it even more difficult for them to do so. Bookstores are community spaces, not just businesses. That's the kind of thing the NCC should care about.

If the NCC treats its landlord role as a simple commercial operation, Canadians should question why it has that role at all.

I have an idea for Tony Clement and his budget cutters that will not only save federal taxpayers millions of dollars a year but will also recover hundreds of millions more that are locked up in federal real estate holdings. Let's get rid of the NCC.

It's a relic of the 1950s, an unwieldy, undemocratic, unresponsive, and expensive bureaucracy that replicates services and has no obvious public benefit. Lots of other NCC operations should either be handed to the city - with grants, if warranted - or to agencies of the federal and provincial governments.

Why, for instance, are small parks like Confederation Park across from City Hall and Brébeuf Park on the Ottawa River in the west end of Hull run by the NCC? Those parks serve no national purpose. They're city parks. Let the cities pay for them.

[...]Then there's LeBreton Flats.

Great job there, guys.

In the middle of one of the biggest building booms in the city's history, the NCC, sitting on hundreds of acres in the middle of the city, after spending millions on studies, comes up with a vast acreage of ragweed, a solitary tree that a hobo sleeps under, and the most ghastly piece of residential architecture that this city's seen in an awful long time.

[...]Then there's the issue of interprovincial bridges. The NCC tries to control those, too. When the Champlain Bridge was widened a decade ago, residents of the Island Park neighbourhood said it would not solve gridlock. It would simply facilitate urban sprawl on the Quebec side. And they were right. Vast areas of swamps west of Hull and north of Aylmer were quickly built over, and the wider Champlain Bridge is just as locked up at rush hour as it was 10 years ago. Island Park Drive is now a far less pleasant place during peak traffic times.

There was a reason the NCC could turn a deaf ear to the residents of Island park: the NCC is, essentially, an undemocratic organization. No one elects its board members, except for the mayors of Ottawa and Gatineau, who sit as ex-officio members.

No minister takes responsibility for it in Parliament. Strangely, it files its financial reports through the ministry of Foreign Affairs. That's John Baird's ministry.

Sell it. Shut it down.

It's time.

The former Canada and the World Pavilion, whose future has been the source of lively debate over the years, is for rent.

The National Capital Commission (NCC) is seeking a public or private sector tenant who can turn the vacant building beside the Rideau Falls into a national attraction.

"We're looking for any kind of proposal," says Mary Ann Waterston, NCC director of real estate management. "Public access is very important to us. We are looking for something that would have a national purpose so that it could benefit all Canadians. It's an absolutely stunning building."

[...]Waterston didn't want to speculate on possible uses. "We want to see what's out there. What people's ideas will be."

However, a museum rather than an office building would be an example of something with broad public interest, she said. "I wouldn't accept a restaurant."

In the past, the NCC considered leasing it to an embassy but decided "that isn't what we want for that particular location," says Waterston. "There are other places in the city where that can take place."

According to a 2010 market analysis, the annual rent should be $254,000, not including operating costs and taxes.

[...]In 2007, the Governor General's office eyed the pavilion as a showplace for its Chancellery of Honour. At the same time, the Ottawa Art Gallery lobbied for it.

Then mould was discovered in 2008, which has since been remediated, said Waterston. "There's no mould."

Expressions of interest will be accepted until April 30.

To ensure Canadians have a say in how their capital is shaped, the NCC held public consultations in seven cities across the country - Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Victoria, Edmonton and Quebec City. Lemay says the "national conversation" produced terrific ideas that would be channelled into the new plan.

[...]The challenge, however, is turning people's ideas into a concrete plan, and she says Ottawa-Gatineau residents will play a key role. They will get a chance to have their say at public meetings scheduled for Feb. 21-22. Further meetings will take place in the fall to discuss a draft plan. A new plan for the capital is expected to be ready board approval in the spring of 2013.
But as the public consultations in the national capital region get ready to begin, urban experts say capital transformation doesn't have to wait 50 years. They say Ottawa's slow progress into a great capital is not for want of new ideas but drive, and there are many things the NCC could do now to transform Ottawa. The NCC, they say, has to move beyond words into action.

[...]"You cannot develop a long-term plan for a city by relying on a bureaucratic organization and process. I just can't imagine that any real direction for the future will come out of this process. I suspect what will come out are generic statements about a capital we are proud of and which we want to inspire Canadians blah, blah, blah," architecture and urban planning critic Rhys Phillips says.

"What will it really say about LeBreton Flats; what will it say about creating urban villages that will be a showcase to the world; how is somebody in Saskatoon going to tell you how to get the bloody trucks out of downtown, or turn the riverfront into a living, breathing area."

Over 50 years, parcels of land - large and small - belonging to provincial and municipal governments, as well as private holders, would be added to the Greenbelt through purchase or negotiations. By 2067, the Greenbelt would grow to about 24,000 hectares (23,875) from 21,875 hectares today.

Overall, 57 per cent would be natural environment, up from 50 per cent. Nearly 5,800 hectares would be set aside to promote sustainable agriculture, mostly small-scale operations of crops and livestock. About nine per cent will be buildings and other facilities. More than 25 per cent of the Greenbelt would be devoted to a variety of farming enterprises.

The biggest parcels of land the NCC hopes to add to the Greenbelt include privately owned land in Shirley's Bay and provincially owned woodlands and natural areas near the Mer Bleue Bog. The NCC believes it can negotiate with provincial and city governments to make their land part of the Greenbelt while maintaining ownership. Other pieces of land would be part of a study to determine if they should be added to the Greenbelt. The trickier part for the NCC, which is hard-pressed for cash, is to find the money to buy private lands.
Marie Lemay, the NCC's chief executive, said Wednesday the decision to expand the Greenbelt and prevent new commercial development is an affirmation of its value to the city.

Despite its failure to prevent suburban development, the NCC says the Greenbelt is still relevant, and continues to definitely pay dividends "by safeguarding forests, fields, streams and wetlands and species, and by filtering our air, cleansing our water, and moving toward sustainable agriculture."

NCC consultant Cynthia Levesque says with the new plan, there will no longer be any doubt about the Greenbelt's role: protection of the natural environment, a place for sustainable agriculture and recreation.

A massive 300-year-old white pine close to Wakefield was the focus of a demonstration Thursday to protest the destruction of trees to make way for the planned Highway 5 extension.

"We're trying to attract attention to the ecological devastation that will happen here in the next two to three weeks," said Jean-Paul Murray, secretary of the Gatineau Park Protection Committee.

"We're standing right where the highway will pass. We want to attract attention to the destruction of these last giants of the forest," he said.

[…]The National Capital Commission has said the work won't have a significant effect on the park since it lies just outside the park boundary. It points to a federal environmental assessment that concluded: "The authorities are of the opinion that the project is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects."

Half a century after Jacques Gréber's death in 1962, a newly found letter from the French architect and planner suggests that Gatineau Park needs stronger protection.

Both the letter and Gréber's descendants also suggest that the man who designed Ottawa and Gatineau wouldn't think highly of the extended Highway 5.

From Paris, Xavier Reynaud says his great-grandfather loved Gatineau Park, and would be shocked to see highway construction cutting through the forest near the park's eastern edge.

Reynaud has a copy of a letter Gréber wrote in 1952, which says Gatineau Park - not central Ottawa - is the heart of his plan for the National Capital. Reynaud called the Citizen this week to discuss it.

Calling the park a "magnificent forest reserve," Gréber's letter adds that its unique status - wilderness just outside a capital city - demands a "permanent program of enlargement and protection."

It says the "natural structure, the infinite variety of its beauty and the possibilities that its attractions present are far greater than the attributes of an ordinary municipal park in the service of the population."

Then the kicker: "In fact, this is really the central nucleus of the overall management plan for the national capital of Canada."

"I recently saw an interview that he gave to the CBC in 1961, in which he was asked what he considered his most important commission," Reynaud said.

"He responded without hesitation that it was the planning of the national capital region of Canada."

It was only recently that Reynaud, who is married to a woman from Toronto and regularly visits Canada, learned of the extension of Highway 5. Crews are currently blasting away steep hills and cutting forests to join Wakefield to Gatineau with four lanes.

"If my great-grandfather were still alive today, he would be simply devastated to learn about Highway 5 and would have expressed his opposition, obviously," Reynaud said.

It doesn't matter that the National Capital Commission has shifted the boundaries to ensure that the road is outside the actual park, he says, since the clear-cutting still affects trees that are part of the park's ecosystem.

[…]Gréber shows his overall vision for the park in his 1952 letter to the Federal District Commission, the forerunner of the National Capital Commission. Reynaud sent a copy to the Citizen.

[…]And his warning extends to land outside park boundaries. He clearly describes the danger of letting major development crowd the edges of the park:

"It would be very sad if one authorized such degradation of the landscape just outside the park limits while the FDC is trying by all means to protect the zone inside these limits."

The current highway extension is just outside the eastern park limits, according to the NCC - but inside them according to its opponents on the Gatineau Park Committee, which doesn't recognize the validity of a boundary change.

He gave the National Capital Commission a new lease on life when many were calling for its head.

But five years after his review panel gave the NCC a strong vote of confidence, University of Ottawa professor Gilles Paquet has soured on the agency, saying it is in danger of becoming irrelevant.

"What we need at the NCC is leadership that is going to take the advantage of all the precedents that exist to be a champion for the federal capital region, rather than the timid operator they are now," said Paquet, senior fellow at the university's Centre on Governance.

"The fact that they are invisible or they indulge in evasive thinking is condemning them to become more and more irrelevant. To my mind this is the kiss of death."

[…]He says it has failed to live up to its "burden of office."

Instead of taking advantage of its strong mandate to be an active federal advocate in the region, he says the NCC has been something of a bystander on the big issues of the future. It has focused more on programming, not capital-building.

While the NCC has been travelling around the country seeking ideas for a new capital plan, Paquet says there are things it could be doing right now that would dramatically transform the capital.

"The city is going to be crippled because of decisions that are not being taken now. They will die of a slow death if they have nothing to show except that they are travelling around the country looking for ideas."

Paquet points to numerous proposals, including rail links to the Ottawa and Gatineau airports and loops around the capital, that have gone nowhere.

Waterfront development has been talked to death, but nothing has happened. He says the fact the nation's capital hasn't been able to create a modern, integrated transportation system is a testament to the NCC's failure.

"Transportation is the key element in this region. If you were able to deal with the transportation issue - not just railroads and bridges, but the river as well - this would be a different place," he said.

"The one magnificent dimension of this city is the river, but we don't know what to do with it. The timidity of the NCC is the reason things are not happening."

One wonders what it was about the NCC's incompetence of the last five years that so distinguished it from the 50 before that.

The National Capital Commission, the planning agency that overseas federal land and hosts national events in the capital region, is on a mission to make the capital more "vibrant" - although its timeline is admittedly long term. The commission's Horizon 2067 plan to re-imagine the capital is pegged to Canada's 200th birthday, a full half-century from today.

[…]The Horizon 2067 plan, which will be approved in the spring of 2013, is so far short on details and tangible proposals.

The commission this fall spent upward of $650,000 crisscrossing the country to hold what Ms. Lemay calls "capital conversations," where Canadians in Ottawa, Quebec City, Halifax, Victoria, Edmonton and elsewhere voiced their desires for a future Ottawa. It began with a capital conversation with the aboriginal community, which the commission hopes to better represent in the capital whether through renaming streets after aboriginal leaders or by celebrating the traditions through events.

"The question is," Ms. Lemay said, "Where do we see ourselves in 50 years?"

At the capital conversation in Ottawa, Montreal-born singer-songwriter Florence K suggested dubbing the city "HOTtawa" to give it a sexier image, and former diplomat Stephen Lewis suggested the capital become "one of the great conference centres of the world ... a centrepiece of international gatherings." Canadians also apparently want more bike lanes, "personality," landscape architecture, "pizzazz" and gay bars, according to the commission's "We Asked, You Spoke" webpage, where citizens are asked to give a word or a short phrase to describe their hopes for the capital in 2067.

In its discussion draft, the commission admits the "younger generation thinks less highly of the National Capital" than its older or less-educated counterparts.

"The clear message we got from the younger generation is: 'We want to experience the culture of Canada. We don't necessarily want to see a wooden panel that talks about New Brunswick. We want to live it, we want to taste it, we want to really experience it,' " said Ms. Lemay, adding that suggestions included pop-up restaurants featuring food from a particular province, or adding benches and portable chairs along the canal so people can rest and gather as they wish.

So hold onto your hats - fewer plaques and more portable chairs coming your way by 2067.

Yes, it was a nice idea to imagine Ottawa in 56 years. No matter that this will cost $650,000, that 2067 is an eternity from now, and that the NCC is discredited in reputation and limited in authority in this orphaned city.

But why should that stop the jumped-up nation-builders at the NCC, who thought this one up so that Canadians could pretend to care about Ottawa? Yes, vision and ambition are commendable in a city with little of either. That the NCC, under CEO Marie Lemay's spirited leadership, wants to lead a conversation on making a great capital is lovely. But you don't do it with an expensive road-show that is more an exercise in public rather than a public exercise. You don't do it to solicit motherhood prescriptions, as Chianello points out, such as "sustainable," "inclusive," and "culturally vibrant."

And you don't do it by commissioning self-aggrandizing polls suggesting how good people feel about Ottawa (why, 80 per cent have a "positive" view!). Honestly, what does that mean?

[…]If the NCC really wants to do something more enduring and more useful than a standing ovation at the National Arts Centre, here are some ways to take the discussion from the heavens to the plains:

Understand that Ottawa doesn't have 56 years to contemplate itself. It is already far behind other cities in mass transit, public architecture and institutions (like a central library). It has to rush into the future, not amble, which is its instinct.

Persuade the federal government to look at Ottawa more favourably. Little will happen in its realm until it does. Urge it to build great institutions - a science museum, a national portrait gallery, a history museum - as well as turning the old U.S. embassy into an exhibition hall displaying our founding documents.

Develop the shores of the Ottawa River, which the Aga Khan and his Global Centre for Pluralism and others are discussing privately, but slowly. Do the same with the banks of the Rideau Canal. The new chalets look good, even if they cost too much at $750,000 each. Now try some exhibits for Winterlude that don't date to 1985.

Lace the city with bicycle paths. Explore green energy. Encourage innovative street vendors and different street food. Build an aboriginal centre on Victoria Island, finally.

Mandate beauty in new build-ings. Fill those that sit empty, such as the Canada and the World Pavilion on Sussex Drive, which could house the embassies of Scandinavia in one place, as in Berlin. Don't allow new construction on the greensward near Rideau Hall.

Do the little things: more outdoor chairs, more rental bikes, more nature trails, more public art.

Stop thinking about 2067. No one cares. Think about 2027 and announce a plan for the next 15 years. A horizon we can see.

If you really want to know how to build an innovative city, don't ask the eggheads and bureaucrats - ask the guy behind the grill at a local burger shack. Or the bookstore owner. Or the chef.

While the National Capital Commission works away on its plan to "shape the capital's future" over the next 50 years - called Horizon 2067 - Ottawa's rapidly evolving neighbourhoods have ideas of their own.

Like raising money from neighbours to help a Hintonburger burger shack move into a boarded up KFC franchise (and soliciting ideas about what to do with the revolving bucket) - the gift certificates that are helping to finance the renovations are redeemable when the new restaurant opens. Or turning a local bookstore into a community meeting hub.

Don't tell the NCC, but Ottawa is shaping itself, recklessly, with a sense of fun and innovation few outsiders would probably associate with Canada's capital.

And while the NCC should limit its 50-year plan to the future of Official Ottawa (and has its work cut out managing that file), it could learn some lessons from Ottawa's neighbourhoods - namely that culture grows, incrementally, from the ground up and not the top down; and the best way to nurture it is to stand back and let it happen.

The editorial board, meanwhile, notes that the NCC already has enough on its plate.

Instead of coming up with a masterplan for Ottawa until 2067, the NCC should stick to what it does (and often struggles to do well): primarily keeping the slice of Ottawa that makes up the official capital vibrant and relevant. There is no shortage of improvements that could be made, all of which would make Ottawa a more lively and tourist-friendly capital, something that should suit all Canadians.

The problem with the NCC's ambition to create what it calls the most comprehensive plan for the capital since Jacques Gréber's 1950s masterplan, is that the NCC has its hands full trying to do its own thing - we don't want it to redesign the rest of the city, thanks.

[…]The best approach for the future of the capital is for the NCC to put together a realistic and doable plan for the incremental improvement of official Ottawa that it can complete, and let the city shape itself.

Marie Lemay defended the NCC's decision to consult Canadians across the country on a new plan for the capital, saying reshaping Ottawa for the next 50 years is not a job for a select few. If Canadians are going to embrace the capital as their own, and be inspired by it, then they should have a say in its creation, Lemay said in an interview with the Citizen.

Some believe the NCC could have achieved its goal by staying in Ottawa, but Lemay said the critics are wrong. She says the consultations produced fascinating ideas and insights that will form the basis of a new blueprint including: Ottawa as Canada's face to the world; as a window on the country, representing the Canadian experience and values; as a place to celebrate aboriginal culture and history; and as a vibrant capital that inspires Canadians.

[...]The new plan aims to reshape Ottawa for the next 50 years - to Canada's 200th anniversary.

The NCC hopes to create a "more representative and vibrant" capital that could become "a place of pilgrimage" where Canadians come to experience and learn about the country, she says.

[...]"The next part of the plan - developing the vision, starting to talk about strategies and concepts is going to happen here. The real work starts in January with the folks in this region to really engage them and say, 'Here's everything that we've got, what do we want to do with it? How do you see yourself?' "

Lemay said the big challenge facing the NCC is translate people's ideas into something concrete. When people say they want to see different parts of the country represented in Ottawa or that they want Canadian values represented in the capital, what does it really mean? How best can something like that be done and what form would it take? Some of the ideas could be integrated into NCC programming and activities, but others might entail major physical projects that will need funding to implement.

Meanwhile, down the street, one of the capital's historic national museums will be building surface parking because that's what passes for planning in the sharing caring capital:

People living near Ottawa's newly renovated Museum of Nature are angry over a plan to turn former parkland into a parking lot.
The museum says it needs at least part of its "West Lawn" to accommodate the growing number of visitors.

The lawn was used as a staging area during construction and is now an automated, public parking lot.

While there is a plan to restore some greenspace, neighbours said it's not what they were promised.

"They were all promised a park," said Roshell Bisset, who lives in the neighbourhood.

"That promise should be honoured, and that this is something that would make it much more liveable, and would keep the people living here."

Area councillor Diane Holmes called the situation ironic.

"It's pretty sad that in the nation's capital, we have a museum that was in a parkland, that's a natural museum, and it's now going to be surrounded by asphalt parking lots."

Want to know why no one takes the NCC's plans seriously? Because in downtown Ottawa a federal institution is about to build a surface parking lot around the country's first national museum, the Victoria Memorial Museum, and the NCC is presumably too busy ensuring that Canada's Capital Region is a source of national pride and significance to notice.

The NCC has had five formal meetings in Ottawa, Quebec City, Halifax, Victoria and Edmonton to consult with Canadians about what they want to see in their capital.

I've been to three and I can report that the speakers were interesting in a sweeping kind of way, some downright fascinating. Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of hearing Larry Beasely, the former head planner of Vancouver who headed up that city's intensification effort with spectacular results.

But as I listened to him talk about how Ottawa should become a model for urban planning and "blow up the template for suburbs," it was clear the NCC has virtually no authority over the subjects he touched on.

Beasely knows this because he sits on the NCC's planning advisory board.
The NCC's five key meetings were really high-level urban-planning idea-swapping sessions, attracting urban-planning types. At the Edmonton meeting, the emcee was architect Vivian Manasc (also a member of an NCC advisory committee).
During the question-and-answer period, she was able to identify by name most of the individuals who raised their hands.

[...]When the NCC project was launched in September, I predicted that "the citizens of this country will want their capital to be inclusive, sustainable, environmentally sensitive, rich in arts and culture, and vibrant."

I must be brilliant, because that's what I've been hearing at the meetings I've attended. (They also want good public transit, but are satisfied when they discover that light rail is on the way.) Perhaps I could have saved taxpayers $650,000, the two-year price tag for this project.

Sadly, I'm not that prescient. I'm just like everybody else, and pretty much everybody likes inclusivity and sustainability and vibrancy. What they're not so sure about is how to achieve them.

Michael Matthys was also at the Edmonton meeting. The university-age student admitted that most ideas were "more abstract concerns.

"So we want an inclusive capital because that reflects Canadian values, but how that translates into actual planning, I have no idea."

A man after my own heart.

If you haven't driven to Wakefield in a while, you should probably be warned that the view has changed.

Massive highway construction is laying the foundation of a four-lane extension of Highway 5, preparing to carry floods of commuters and tourists who now use the slower, two-lane Highway 105.

More traffic means less wilderness. A long section of forest has already been cut, and future work will soon blast through the forested "mountain" on the town's south outskirts, near the Giant Tiger store.

[...]"They've been working on it all summer, blasting and digging away at the mountainsides," says Jean-Paul Murray of the Gatineau Park Protection Committee.

[...]"That whole ecosystem will be destroyed. The whole mountainside will be bulldozed and blasted. It will be removed."

The National Capital Commission says the work won't have significant impact on the park since it lies just outside the park boundary. It points to a federal environmental assessment that concludes: "the authorities are of the opinion that the project is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects."

Well, Madame Chairman Marie Lemay has finally responded to a resident. Here is her letter (I added the bolding to the key phrase):

"Thank you for your e-mail of September 30, 2011, regarding the closure of an informal passageway leading north from Preston Street. We are sorry for the inconvenience or the apparent ambiguity in our messages but, as always, public safety is our priority. This access is closed for safety concerns, specifically the fact that it leads to the Transitway at a point where there is not a marked pedestrian crossing. […]We are currently looking into this matter with the City of Ottawa to determine if it can be made safely accessible to the public, specifically at the Transitway crossing.

There are two major errors in the explanation. First, the NCC claims there is no marked pedestrian crossing of the transitway. In fact, it has been a marked, signed, painted legal crosswalk there for three decades.

Having passed the buck to the city for arbitrarily closing a path that the city has authorized for decades, the error of their ways was presumably pointed out to them. They finally agreed to open the gate, not without requisite waffling about jurisdictional issues, blah blah - from the CBC:

The NCC's director of urban lands and transportation, Marc Corriveau, said it came down to a jurisdictional issue.

"We had no authority on the Transitway so we wanted to have confirmation with the City of Ottawa that they were OK," he said.

City officials said they have not received any reports of incidents and fully supports reopening the path.

So on Friday morning, NCC constables will once again cut open the gate at the south end where people had posted angry notes in recent weeks.

Another triumphant success in the walking and cycling capital!

The NCC was in Halifax on Tuesday, the third in its five city tour for Horizon 2067, a visioning exercise to come up with a blueprint for the capital's future. The entire project will cost about $650,000 - including the cross-country trips and the online surveys and all the reports that those entail - and will result in a vision statement in winter 2012.

[…]Sure, the experts who were on the panel spoke eloquently (and some not so eloquently) about wide-ranging urban issues. They suggested that Ottawa - and every city, really - needs to be more vibrant, move to an open-24-hour-a-day schedule, make people feel welcome, be more inclusive, move forward on a sustainable basis, even conserve water.

Other than that last one, I'm starting to lose all sense of what these concepts mean. And I'm not sure the panellists aren't, too.

[…]On one level, I applaud the NCC for trying to engage the rest of Canada in shaping the capital. It's a lovely concept. And probably more Canadians should care about how their capital develops.

But they don't.

Yes, they want it to look good and have nice buildings to visit and for it not to be an embarrassment.

But they don't have specific ideas on how to plan the city because, for one thing, they're not planners. More important, they know, instinctively, that Ottawa is our city. We live here, we shape what daily life is like - and it's not all good - and we pick up most of the tab.

[…]If Ottawa is important to people outside the city, it's because it's the centre of government, and all that that entails. It's not anyone's second home, as the NCC is trying to market it. As one Dalhousie urban planning student said, "I already have a home and it's in northern British Columbia."
Perhaps these sentiments are best described by the gentleman who left his survey on my table after he left during the break. He wrote that "a people place is made by the people who live there, who care for those spaces day in and out."

On a final note, the design of the building was, according to Public Works, approved by the National Capital Commission. Makes you wonder what the NCC's role really is as the traffic cop of federal development downtown.

The commission, you'll recall, is embarking on a cross-Canada tour to seek input into a 50-year vision, Horizon 2067.

Meanwhile, it is allowing important sites to be devoted to glass towers to be filled with mouse-armed accountants.

Here's a vision: The way to make Ottawa less boring is to stop filling it up with so many boring buildings in gorgeous locations where people, at the end of the day, don't want to be bored.

The NCC has charged charities $700 plus HST for events that require the exclusive use of its roads such as the Queen Elizabeth Driveway, Colonel By Drive and Ottawa River Parkway.
The new rates will start to change January 1, 2012 where charities will be charged $1,000 for using urban parkways and that will increase to $1,400 starting in 2013.
The costs for using parks will also jump as will the price for holding weddings in Gatineau Park and the Rockcliffe Park pavilion.

[…]the brightest and best of our black and whites (that's a pun on police cars, although these guys drove a white and green) fiddled with the lock, and got it in place, but the gate is not closed tightly, so one can sort of squeeze through it.

Come to think of it, that's not a bad solution. The gate is locked, cars are kept out, but peds and cyclists can continue through.

Note too, that in all this concern for public safety by Madame Chairman, there is a crooked piece of rebar that sticks up out of the ground, as it has for a year or more, and someone put a chip bag on the end so someone else doesn’t poke their eye out. One would think a bureaucracy concerned with public safety would be sending a fresh team out right now to fix this eyesore, but alas, the chip bag is safe in its afterlife as a public safety cone.

NCC CEO Marie Lemay, on the eve of attending the Global Velo-City 2010 cycling conference in Copenhagen last year, expressed the hope that "people would turn to us and say: How is it done in Ottawa? How is it done in our capital?" Answer: with fences, gates and rent-a-cops. A shared platform of knowledge to build on, that.

Now that letter doesn't actually contain the words "we promise to keep the route open", but it does allay our protests by calling the previous closure temporary, and saying it has been reopened for pedestrians and cyclists.

But, alas, it seems it was only open long enough to fabricate a large metal box, now welded to the frame of the gate, enclosing the lock and chain, so that it can't be cut off by irate citizens.

Irritated users of this popular path, which has no record of safety issues, might wish to let their wishes be known to marie.lemay@ncc-ccn.ca.

Personally, I don't know if this is just a case of a lawyer off the leash who thinks that anything that isn't officially open must be locked up; or if it is a plot between OCTranspo and the NCC to cut off the route. Choose your villains, there's plenty of villainy to go around. Ironically, the city put up signs this week making the path along Albert (from where these pictures were taken) a signed city bike route.

Still, that whole walking and cycling capital lark was good for a trip to Copenhagen. Nice one CEO Lemay!

Clearing of forest along the eastern boundary of Gatineau Park, near Wakefield for the Highway 5 extension is set to resume this fall. The National Capital Commission (NCC) backed extension, outlined in a Quebec Ministry of Transport report, began in April this year. This project will see 88 hectares of forest cleared for the latest extension of Highway 5, connecting Farm Point in Chelsea to Highway 366 in La Pêche. Much of this is mature forest of white pine, Eastern hemlock, American beech and sugar maple.

[…]Development along the park boundaries and a major new highway (Boul. des Allumettières) across the park have resulted in a significant loss of wildlife habitat, landscape connectivity, and reduced public accessibility to popular destinations within the park, affecting the ability for visitors to enjoy the park.

"The Highway 5 extension will further isolate Gatineau Park from its greater ecosystem," says McDonnell. "Species in the park will be trapped in an island of extinction if we don't work to establish connections between the park and other natural areas. By enclosing the park with development, we are destroying a sensitive piece of Canadian heritage loved by many for countless reasons."

In coming up with its 50-year plan for the capital - called "Horizon 2067" - the NCC is taking it to the streets (okay, it's taking it to the museums and universities and concert halls) to hear directly from the people about how the national capital can be more inspiring, more inclusive and more vibrant.

Stop rolling those eyes, at least until you've heard the details.

In collaboration with the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, the NCC is launching "Capital Conversations," a series of discussions led by expert panellists to include the public in the debate about what they want for the nation's capital.

This national chat starts right here on Sept. 27, before heading out to Quebec City, Halifax, Victoria and finishing up in Edmonton in early November.

[…]Panellists will include urban-affairs guru Richard Florida; former politician and diplomat Stephen Lewis; George Hazel, who, among other things, is a British expert on how towns and cities work; and jazz singer-songwriter Florence K.

[…]These "engagement activities" - which include all the events, online activities, logistics, and followup from the consultation - will cost $650,000 over two years.

Now you can start rolling your eyes.

[…]practically speaking, it will likely result in nothing but looseygoosey feel-good ideals that will mean little to the real planning of this city. I can tell you right now that the citizens of this country will want their capital to be inclusive, sustainable, environmentally sensitive, rich in arts and culture, and vibrant.

What else can come from some of the questions the NCC is posing, such as, "How can the national capital be made even more inspiring for all Canadians?" One of the challenges the NCC identifies is "building a capital that is representative of Canada and Canadians." It's a challenge because it's impossible to know what this means.

Of course, nothing useful can possibly come from this exercise - it merely serves to give the appearance of doing something and, more importantly, gets the NCC into the press.

Patrick Kelly, president of the Ottawa Convention Centre, says that Ottawa is probably the least known of the G8 capitals, and in many places around the world, the name draws a yawn. Architect and urban planner Barry Padolsky agrees, saying that if he were to write a book about Ottawa, it would be a lament for missed opportunities on everything from light rail to waterfront development and LeBreton Flats.

A lot has been said about LeBreton, the decades-old mess on King Edward Avenue and Rideau Street, and the off-again, on-again light-rail project. But even something as simple as rebuilding Wellington Street appears to be beyond us. Wellington has the War Memorial, Parliament Hill, the Supreme Court, Bank of Canada and the National Library and Archives. It defines the very essence of our nation, and anywhere else it would be a grand and stately boulevard. In Ottawa, however, Wellington is a drab bus route - and no one seems to care.

For the most part, critics blame the National Capital Commission. Nothing gets built on federal land without the NCC's design approval and critics say if the agency did its job properly, the city would be a much better place.

NCC officials, however, dismiss any suggestion that they've presided over bland planning and design in the capital. They point to the "urban dynamism" the agency has created with many of its revitalization projects from LeBreton Flats to Sparks Street, the ByWard Market and Confederation Boulevard.

"People say that when it comes to planning and design decisions, the NCC is bland, not bold - does not think outside the box. We disagree," says chief planner Pierre Dubé.

He says that when the NCC first proposed Confederation Boulevard, critics slammed it as a "silly idea," but today, standing at the intersection of St. Patrick and Sussex, and looking toward the Astrolabe, the Library of Parliament, the Peacekeeping monument and the Chateau Laurier, "the amazing piece of streetscape and urban design that now graces our capital" is unmistakable.

"We tend to dream big, but we are practical people, aware of the limitations of available resources," says Dubé.

So the NCC stands behind the drab, sterile bus route that is Confederation Boulevard as its most notable success.

Most experts understand that money constrains the Commission, but they also say that there is a fundamental lack of boldness and risk-taking in planning that has fostered bland design.

The LeBreton Flats development was a defining moment for the NCC, a unique opportunity to do something memorable, the critics say. Instead, as former governor general Adrienne Clarkson so forcefully noted, LeBreton became a metaphor for NCC underachievement.

Waterfront development is another issue of contention. The Rideau and Ottawa Rivers and the Rideau Canal, along with the Gatineau River, offer a waterfront that other cities will die for.

But it is all of little consequence to residents because most of it is inaccessible. The NCC has plans galore for every part of the shoreline from Bate to Chaudiere and Victoria islands, with artistic renditions of spectacular waterfront parks, but nothing ever gets done. Experts agree there might not be money to develop say, waterfront villages and parks along the shoreline, but with a little bit ingenuity and imagination, a lot could be done to open up much of it and the Rideau Canal for people to enjoy.

Ah yes, the waterfront - such potential:

[Lemay] says the NCC is as eager as everyone else to develop the Ottawa River shoreline but the principal problem is that the federal government doesn't own it all. The missing link is the Domtar lands on the Gatineau side, which the private owner has refused to sell. If those lands were in government hands, the shoreline could be turned into "an absolute gem" in the heart of the capital.

"Our greatest hope is, and has been for many decades, that the islands around the Chaudière Falls and the Hull shore, would come into public ownership," adds Dubé, the chief planner.

"Then the capital could start to envision the prospects of creating our own unique waterfront destination …"

Shucks, if they just had control of that last little two per cent of the waterfront - out of endless kilometres of waterfront they now control absolutely - why, then, watch out.

The series also features architecture critic Rhys Phillips, who had this to say about the NCC:

Frankly, the NCC is beyond repair. Its celebration component should be moved in Canadian Heritage and the rest replaced with a small office headed by a recognized designer. This new group should then have the say over all new government buildings and work with the city.

We'll give the last word to Kate Heartfield, who expresses skepticism at the very idea that Ottawa needs grand visions to succeed:

The insistence that Ottawa must be a proper, pretty G8 capital might actually be the thing that's holding us back. Imagine what LeBreton Flats might be today, if the National Capital Commission hadn't razed it a half-century ago. It might be a gradually gentrifying old working-class neighbourhood in the lee of Parliament Hill, with restaurants and studios and mechanics and theatres; instead, it's a field with a museum on it. Imagine an Ottawa River that had shops and restaurants along it, not a freeway where commuters whiz by and occasionally admire the scenery. Imagine if the downtown train station still had trains arriving at it.

Every time someone comes up with a vision statement or grand plan, Ottawa gets a little more bland. There are smart, creative people here. Ottawa might evolve in all kinds of unpredictable and exciting directions, if nobody gets in its way.

C'mon Kate - if you don't have a vision for the flying cars, where they gonna park?

The National Capital Commission is defending its Canada Day show on Parliament Hill, calling it highly entertaining, despite the negative comments received from Canadians.

"I'm proud of the show that we produced," the NCC's Guy Laflamme said Tuesday, about the July 1 musical lineup that drew dozens of negative e-mails to the NCC, and several letters to The Citizen.

[…]But many people called both shows "an embarrassment" and a "big disappointment" and complained about the selection of acts as well as the duplication of noon and evening performances.

[…]The NCC said it strove to balance regional, linguistic and gender representation in selecting the musical lineup, adding that artists are chosen based on "relevance, affordability" and "availability."

"We have such a complex region in terms of jurisdiction," she said. "It really does influence a lot of the way we do business. It really does stress the fact that we need to collaborate on many things.

"If we were able to decide together what we are putting first then we can all make our decisions accordingly."

For example, the NCC is working with the City of Ottawa on plans for a public square at the intersection of Sussex Drive, Rideau Street and Wellington Street. When traffic studies are done "we will have to decide who is going to go first. Is it going to be pedestrians or cars?" The commission and the city are also in the middle of a debate over the proper route for a western light rail transit line.

Lemay recalls a trip to Berlin, Germany where she saw brightly coloured lawnchairs placed along the river for public use.

"I'm thinking, why can't we do this along the Rideau Canal? It shouldn't be too complicated," she said.

"In any European city, they take over the sidewalks and use them. We have our rules and regulations the minute you want to use one foot of it.

How hard indeed. Bold words from the head of possibly the most hidebound micromanagers in a city full of them. As the Citizen notes in a related editorial:

It is encouraging to see that Lemay is open-minded about what it might take to bring change to the capital. During the meeting, she mentioned over-regulation as one of the reasons there are not sidewalk cafés spilling all over the street in parts of Ottawa, for example. She mentioned street life in European cities such as Berlin and wanting to see more of that vibrancy here. Lemay should be commended for raising the issue.

In the past, however, the NCC itself has sometimes been a stumbling block in efforts to make the capital more vibrant - everything from the lack of cafés and restaurants along the city's waterfronts to banning dogs from the Ottawa River have helped create a pretty, if sometimes remote and sterile, capital, which seemed to be the NCC's vision then.

Lawnchairs on the canal by 2067? It shouldn't be too complicated.

Most of Chaudière Island is for sale. Its owner, Domtar, the Montreal-based paper manufacturing company, says it has no further use for it following the closure of its mill there in 2007.

The NCC, a federal government agency, says it would like to acquire much of Chaudière Island, and then decide what would be the best use of it. But Marie Lemay, the NCC's chief executive officer, says the agency does not have the estimated $100 million required to buy the land, clean up more than a century's industrial pollution, and stabilize the buildings.

The NCC gets a lot of criticism - some of it richly deserved - for timidity. It is funded by the taxpayers of Canada, essentially to make the nation's capital a better place to live and to visit.

The NCC dilly-dallied for decades over what to do with LeBreton Flats, a former industrial area on the Ottawa River shoreline just west of Parliament Hill. Finally, it decided to turn over the land to private developers for apartment building construction. Most recently, the NCC spent several years searching for a tenant for the former Mill Restaurant on the shoreline of the Ottawa River, just across from Chaudière Island. It eventually leased the property to Toronto's Mill Street Brewery, which plans to open a brew pub there.

[…]For decades, the federal government agency has been doing occasional studies on what might become of Chaudière and Victoria islands. The most recent study, updated in 2008, embraced the idea of an Aboriginal centre on Victoria Island, celebrating the culture of Canada's native peoples.

The NCC study also suggested the two islands could be connected by footbridges. It foresees "a vital mix of restaurants and shops, with adaptive reuse of existing buildings." The study included no price tag or timeline.

The NCC has long coveted the remaining industrial land on Chaudière and Victoria islands that it doesn't already own, but has done exactly nothing with the land it does own - there is simply no reason to believe that the NCC might suddenly reverse its spotty redevelopment record, here or anywhere else in the city.

The fire at 305 Robertson Road broke out at about 7:30 p.m. and took 45 firefighters about two hours to extinguish.

The farmhouse has been abandoned for a number of years and there was no one inside when firefighters arrived at the scene, said Ottawa Fire Services platoon chief Jim Bloom.

[...]Damage was estimated at about $500,000.

Four days later, an empty bungalow owned by the NCC at 4057 Richmond Rd burned down.

The NCC has numerous abandoned properties throughout the greenbelt, expropriated decades ago and simply left to chance. This is the second fire in a year at the Richmond Road house.

If the National Capital Commission is going to neglect its farm properties like the one it leased to tenants Eliane Michèle Crématy and Anna Lamontagne, it should give serious thought to getting out of this agricultural venture altogether.

But that doesn't seem likely, given the NCC hype over its Greenbelt master plan review. A review update this month says a couple of strategies will be to "protect and expand farm assets and build infrastructure" and "engage passionate people (as tenants) and build partnerships" with them.

Tell that to Crématy and Lamontagne, who were featured in a Citizen story last May about the disconnect between the NCC and farm tenants. Despite a decrepit barn that was virtually unusable for their plan to board horses, they were determined to wait for repairs. But today, they are among a growing number of former farm tenants who bailed well before their leases expired.

Bungling bureaucrats appear to be one problem. But Dell Management Solutions, under contract with the NCC to oversee the 60-plus Greenbelt farms, deserves a good kick in the pants, too. Its property managers can be elusive at times and then full of false assurances. To be fair, it was a property manager from Minto, which had the contract before Dell took over in 2009, that got the whole mess rolling. She's the one who assured Crématy and Lamontagne that the barn was in good shape and ready for use.

Crématy and Lamontagne say afterward, they were promised repeatedly that their concerns with the barn at their Ramsayville Road farm would be addressed, but nothing ever happened.

Has the NCC apologized to Crématy and Lamontagne for wasting 2.5 years of their lives - which they say has led to various stress-related health problems? They lost thousands of dollars in projected revenues and cashed in about $17,000 of registered retirement savings for maintenance work, a good deal of it unexpected.

Instead of expressing its regrets, the NCC is showing the couple that bad landlords don't like to lose. It is seeking $6,000 to $7,000 in rent arrears, which the couple would have been able to pay had they not been hit with financial setbacks due to an unusable barn. The couple, now renting a private farm in Russell, was paying $1,330 a month for the 10-hectare NCC property.

The NCC says the couple should have inspected the barn thoroughly before signing the lease, as repairs to all buildings, except the farmhouse, are the tenants' responsibility.

How can that be fair? The barn's roof alone would cost $25,000 to $30,000 to replace. Adds Crématy: They would not have signed the lease had they been told the truth.

That's some partnership.

The open board meetings are a relatively new development at the NCC, which for decades met behind closed doors.

Its first public board meeting was held late in 2007, the same year Russell Mills, ex-Citizen publisher, was appointed as chairman.

The format seems yet to have caught the public's attention. It runs much like a municipal council meeting. Staff make presentations on a pre-set agenda, members debate, then vote. The public does not speak.

There were only a smattering of "real people" there Wednesday, though Ottawa-Vanier MP Mauril Bélanger, donning a red scarf, stayed the afternoon.

Timing may be an issue, as the meetings are held on a weekday and go on for hours. There is, however, good coffee, served in actual cups, with saucers, and four of the largest television screens you've ever seen.

The proceedings are, of course, simultaneously translated. Two board members spoke in French only. Only one member was spotted using his Blackberry during proceedings. All the men wore ties. Mills, looking patrician, his hair nearly white now, kept things moving crisply but without undue formality, addressing members by their first names.

It was a decent showing, actually. All those years, you wonder, what were they afraid of?

How bad is the smell? So bad that Sweet's had to install a big $16,000 air-cleansing power vacuum machine in his basement to suck in the particles from the sewage gas.

When it comes to the air we breathe, Sweet, 46, is an expert: He's the owner and CEO of Air-Medics, an indoor air quality consultants and cleaning company.

"I'm not going away. If I have to be a thorn in their side forever, I will be."

He's talking about the National Capital Commission. It owns the land on which his house stands. It's a two-bedroom bungalow on Braddish St. near Bank St. and Conroy Rd. He bought it about 20 years ago for $150,000. He owes about $90,000 on the mortgage.

The NCC says he's responsible for his septic system. He knows that. The problem for Rob Sweet is this: Why is the NCC not responsible for his screwed-up septic system that, he says, wouldn't be screwed-up, causing sewage and health problems, had the NCC not decided some seven years ago to fill in the drainage ditch along the road at the left end of his driveway?

The NCC left the drainage ditch to the right of his driveway intact, but when a garage on a property to the left of his driveway was torn down, the commission had the ditch on that side filled in.

[...]Sweet says there wouldn't be a problem had the ditch not been filled in. What he finds strange is that the NCC now claims ditches - such as the one in question - are not its responsibility, even though it's the NCC that filled it in.

Called the Art Wall, the Convention Centre sees the massive screen overlooking Mackenzie King Bridge as an innovative platform to showcase Canadian art, connect Ottawa interactively with the rest of the country, and create a new buzz in the city. It would also show live video of events and could feature sponsorship advertising.

But the Citizen has learned that the NCC, which has responsibility for safeguarding the historic character of the capital, doesn't like the proposal. The new convention centre, which is on the main ceremonial route, across from the Rideau Canal, and within the sight lines of the War Memorial and Parliament Buildings, sits in a historic centre of the city. And because of the location, NCC officials apparently believe the visual representations on the screen might be incongruous. More importantly, they worry that the screen might be exploited for commercial purposes, and sooner or later, distasteful advertising might appear near hallowed downtown sites. The NCC has the power to approve the convention centre design under a covenant covering the site, which in the distant past, used to belong to the federal government, convention centre officials say.

[...]Graham Bird, project manager for the convention centre, says the cutting-edge design of the new building represents what Ottawa can do, and using new media for the south wall is designed to push the envelope and help the city banish its reputation as a joyless place.

[...]The NCC will not say publicly how it feels about the art wall because it won't comment on a proposal under consideration. All spokesman Jean Wolff would say is that the proposal would be reviewed with an eye on the commission's responsibility to protect the character of the capital. The Citizen however, has learned that the commission's advisory committee on planning and design is meeting in Ottawa Thursday and Friday and will review the proposal.

"The NCC has received an application for this project and there is a review underway. No timeline has been set to provide the final decision. We have to let the process take its course," Wolff said.

All Steve Fournier wanted to do was raise and sell chickens and ducks, and host school field trips at the farm he rents from the National Capital Commission.

He wasn't expecting the Green Acres sitcom horrors that have been part of everyday life since he and his wife, Elizabeth, became NCC tenants in 2009.

[...]Rent for the 5.7-hectare property is about $1,000 a month. It includes a barn, a garage/shed and a farmhouse. He knew the barn was basically useless unless he carried out major repairs.

But the couple had no idea what awaited them in the farmhouse. They only discovered its many problems - the worst being a leaking foundation - after moving in.

[...]They discovered the leaky foundation problem soon after moving in. Last winter, several holes were drilled into the basement floor so water could drain. But water continued coming in every time it rained or during a thaw. Eventually, the moisture led to black mould throughout the basement and a vile smell that ruined a family get-together last Thanksgiving.

Fournier called Ottawa's health department, which inspected the basement and ordered the NCC to clean it.

The mould was chemically removed. Wet insulation that partially covered the basement walls was replaced last month, and the new insulation was covered with drywall. But work on the foundation footings was not done and water continues to seep in, even from areas under the new drywall.

The couple was forced to throw out clothes, furniture and many other belongings they had stored downstairs.

Besides the problem foundation, the couple had to put up with a faulty furnace last winter that cost them $1,100 in heating oil in one month alone. And the fireplace can't be used. It's stuffed with insulation to keep out cold air.

Some doors don't close properly, and there are cracks in the walls. Fournier says the failure by contractors to grout shower tiles in the upstairs bathroom caused water to seep down the wall. Eventually, a small section of ceiling on the main floor caved in.

There have been electrical problems - three fuses blew at the same time - and the septic system backed up last April. Just recently, a rotting support beam in the basement dropped to the floor, just as Fournier was tending to another problem a few metres away.

The couple's complaints just add to the growing pile about the commission's ineptitude as a farm landlord.

Last fall, it was widely reported in the press that Demsis, the NCC's trail maintenance contractor, had laced Gatineau Park trails with glass shards and household garbage - in violation of every industry standard.

The NCC, for its part, hired a soil engineering company to study the problem, using its report to justify lacing Gatineau Park trails with garbage - arguing against all evidence to the contrary that paving park trails with garbage is within industry standards.

The latest installment to this sad story: it turns out that Demsis staff aren't "certified in trail development by a recognized institution," as required by their contract - or more precisely, by the request for proposal (RFP) to obtain the contract.

That document stipulates that maintenance staff, or their supervisor, must be certified by a recognized institution "in order to maintain and rehabilitate summer trail surfaces and perform associated duties." Recognized institutions listed in the RFP are: "the National Trail Training Partnership; International Mountain Bicycling Association; Appalachian Mountain Club; Sentiers Quebec; etc."

However, through access to information, the GPPC found out Demsis staff didn't obtain the required certification. Says a January 26th email from the NCC: "Our contractor is still waiting to receive an attestation of some sort to confirm their staff has successfully followed this training program."

The faster the National Capital Commission fairly compensates Jennifer Englert for a farming venture that never got off the ground, the faster it will do the right thing.

So far, the NCC has offered her about $3,200 - the equivalent of two months rent for the commission-owned farmhouse on Ridge Road that she vacated Tuesday. The offer is a joke because it is a fraction of what she lost in anticipated revenues and money that she wasted on farm supplies, including an $18,000 tractor.

Englert waited all last year for a land-access permit from the NCC, through its property manager, Del Management Solutions, so she could begin farming 14 hectares of Greenbelt land. The permit never came.

She moved into the farmhouse in September 2009, with her young son, Jaden. She hoped her tenancy would expedite the land assignment under a separate lease with the NCC. The land was assigned to her last spring. Then came the fruitless wait for the access permit.

Not only is the NCC offer of $3,200 grossly insufficient, but it comes with a sleazy catch. If she takes the money, she has to sign an agreement that she will not pursue any claims for the bureaucratic fiasco that killed her dream. "($3,200) doesn't come close to what I've lost," says Englert, who is still calculating how much money she is out.

[...]But after acknowledging the "unfortunate situation" in early December, the NCC told The Public Citizen that it would "work hard at making sure her farming season (in 2011) can start as soon as she wishes."

NCC spokesman Jean Wolff said at the time that Englert was the type of tenant the commission wants farming its lands because of the products she was planning to grow and sell.

Obviously, that mea culpa was then. This is the NCC now: "As anybody else who wants to farm on NCC land, she can apply," said Gadbois-St-Cyr. "And the NCC will consider (her application based on its merits)."

[...]She says she cannot believe the countless miscommunications from the NCC. Even on Christmas Eve, after being initially told she could move out of the house at the end of February, as requested, she was shocked to hear that she would be responsible for the rent through next August.

She was told the NCC automatically renewed her lease for another year when it raised her rent last September.

[...]Rent for the farmhouse was $1,582 a month, and she spent hundreds more on heating and electricity. When she signed her lease, the NCC had told her propane expenses would run around $200 to $250 a month. Her propane bill this month was about $825.

Organic vegetables were going to make up a large part of Englert's farm. She was also going to cultivate seeds from a variety of organic squash plants. She was also going to grow 1.5 hectares of "cut" flowers to sell at local farmers' markets.

She was able to plant the flowers late last spring after Del Management contract manager Stephan Groleau gave Englert the go-ahead in a signed email.

She had already purchased the tractor following Groleau's assurances the permit would come at any time. But she was ordered to get off the farmland twice - once when Groleau was away and days later, after he quit the job. She was told by his replacement that Groleau didn't have the authority to allow her to farm without the permit. Englert couldn't even tend to the flowers she had planted. An acre of cut flowers, she says, could have yielded her as much as $20,000 in revenues. "I didn't get to touch them," she says.

When the folks at the National Capital Commission signed up chef Martin Picard to host a gala dinner in Ottawa next month, they knew exactly what they were getting. This was the self-described wild chef who gleefully demonstrated the preferred preparation of moose testicles on his TV cooking show and made foie gras poutine the signature dish at his Montreal restaurant, Au Pied de Cochon.

"With Martin Picard, I'm sure foie gras will be on the menu," the NCC's Andrée-Anne Bonin told the Ottawa Citizen when the event was announced in December. "We can't do Martin Picard without foie gras."

Well, not unless a handful of animal-rights activists unhappy with the treatment of ducks in foie-gras production kick up a stink, in which case you inform Mr. Picard to leave the delicacy in Montreal.

On Monday, the federal commission announced that Mr. Picard had withdrawn from the Taste of Winterlude event rather than be told what he was allowed to serve. He will be replaced by P.E.I. chef Michael Smith, who will offer an Atlantic-themed menu.

The National Capital Commission has paid about $24 million to the City of Ottawa over the past three years in payments in lieu of municipal taxes for its properties, but the city believes it is owed more money and will likely appeal to a federal panel for redress.

Higher levels of government aren't required to pay property taxes to the city, but long ago agreed to these "payments-in-lieu" so as to be fair to municipal governments' need for revenue. The catch, though, is that the federal government isn't bound by the assessments of its properties' value, which are determined by the Municipal Property Assessment Corp., a provincial government agency.

[...]Federal law allows the government to do its own property valuation and pay taxes based on that assessment. If the valuation conflicts with that of MPAC, it is often ignored.

"They don't have to pay what we invoice. They pay what they believe they should pay, and then we appeal to the panel," [deputy city treasurer Ken] Hughes said.

[...]Among the several disputed properties are:

550 Albert St., a piece of land MPAC values at $1.4 million, but the NCC says is worth only $530,000 because it's contaminated.

A piece of land on Cassels Street, near the Britannia Yacht Club, which is valued by MPAC at $2.4 million but zero by the NCC.

2010 Moodie Dr., a piece of land MPAC says is worth $132,000 but NCC says has no value because it is a bike path.

The NCC owns more than 1,400 properties in the capital, including office buildings, rental homes and land. The book value of its land holdings, buildings and infrastructure is $522.3 million.

The agency pays "PILTs" on properties it occupies or uses itself. But on those it leases or rents out, where it's acting like a regular commercial landlord, the commission pays full municipal taxes like everybody else, and collects the money from the tenants.

The National Capital Commission has hired a Toronto-based consultant for almost a quarter-million dollars to find out what Canadians want the National Capital Region to look like in 50 years.

[...]"The national engagement strategy is aimed at reaching out to Canadians, not just from our region, but from all over the country," says Cedric Pelletier. "The NCC wants to connect more Canadians with their capital, to care for and to have their say on the future of their capital."

The contract, which runs into mid-2013, requires DPRA to seek input from elected representatives, aboriginal leaders, all levels of government, area municipalities, special interest groups and other stakeholders.

Somebody should remind National Capital Commission chief executive Marie Lemay that more than six months have passed since she spoke of the need to fix its relationship with its farm tenants.

Because in that time, Jennifer Englert, who rented a rural house from the commission in September 2009 with plans to start farming adjacent NCC land last May, has been left high and dry.

It's Dec. 8, and she is still waiting for her land access permit from the NCC, through its property manager, Del Management Solutions.

Not that the permit would do any good right now, but until she gets it - or the lease that she was also promised - she will be in the dark about next year, too.

[...]Englert has spent thousands renting a three-bedroom "heritage" house on Ridge Road, in the Ramsayville area, that has cost her a ton more in propane and hydro. She bought a new $18,000 tractor following more assurances that the permit was coming for about 14 hectares of land assigned to her in early spring. She bought other farming equipment and supplies, including seeds, bulbs and spuds. She relinquished her booths at two weekend farmer's markets last July because she didn't have any of the vegetables or cut flowers that were to come from her new farm.

[...]It's not clear which is the bigger villain in Englert's ordeal - the NCC or the property manager. Certainly, staff changes at Del Management and the NCC, as well as miscommunications and other gaffes made the situation worse.

But the NCC was neglectful, too, and, as the property owner, is the one which was supposed to sign off on her land access permit for 2010 and a subsequent five-year lease for 2011-2015. One NCC staffer actually suggested she complain to a Del Management superior. That got her far.

The NCC leases more than 60 farms on its Greenbelt lands. There have been numerous complaints about the condition of barns and other farm buildings, impractical leasing options and the property management company.

The problems were documented in a Citizen story on May 23. In a report the following day, Lemay said she was well aware of the complaints, adding the commission would have "to act so farmers know and are appreciated as partners with the NCC."

The NCC board gave Claridge Homes the go-ahead even as the agency is still working out differences with the developer over its failure to abide by NCC guidelines in the construction of an adjacent block. The problem, according to Francois Lapointe, the NCC's executive director of capital planning, is that Claridge began work on the tower block without getting final approval from the agency.

Planning officials found several deviations from the original design when work was well underway and had to scramble to reassert the original plan. The key issue was the removal of stairways for units on Fleet Street Mews that were an integral part of the original design. The NCC also had some concerns with the landscaping.

[...]On the next phase of the project - which consists of one six-storey condo block; a block of townhouses and an eight-storey building - the NCC said they were happy with the plans submitted by Claridge.

[...]The development of LeBreton Flats has been controversial from the beginning.

The land, expropriated by the NCC for a government complex, sat empty for 40 years before Claridge was picked in 2004 to start construction on a four-acre portion. The first building, with its green facade, received criticism from experts and neighbours alike, who said it was too mundane to grace as important a site as LeBreton.

Lapointe conceded that while the design was not perfect, it was a good one. He said that what's considered good design is often a matter of judgement, and believes that when the first phase of the project is completed and people see it in its entirety, they'll appreciate it.

"We believe that in the fullness of time, the project will good for the community," he said.

"In the fullness of time" being something of a mantra for the vigilant micromanagers at the NCC.

When National Capital Commission chief executive Marie Lemay recently said the agency couldn't afford to keep putting on Winterlude without more private-sector help, it was an oblique admission that her organization isn't in good financial shape.

Winterlude is the NCC's signature event and it costs only $3.7 million to produce. About $1 million of that is already from the private sector.

How can the NCC not afford an event that delivers such value and what are the implications for Canada Day, the sound and light show on Parliament Hill and Canada's 150th-birthday celebration? Lemay said these are also potential areas for private-sector partnership.

The NCC's financial statements certainly raise questions about its ability to keep playing a prominent role in the capital without more help from people in Ottawa.

The commission is expecting deficits this year, and for the next five years. The amounts aren't paltry. The commission projected a $21.4-million deficit this year on total spending of $149 million. The actual deficit is expected to be about $12 million. Lemay says deficits are projected for the next five years as well, totalling about $10 million.

To cover those shortfalls, the NCC has cash and short-term investments of about $38 million. The anticipated deficits will eat through more than half of that.

Part of the problem is declining support from the federal government. A $5.5-million budget cut is being phased in over three years. The future deficits are also due in part to internal administrative projects like increasing IT security.

[...]In Ottawa, we specialize in making simple things complex. The NCC has perfected this over the years. And yet, getting a good idea going can be as simple as presenting it to the NCC board, and persuading them to say yes.

Asked what's actually stopping the NCC from doing things like creating a canal park with real people attractions, Lemay pauses, then says, "If we wanted to, I suppose we could."

Lemay acknowledges that the public, both here and nationally, is actually pushing the NCC to make Ottawa a more vibrant place. Some real action from the NCC would encourage all of us to back that up with our time and money.

The NCC received a big infusion of cash for capital and operations in the 2007 budget.

The National Capital Commission made $19 million last year from rents on its massive property portfolio to help defray the cost of operations and keep the agency in the black, documents obtained by the Citizen show.

The NCC owns about 10 per cent of land in the capital region, more than 1,400 properties, and the very idea of a Crown corporation owning such a big slice of the city is not sitting well with critics, many of whom believe that dabbling in real estate undermines the NCC's ability to do its job as capital-builder.

"They should not have a mandate to hold, lease or develop property in order to generate revenue," says Ottawa architecture and urban planning critic Rhys Phillips.

[...]The NCC is the guardian of federal land and buildings, including such landmarks as the prime minister's residence at 24 Sussex Drive and Rideau Hall, the Governor General's home. Beyond that however, it is the single largest property owner in the capital, with holdings ranging from buildings to land, parks, fields and rental homes. All told, it owns about 470 square kilometres of land, including the Greenbelt and Gatineau Park. The land owned by the agency is valued at $277 million, while the value of its buildings and infrastructure sits at $251 million.

[...]Owning so much commercial property has long been controversial. Some argue the only reason the NCC is constantly in need of money is that it spends vast amounts managing its properties. Records show the NCC does, indeed, spend the bulk of its budget on real-estate management. Of last year's $138-million annual budget, $79.8 million, or 73 per cent of the budget, went into "real asset management and stewardship." Only a little more than $4 million went into capital planning, design and land use.

Phillips argues the NCC can only become a real capital building authority if it gets out of the commercial property business and hands landlording over to the federal Public Works Department. It would keep only those properties that have a significant national importance, such as the Greenbelt, Gatineau Park and other valuable greenspace intrinsic to the capital's identity.

A slimmed-down NCC would then be able to focus on the design and beautification of the capital.

"The NCC operates like a real-estate agency, not a capital builder. What drives their development is a real estate interest. Look at the NCC record. The decisions made are not about the quality of the capital. They are about what's commercially viable," says Phillips. "If they own a corner lot in Barrhaven, or a warehouse that they are making 250 grand a year off of, how does that serve the mandate? Unless it (property) is going to become a major gateway to the national capital or it has some other significance, they should get rid of it."

National Capital Commission CEO Marie Lemay warned Friday morning that the popular Winterlude festival is no longer sustainable -- unless private business moves in to take part.

[...]"We know that if we don't change, really, fundamentally, the way we look at our business, the only thing we'll end up doing at one point is having to cut an arm," Lemay said. "That's the only result at the end of the day if you're not able to reinvent yourself and make really good use of your funds."

From now until about 2013, Winterlude will become a testing ground for how to involve the private sector in future NCC events and plans, Lemay said following her talk.

The NCC has been the role of sole producer for Winterlude, but for 32 years of tradition to move forward, that has to end, she said.

"That forced us to really think outside the box, and to really look at, 'OK, so what do we do with this?' "

"If we want to continue to have a Winterlude and if we want to get it to where we think it should be -- better, vibrant, exciting -- then we need to have partners and we need to involve the private sector and we need to do it differently."

Lemay said the NCC has been approached by businesses in the past to become involved with programming events, but because of the commission's existing framework, it just wasn't feasible.

Now, the NCC is trying to spread the message that private business participation is not only wanted, it's needed.

At the same talk, Lemay also expanded on the NCC's plans roll out of their new slogan for the capital:

She also announced the NCC's upcoming National Capital Region branding platform. The winning idea?

"Canadian. Just like you."

That beat out two others that made the shortlist, including "Where Canadian stories live," and "The capital of being Canadian."

Lemay said that "by far," the winning slogan resonated with people most during research testing.

She said a firm has been hired to help the NCC in its openness mandate -- first begun in 2006 -- to spread that message and better involve, interest and engage Canadians with NCC planning, events and more.

Plenty of money for national campaigns promoting themselves, then.

Federal legislation that would for the first time legally recognize the boundaries of the Gatineau Park is a step closer to reality, although at least one activist believes the bill does not go far enough to protect the park.

Bill C-20, officially an "act to amend the National Capital Act and other Acts" (or, more colloquially, "An Action Plan for the National Capital Commission") was approved at committee this past week. It's expected to clear the House of Commons before the Christmas break.

Among other things, the bill defines Gatineau Park's boundaries and stipulates that land can be sold - or added to - only by an order of the Governor in Council (which is basically the federal cabinet), instead of by the NCC.

[...]Bill C-20 also calls for the Greenbelt to be protected by legislation. The NCC has up to five years to define what the official boundaries of the Greenbelt are.

The question of protecting Gatineau Park in legislation has had something of a tortured history for several years. In 2005, then-NDP MP Ed Broadbent introduced a private member's bill on the issue. Dewar reintroduced it in 2006.

In 2009,the Conservative government introduced its own bill regarding the NCC and Gatineau Park, but that bill died when Parliament was prorogued at the end of December for two months. Then in April, Ottawa West-Nepean MP John Baird - then the minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and responsible for the NCC - reintroduced the bill yet again.

Meanwhile, the extension of autoroute 5 in and around Gatineau Park remains a threat. From the Citizen:

Running a four-lane highway north from Chelsea to Wakefield will destroy a lot of forest and wildlife in, or just beside, Gatineau Park, says a coalition of environment groups.

Quebec has proposed a 6.5-kilometre extension of the four-lane Highway 5 through an area now served by the two-lane Highway 105.

This comes as Parliament has given second reading to Bill C-20, which would require the National Capital Commission to protect the ecological integrity of Gatineau Park. The park today doesn't have legally protected status and borders, as national parks do.

[...]The proposed highway corridor would be a minimum of 150 metres wide, and would require cutting 88 hectares of forest, with an estimated 8,800 trees, said Huggett. Some of this lies in the park; more lies outside the park's boundary, but still on NCC land.

Construction for the new trade show facility in Ottawa South has officially begun.

[...]The land in question falls into the Greenbelt, which is managed by the NCC and 4899 Uplands Dr. has been deemed a buildable site within the Greenbelt.

And while the NCC believes the Macdonald-Cartier International Airport and its land provides an excellent venue for further economic development, the NCC and the Ottawa Airport Authority currently have differing positions on the jurisdictions of the NCC in respect to these lands and are in discussions about the issue - but neither the NCC nor the airport authority would comment on what the discussions consisted of.

Krista Kealey, vice-president of communications and public affairs for the Ottawa International Airport Authority, explained that the authority's Land Use Plan, which is part of the authority's Master Plan and has been approved by the Transport Canada in 2008, governs the development on their land. It was also given approval by the NCC. However, in the statement of the NCC's approval, it lists a series of conditions, one of which is that submission of detailed environmental studies is required prior to development for the Uplands Employment Area in wooded or wetland areas only.

The site is currently a vacant wooded lot.

However, Kealey said the only approval the authority receives is from the Minister of Transport. In addition, NCC spokesperson Mario Tremblay said that the NCC "technically can't stop any development on the site."

[...]In addition to falling on the Greenbelt, the land is owned by Transport Canada and is leased to the Ottawa Airport Authority, which has then decided to sub lease their land to Shenkman Corp. As of Oct. 4, Shenkman was still waiting for approval of the lease from Transport Canada.

"This arrangement gives the Airport Authority the sole responsibility for operation, management, and development of the Airport lands," said Transport Canada spokesperson Maryse Durette. "The Airport Authority operates at arms length from Transport Canada."

Further, she explained that airport authorities are not currently federal authorities as defined under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and therefore "do not trigger a legal obligation to undertake federal environmental assessments."

Durette confirmed that while the site is owned federally, because it is leased, it is not considered federal land.

"To date, Transport Canada has not identified any actions or decisions by the Ottawa Airport Authority that would require Transport Canada to conduct a federal environmental assessment under the CEAA in relation to this project proposal."

"In this case, the Authority requires that Shenkman will follow the direction of the City of Ottawa through its site planning process and obtain all necessary permits, licenses and studies as the city sets out in its conditions to planning approval," said Kealey.

While the city has no authority over the land, they are in charge of ensuring that all studies are completed in according with their site plan control proposal process. City staff has maintained that all the necessary studies have been completed for the project.

However, there has been no Environmental Assessment completed because it is not required on federal land. But, as Durette said, this is not considered federal land.

[...]Regardless of the confusion of jurisdictions that surrounds, the project has begun and will continue in full force until its grand opening in Jan. 2012.

To recap, the NCC don't have jurisdiction, don't own the land, and approve of whatever gets built anyways. More good work on the Greenbelt file from the NCC, then.

Imagine walking down a scenic promenade lined with trendy restaurants and shops on one side and a majestic, magnificent river on the other.

You browse through a few boutiques along the boardwalk, make a reservation for dinner, stop for a coffee or an ice cream, then sit on a bench overlooking the river and watch tourists in canoes and rowboats paddling by.

Unfortunately, if you live in Ottawa, the only way to experience this scene is to use your imagination. Or to head out of town to a city that has tastefully and properly developed its waterfront into a hub of activity for citizens and visitors, like Chicago.

[...]Unless you make a special effort to get to the river, using one of the limited number of access points, you'll never see it. And unless you're a runner or a cyclist, you certainly won't have much opportunity to enjoy its beauty. Most buildings near the Ottawa back onto rather than face the river. The best views of the river are from the Quebec side or from tall buildings in downtown Ottawa that are several blocks from the water.

Ottawa's other major waterway, the Rideau Canal, isn't much better. Like the Ottawa River, it's lined with roads and paths. But over a stretch of several kilometres between the National Arts Centre and Dow's Lake, there is a grand total of one restaurant that faces the canal.

[...]Many cities in North America have done far more with their waterfronts despite having far less to work with. Navy Pier in Chicago is an obvious example. But cities like Baltimore, Cleveland, and San Antonio with its Riverwalk have also developed their waterfronts into popular destinations.

Many cities in North America also don't have an inept federal government agency controlling their waterfront, whose only talent is building and maintaining roads and acres of turf. Waterfront development in Ottawa began and ended 50 years ago with the NCC's driveways, which effectively cut off access to the river. Great for commuters though.

Environmental groups in Ottawa are challenging the city's plan to build a trade show centre near the Ottawa Airport.

The Greenbelt Coalition of Canada's Capital Region - which represents 15 environmental and community organizations in Ottawa - says the city and the National Capital Commission, or NCC, are trying to rush the $40-million project.

They say the site on Uplands Drive where the trade show centre and hotel are to be built is in the middle of sensitive wetlands and could threaten wildlife.

They argue that the area's wetlands are protected by federal legislation and accuse the NCC and top city officials of treating the site like a developer's playground.

"It's all about development," said Sol Shuster, chair of the coalition. "It's seen by some people at the NCC as business opportunities rather than protecting the greenbelt."

[...]Coalition cochair Nicole Desroches said she isn't against the construction of a trade show centre but believes it should be built elsewhere.

"The location is problematic," she said. "Not only because of the wetlands, but closer to downtown would provide a more readily available access by public transit and avoids creating a field of parking used only occasionally."

Members of the alliance say the project could endanger wildlife in the area.

Cheryl Doran with the Friends of the Greenspace Alliance, a member of the coalition, said turtles are already being killed on Uplands Road and says she is sickened that more turtles - including snapping turtles and endangered Blanding's turtles that might live in the area - will be wiped out if the wetlands are filled in for parking lots.

"This is anything but greening the capital when you have to wipe out a federal wetlands and the species that live there," she said.

NCC officials were not available for comment but are on record as supporting the development even though there has not been an environmental assessment.

In fact, single-story trade show facilities with plenty of surface parking are just the sort of sprawl the NCC has in fact always encouraged for the Greenbelt.

A report prepared for the National Capital Commission says the fill spread on one of the main trails in Gatineau Park contains only traces of glass, wire and chemicals, making it suitable for a trail in a public park -- contrary to claims by Gatineau Park wilderness activists.

The NCC asked for the report from the engineering consultants Trow Associates Inc. after Gatineau Park activist Jean-Paul Murray and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society complained about glass shards several centimetres long and other debris in the fill spread on Trail No. 1.

[...]"The deleterious material consisted of plastic and paper averaging one to two centimetres," the report said. "Also a five-centimetre piece of electrical wire and a piece of glass (one centimetre) were observed in the fill material.

"Overall, the deleterious material was less than one per cent on the trail. Trow concludes that the fill material that was placed along Trail No. 1 is suitable for use on the trail."

The report said there were so many fallen leaves on the trail it was difficult to see any debris. Tests showed five soil samples contained only traces of petroleum hydrocarbons, solvents and polychlorinated biphenyls, making it chemically suitable for a park trail.

[...]Muriel How, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said she is skeptical about the report.

"The consultants said there were so many leaves on the trail that they couldn't see anything, but that is just rubbish," How said. "You just take a rake along and move the leaves aside.

"When I was on the trail, I found shards of glass, bits of plastic and twist-ties. Is this appropriate in a park? I am not convinced about that."

NCC spokeswoman Lucie Caron said the engineering report shows that the fill is suitable for use on a park path. Caron said the commission expects to reopen the trail within a few days after a final inspection.

So the trash the NCC didn't know was there is in fact a-ok number one quality trail fill. So enjoy the trails folks, and remember - please! - collect your garbage.

The only thing the NCC will respond to is embarrassment, something that threatens their existence or protest on a large scale. People seem to think that they are dealing with Sears where the customer has a say.

I keep saying this and the only people who seem to get it are the ones who actually deal with the NCC and see how they operate. You can't negotiate with an entity that has decided already what the course of action is. Oh and they won't tell you. The fight has to be on our terms not theirs because of the NCC's closed loop complaint process.

The NCC closed loop process works as follows; We'll use Gatineau park as an example. You file a complaint at the visitor centre, then you escalate this to the director in charge of that service. Next is the park director then the ombudsman, include the commissioners and the chair of the NCC. Now you are tired of being patted on head so you write to the minister responsible for the NCC. That would be the minister for Heritage Canada. You are then surprised to see that Heritage hands it back to the NCC to deal with. The loop is closed. Yes I know this because I've been there.

Read the entire thing.

Contrary to its Master Plan, Conservation Plan, the National Capital Act - and its Environmental Strategy - the National Capital Commission is spreading garbage and contaminated soil in Gatineau Park, along a section of Trail No. 1.

On Aug. 2, the NCC closed a section of the trail between Kingsmere Road and the Gatineau Parkway for a period of six to eight weeks for "rehabilitation" work that includes grading and resurfacing the path with a soil/gravel mixture.

Walking along the trail over the last few weeks, however, I found countless shards of broken glass larded into the recently applied soil mix, as well as plastic, vinyl, ceramic, beer-can tabs, twist ties, electrical wire, broken car tailights, shirt-collar tabs, mirror fragments, pens, clothes pins, shredded grocery bags, etc.

The only possible conclusion is that the soil was taken from an old garbage dump - which begs the question: is it contaminated with toxins, heavy metals, PCBs, etc.?

In its latest corporate plan, the NCC says the highest priority for Gatineau Park is conservation of its natural environment, and CEO Marie Lemay is on record as saying, "We are committed to demonstrating excellence in issues related to the environment and look forward to working with our partners, suppliers and the public to build a greener Capital."

So, when did spreading garbage from a landfill - read contaminated soil - in Gatineau Park become a part of "demonstrating excellence" or applying leading environmental practices, which the NCC committed to doing when it unveiled its Environmental Strategy in 2009?

The NCC claims to have sent inspectors to the site, and that they found no problems.

The top official of the National Capital Commission was full of smiles Tuesday as she presented a conservation award to the man who was once the most persistent thorn in the NCC's side.

"For the NCC, Mer Bleue represents 50 years of conservation success," said NCC chief executive officer Marie Lemay, as she presented a Mer Bleue Wetland Conservation Award to retired Carleton University biology professor Donald Smith.

But Smith, who accepted the award with grace, knew that the NCC didn't always see the bog in that light. And that if it hadn't been for the "persistent badgering" by himself and a group of like-minded naturalists, the internationally-significant wetland might well have ended up as a municipal dump.

"In December 1962, there was a little squib in the Ottawa Journal that just said, the NCC was considering for the local municipalities to dump garbage in the Mer Bleue peat bog. When we read this, we were quite alarmed," Smith recounted at the awards ceremony. "We talked about this and thought: What should we do? We've got to stop it. We've got to mobilize some naturalists and anyone who might have some influence on the NCC to stop this."

After hiring people to dig through its own trash last year, the National Capital Commission concluded it could send a lot less to landfills after big events with a little extra effort.

According to audit results published in the NCC's most recent environment report, about 92 per cent of the waste left behind after the Rideau Canal Skateway and Winterlude in 2010 could have been recycled or composted. But only a small amount actually was -- about eight per cent at the Skateway and 22 per cent at Winterlude.

Slightly less than half of the waste left after Canada Day in 2009 could have been recycled or composted, but only about a fifth of the trash made it to blue and green bins instead of the garbage.

Geneviève Mercier, the environmental strategy and program officer for the NCC, said the commission has already started working on improving those figures. The NCC bought 180 new recycling bins for last July's Canada Day and Mercier said she thinks this year's results will improve as a result.

Good on the NCC for getting on board with this new fangled recycling program that the city has been operating for the last few decades.

In March 2010, the National Capital Commission (NCC) released a land management plan for Gatineau Park which restricts climbing to the Western CWM west (North wall to Cave wall), Home Cliff west, Twin Ribs and Eastern Block. The NCC moved forward by installing No-Access signs, in late May at the majority of the climbing sites recognized in the previous access agreement. In addition, access to the Shrine parking lot on Chemin de la Montagne was removed.

To address the closures the Ottawa-Gatineau Climbers' Access Coalition (OGCAC) submitted a climbing management plan to the NCC. The scope of the plan was created to meet the ecological concerns raised by the NCC while maintaining access to climbing on the Eardley escarpment. This plan was endorsed by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. Unfortunately, the NCC largely rejected the plan.

On August 17, the OGCAC members gathered to vote on how to move forward. It was decided not to endorse the NCC response and that the OGCAC will maintain its position outlined in the management plan. Sadly, the limited success in securing climbing access in the park puts 60 years of Gatineau climbing at a crossroads.

Documentation related to the climbing dispute, including the NCC response to the climber management plan are available at the climber coalition site.

What is it with Ottawa and its desperate need to find a slogan that city poobahs hope will convince Canadians it's more than just a boring place filled with politicians, bureaucrats and museums?

In a big announcement that almost no one paid attention to, the National Capital Commission revealed on Wednesday that it spent $102,500 coming up with yet another slogan.

Wanna hear it? OK, wait for it ... "Just like you".

Yup, that's it. Ottawa, just like you.

What's it mean? God knows. Only a city jammed with civil servants would consider it a good idea to spend $102,500 to "research, develop and test the concept" of a lame-ass slogan like "Just like you." Apparently it costs that much to discover that people think "Just like you" is catchier than "The Capital of being Canadian" and "Where Canadian stories live", two other equally lame possibilities that were considered.

[...]Grow up folks. Slogans only work for cities that already have an image in the public imagination. The slogan has to catch that image, it can't create it. Continually blowing money in the hope that some ad campaign will magically transform boring Ottawa into a sexy tourist destination is just a sign of rampant civic insecurity. And a waste of money, to boot.

Actually, we have to concede that its very meaninglessness makes "Just like you" less lame than the other two painfully earnest and truly astoundingly lame slogans that were apparently in contention, though the mind boggles. So way to go NCC!

The National Capital Commission wants to team up with the city on some of the creative design for Ottawa's light-rail transit stations.

NCC chief executive Marie Lemay has asked Mayor Larry O'Brien if the city would be interested. Lemay is still coming up with the possibilities, but mentioned a potential design competition or showcase involving each of the country's provinces and territories.

[...]The two sides would have to discuss the idea further if the city's interested, Lemay said, adding the NCC's involvement wouldn't include additional financial help. The federal and provincial governments have each already committed $600 million to the project.

"At this point, what I'm talking about is more expertise and maybe being able to engage Canadians in this wonderful project," Lemay said.

In the past year alone, the NCC has refused to commit to allowing light rail along the parkway, balked at shuttle services on Queen Elizabeth Drive, and refused to grant approval for the LRT tunnel under the Rideau Canal. But they would like to inflict their bland, patronizing design on the transit stations.

The city's plan for a light-rail tunnel underneath the Rideau Canal has hit a heritage speed bump that could further complicate the biggest infrastructure project in Ottawa's history.

According to documents obtained under the Access to Information Act, a year of active talks between the city and Parks Canada over the placement of a tunnel have ended fruitlessly, at least partly because federal authorities want to keep a say over the design and placement of a new rail station near the National War Memorial.

The city's plans for a $2.1-billion new light-rail system, see a tunnel to be built 30 to 35 metres beneath the surface when it passes under the canal. By refusing to grant the city approval to run the tunnel underneath the canal, the National Capital Commission and Parks Canada maintain leverage in influencing what nearby Rideau Station will eventually look like.

The concerns about the Rideau Canal are the latest stumbling block federal departments and agencies have created for the city's attempts to bring light rail to Ottawa. The NCC has also yet to make any commitments to let the city use land it is counting on.

Behind one of the barns on Eliane Michele Crematy's farm on Ramsayville Road is the rusted carcass of a Ford truck.

The windows are smashed, the vinyl seats are slashed and the white paint has turned grey with time. A Manitoba maple tree and other weeds threaten to swallow the truck whole with their foliage.

This isn't Crematy's truck, but it's been there since the day she moved onto the farm almost two years ago.

She has asked the National Capital Commission - her landlord - to remove the truck, yet here it remains.

"It's just so hard to get somebody here to say, 'Yes, you're right, we're going to fix this,' and take action," Crematy says, letting out a long sigh.

[...]Today, the NCC owns more than 60 farms, leased to tenants like Crematy through a third-party property management company.

[...]On the other side of the Greenbelt, near Shirleys Bay, David Burnford grows organic vegetables on about two hectares of land.

He says the line between what regular maintenance he's responsible for as a tenant and what tasks should fall to the NCC is fuzzy.

"I think that results in a lot of issues not being addressed by either party," he says.

He cites, as examples, a kilometre-long driveway that is pocked with potholes and a century-old barn needing structural work.

Burnford says the NCC should invest in the farms.

"If we're going to designate it as a special area and keep it away from development, we might as well do it properly," he says.

Burnford, who is more than halfway through a five-year lease, adds a longer lease would allow him to invest capital more confidently.

Canada's Transport Minister John Baird and the Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of State (National Capital Commission), today announced that the Government of Canada has reintroduced legislation to amend the National Capital Act (NCA), the enabling statute of the National Capital Commission (NCC).

The National Capital Commission is working to develop a catchy yet dignified slogan, to be unveiled in June, that's meant to brand the capital region as a source of pride for all Canadians.

[...]"It's not just a phrase. It's about: Why does (the capital) matter to you as a Canadian?" said NCC chief executive Marie Lemay. "There are a number of things that are important to Canadians that are not, in their mind, reflected in the capital. Those had to do with the environment, with making it more reflective of the country, and inspiring. Working on those is really important. ... It's about the value of the capital to Canadians."

The slogan is to be part of a five-year $2.5-million branding and marketing project that the NCC began last year.

The values identified in the research are meant to infuse the NCC's corporate culture and operations, as well as the development of a new "Plan for Canada's Capital."

[...]In the efforts to come up with a branding and marketing strategy, the NCC commissioned Ipsos-Reid to conduct a survey of 3,500 Canadians on their attitudes toward the national capital.

The survey found that four out of five Canadians have a positive impression of the place. Most people saw the capital as historic, interesting, beautiful, welcoming, and culturally rich.

Fewer saw it as fun, dynamic, modern, cosmopolitan and innovative.

"It doesn't matter that much -- they don't expect you to be those things," said Ipsos-Reid vice-president Alexandra Evershed.

Obviously that's a good thing, being that this project is in the hands of the NCC.

A lack of places where Rover can run free is forcing pet-owners to drive to one of the six dog parks in the city and creating congestion in those neighbourhoods, according to a city councillor.

Gloucester-Southgate Councillor Diane Deans wrote in an open letter Tuesday to the National Capital Commission that it should dedicate more space in the Greenbelt for off-leash dog parks as part of its Greenbelt Master Plan.

"Less than one per cent of the green space the NCC owns within the boundaries of the city of Ottawa is for dog walkers, or for dogs off leash," said Deans.

Deans said Conroy Pit, in her ward, is a great place for dog walkers, but the overflowing parking lot is beginning to cause problems with residents of the neighbourhood.

For almost 70 years, the family of Alan Hay has owned or rented a cedar-shingled cabin on the edge of Gatineau Park, beautifully preserving its simple, rustic spirit.

Hay, after all, was no ordinary woodsman.

Before he died in 1978, he left his mark all over the humble hideaway, set back from Meech Lake Road near Camp Fortune: hand-made bunkbeds, a slab dining room table with a sliding bench, pine panelling, and a number of exquisite maps and landscape paintings.

And a fascinating legacy. Alan K. Hay was the second chairman of the National Capital Commission, the very guardian of Gatineau Park.

This makes last week's letter to his descendants all the more poignant.

The NCC is giving the family 30 days to vacate, asking that the property be left vacant by April 30, ending four generations of occupation.

"Heartbroken," said Hay's daughter, Marion Rankin, 93, as she sat by the old Beach woodstove on Thursday, a fire chasing the April chill. "I feel like someone has died in the family."

Her father bought the cabin and several adjoining acres in 1941, the family says, and owned it until the NCC expropriated in the early 1960s.

Since then, the family has leased back the cabin, lately signing year-long leases for a fee of about $5,000. It annually pours about $4,000 into upkeep.

But the NCC discovered high amounts of radon gas; they generously decided not to go with their first instinct and demolish the place, but now the family has 30 days to vacate.

Ottawa has a "car-first, bike-after" attitude, says the chief executive of the National Capital Commission. And Marie Lemay said residents have to decide if that's really the way they want to build the future of Canada's capital.

"One of the fundamental things that I think we need to have a discussion about is, do we want our National Capital Region to be bike- and pedestrian-friendly? And if the answer is yes, we have to be ready to do the things that implies. It might mean it will be more difficult for cars, for example," she said.

"Do we make the decision that bikes and pedestrians come first? And if we do that, everything else follows."

Lemay said the place of cyclists and pedestrians will be a central question in the NCC's new, three-year initiative to develop a plan for Canada's capital [surely they already have one of those? - ed.]. Public discussions on the plan are to begin this summer.

Given this is merely chit-chat in advance of an initiative to discuss, publicly, the development of a plan for Canada's capital, nothing is imminent. Obviously. Nevertheless, over at his Citizen blog, David Reevely sees this as a sign for some sort of hope:

This isn't to say that it ought to be the NCC's mission to make Ottawa a biking-first city - I'd like that, but the NCC's imposing it unilaterally would be no better than deciding that biking isn't the NCC's problem. What is nice to hear is that Lemay seems to see Ottawa's permanent residents as necessary partners in the enterprise of planning and running the place, rather than the hamsters that inconveniently happen to live in the city the NCC's planners want to build.

Being that the NCC was more or less the unilateral imposer-in-chief of Ottawa's "car-first, bike after attitude," they don't carry a whole lot of credibility in this regard. But this is the second time in a year Lemay's been put on the front page of the Citizen regarding these bicycle contraptions, so there's evidently something to be said for the whole concept.

The commission is concerned climbers are trampling endangered plants and disrupting wildlife.

"The rock climbing is now happening all over the ecosystem and we need to address that," said Michel Viens, the NCC's senior manager of natural resources and land management.

Eric Grenier, chair of the Ottawa-Gatineau Climbers' Access Coalition, said the new restrictions are unfair because most climbers are already careful not to disturb the ecosystem.

"You'll be hard pressed to find a group of people who care more about the environment ... than people who spend as much of their free time in it as much as they can," said Grenier, who has been climbing for about six years.

The NCC's own eco-credentials have, of course, been severely eroded by years of road building and trail widening in the Park, as "Ray From Ottawa" explains in the comment thread:

This is the same NCC that allowed a large swath of the south end of the park to be cut down, blazed, bulldozed, dynamited, and paved to allow Blvd. Allumettieres (Highway 148 -- Google it) to pass through. The same NCC that brings in heavy machinery and tonnes of gravel every year to turn narrow walking paths into gravel highways for the fall leafers. The same NCC that cut down and paved even more sections of forest for the convenience of Mackenzie King Estate tea drinkers.

They aren't standing up for nature. They are using nature as an excuse to limit an activity they know little about, don't partake in, they don't like, and they don't make money from.

Being in essence a gated community run for its landowners, Gatineau Park exists amid utter bureaucratic anarchy thanks to the National Capital Commission (NCC). At once a provincial game sanctuary, a federal park, a municipal fiefdom and a private playground, no one seems to know who really runs it, where its boundaries are, or even who owns lands around lac La Pêche or the Outaouais CÉGEP.

[...]Today, as NCC CEO, Ms. Lemay has made helplessness to protect Gatineau Park the earmark of her administration. She has routinely been caught off guard by development projects in the park; allowed construction of new housing on Carman Rd; retained the services of a law firm having close family ties with Gatineau Park landowners to tell her she lacked authority to impose a development freeze in the park. As well, Ms. Lemay has limited access to information, misled a parliamentary committee, and overseen an administration which participated in an attempt to discredit park activists - while refusing to disclose the nature of an NCC director's conflict of interest in Gatineau Park.

• fully $21.45 million is going to a clutch of roads and bridges for repaving and so forth
• $1.5 million for a new greenbelt pathway
• $450 000 to repair a retaining wall in Major's Hill Park
• $1.5 million to rehabilitate the Victoria Island Carbide Mill building masonry
• $3.75 million to replace "the existing public skateway facilities (washrooms, info kiosks, etc.) placed onto the Rideau Canal Skateway each winter"
• $3 million to Vincent Massey Park for "rehabilitation of the concession, bus shelter and bandstand buildings, plus select improvements to adjoining recreational pathways, parking facilities, and landscape renewal" - no mention of the planned $2.2 million dollar washroom though. Maybe that's because the washroom stimulus money's all going to the Hog's Back Park Washroom Pavilion, which is getting a whopping $3 million for "rehabilitation of the existing public washroom and concession buildings, including significant universal accessibility upgrades."

So the roads and bridges brigade beat out the parks and washrooms contingent roughly 2-1, which is probably par for the course.

Mort au feuilleton, le projet de loi sur la Commission de la capitale nationale (CCN) devrait renaître de ses cendres avec plusieurs couches de vernis. C'est du moins ce que souhaitent certains députés fédéraux, qui ont passé les dernières semaines de 2009 à éplucher le texte législatif, pour finalement se faire couper l'herbe sous le pied par la prorogation du Parlement.

[...]Pour le député libéral de Hull-Aylmer, Marcel Proulx, il s'agit d'une manoeuvre indécente, qui a pour effet de renvoyer des projets de loi à la case départ. « Les témoignages peuvent toujours être utilisés, parce qu'on a les transcriptions, mais le travail comme tel est à recommencer », dit-il.

Au total, 41 amendements ont été présentés en comité parlementaire, tant par les conservateurs (14) que par les bloquistes (14), les libéraux (8) et les néo-démocrates (5). Les députés d'opposition souhaitent que le nouveau texte législatif en tienne compte. « S'ils redéposent le même projet de loi, c'est de la mauvaise foi », estime M. Proulx.

Le bureau du ministre responsable de la CCN, Lawrence Cannon, a laissé entendre hier que le projet de loi serait rapidement remis sur les rails, après la rentrée parlementaire. « Nous tenterons d'obtenir l'accord de l'opposition pour faire adopter rapidement les projets de loi du gouvernement, y compris le projet de loi de la CCN », a assuré un porte-parole du ministre Cannon, par courriel.

Présenté le 9 juin dernier, le projet de loi C-37 assure une pro­­tection accrue au parc de la Ga­­tineau, en plus d'introduire un train de mesures touchant la gouvernance de la CCN. Le document législatif est scruté à la loupe par le Comité parle­­mentaire des transports, de l'in­­frastructure et des collectivités, sur lequel siègent notamment les députés Marcel Proulx (Hull-Aylmer), Richard Nadeau (Gatineau), Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel) et Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa-Vanier).

Le comité parlementaire a en­­tendu de nombreux témoins, dont le ministre John Baird, qui coparraine le projet de loi. Au total, 41 amendements ont été présentés, tant par les conservateurs (14) que par les bloquistes (14), les libéraux (8) et les néo-démocrates (5). Pour le député Marcel Proulx, le projet de loi ratisse si large, qu'il était impensable qu'il soit adopté avant la fin de l'année. « C'est loin d'être strictement un projet de loi qui protège le parc de la Gatineau, dit-il. C'est une réforme de la gou­­vernance de la CCN, ce qui ouvre toutes sortes de portes. »

[The National Capital Commission, STO, the City of Gatineau, and the City of Ottawa] are actively considering turning the rail bridge into a road bridge, at least according to Christine Leadman, the Kitchissippi councillor for the area.

That's likely to cost tens of millions of dollars to achieve what? Create a staging area for STO buses at Bayview? That's prime downtown land, suitable for intensification. Why you put a library, some housing ... heck, even a trailer park, bowling alley or roller-derby oval would be better than a bus-staging area. How long do we want to treat the LeBreton, Bayview, Hintonburg, Mechanicsville area like a dump?

We would simply note that the NCC never saw a railway right of way it didn't want to convert into a road, or a road proposal, no matter how crazy, it didn't want to build.

Sussex Drive will be reconstructed between George Street and St. Patrick Street over the next year and city officials want to use the project as an opportunity to get rid of the barriers, which were first installed after the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in 2001.

The barriers, considered an eyesore by city officials and visitors alike, also take two lanes of traffic out of the downtown core; one on Sussex and one on Mackenzie Avenue.

The construction project is a partnership between the city and the NCC, which is estimating in its documents that the cost will be $7.7 million. The NCC's share is $3 million, including $1.2 million for "aesthetic treatment" of the security elements along the edge of the embassy. The NCC is scheduled to endorse the treatment of the embassy frontage in January. The NCC board approved the overall project last week, along with an impressive new landscape plan for Colonel By Drive in front of the new Ottawa Convention Centre.

The Sussex Drive reconstruction is a complex project that includes new water mains, sewers, relocated utilities, pavement, trees, signage, granite curbs, new streetlights and premium street furniture to create "a welcoming streetscape." The commission will use the opportunity to repair foundation walls on buildings it owns from George to York streets and from Clarence to St. Patrick.

Only government could spend $2.2 million to put up a spiffy bathroom in a public park.

Only Ottawa, caught up in all its commandments, could make the story even stranger, possibly dishonouring a governor general's son in the process. Suffer with us.

At Vincent Massey Park, at the end of a long parking lot, there is an unusual entranceway. It was designed by Hart Massey, the son of the GG for whom the park is named and an acclaimed architect in his own right.

His design consists of three big pieces, mostly done in a white, glazed brick. The first is a bus shelter, with a roof, a long wall and bench seating. Inside the park, there is an entrance court, then a refreshment stand and covered eating area, and, finally, public washrooms about 50 metres away. The canopies are unusual in that the steel trusses and slender poles give the roof the feel of floating, stylized tree branches.

[...]The Federal Heritage Buildings Review Office is an outfit that evaluates the possible heritage value of federally owned properties. It reviewed the park entrance and gave a "recognized" designation to the bus shelter and what it calls the "refreshment stand."

[...]For reasons unclear, the washroom building, about 50 metres away, but obviously of the same design, received no designation or protection.

The park owner, the National Capital Commission, intends to demolish that building and, as reported last week, replace it with a new structure that is cleaner, greener and capped with a saddle-shaped roof. The project is to cost $2.2 million.

[...]Architecture critic Rhys Phillips is one person who thinks it's wrong.

[...]The critic believes the NCC has been a poor guardian of the capital's built heritage.

He cited the demolition of the Daly Building as a glaring example, but also mentioned the "mile of rebuilt history" along Sussex Drive and LeBreton Flats as other failures.

If the Massey washroom building was shoddy and not up to code, then the answer is to restore it, not tear it down, Phillips said. By the same reasoning, we'd be tearing down the West Block on Parliament Hill, he argued.

With the new Vincent Massey washroom coming in at $2.2 mil, the Rockcliffe outhouse now looks like a bargain.

Opponents of Lansdowne Live took shots at the project before the board of the National Capital Commission Wednesday, but the NCC gave no signal it wanted to get too heavily involved or take sides in the bitter debate.

Three representatives of the Glebe Community Association -- Caroline Vanneste, Robert Brocklebank and June Creelman -- urged the board of the NCC to either throw all of the commission's planning weight into the project or to cancel its involvement.

"There has been a huge public outcry about what has happened here," Creelman said. "It's banal on the canal. What is happening now is way too mediocre."

The NCC are acknowledged masters of banal mediocrity (viz. the LeBreton Flats); we can only hope that Lansdowne will be spared most of the dead weight of the NCC's planning.

The winning design reflects many facets of the Canadian Navy in its use of the naval black, white and gold colours to create a distinctively sculpted open space charged with meaning. At the heart of the monument site is a white form suggestive of a multitude of naval associations, ranging from sails to classic ship design lines to icebergs to naval attire. The design also makes use of gold spheres, which speak of the sun, moon, stars and the global reach of the Canadian Navy.

Sounds about par for the course. Whatever it is, it's gonna be built at Richmond Landing starting early next year.

The NCC's CEO Marie Lemay and Chair Russell Mills appeared today before the Commons Transport Committee to support the Conservative government's Bill C-37, the so-called Action Plan for the Nation's Capital.

"Ms. Lemay has had 22 months on the job to get her act together and she should know better than to say the size of Gatineau Park has increased by some 1,700 acres," said Mr. McDermott. "The lands Ms. Lemay refers to may be part of the National Interest Land Mass, and the NCC may wish they were in Gatineau Park, but legally they are clearly outside the park," said [GPPC co-chair] Mr. McDermott.

The NCC's own 1995 documents say "The boundaries of Gatineau Park [were] established by the Order in Council in 1960," adding that "new Gatineau Park boundaries [would require] an amendment to the 1960 Order in Council which legally created the park." However, no new Order in Council has ever been adopted to ratify the park's so-called 1997 boundary. In legal terms, only the 1960 boundary is valid, which means the Meech Creek Valley is legally outside the park, and that the park has suffered a net loss of 1,842 acres since 1992.

"Not only did Ms. Lemay get it wrong on the boundaries, she also misled the committee over NCC ownership of 12,500 acres of Gatineau Park, falsely claiming the titles still had to be registered," said Mr. McDermott. "That is utter and complete nonsense, since all the NCC needs to claim ownership of those 12,500 acres is a transfer of control and management from the province, which is exactly what it got by virtue of a 1973 agreement," said Mr. McDermott.

[...]Gatineau Park's boundaries were set by a legal instrument years ago. On April 29, 1960, the federal government approved Order in Council P.C. 1960-579 which included a plan "indicating the Gatineau Park boundary." Moreover, various documents prepared by senior officials for the NCC's executive management committee confirm that the 1960 decree set the park's legal boundary and that any changes to it would require a new Order in Council.

Over the last two years, however, the NCC has been changing its story on the exact nature of those boundaries. For instance, it told Senator Mira Spivak in 2004 that "the legal boundary of the park ... had been established by federal Order in Council in 1960." And then, in a complete reversal about a year later, it told Ottawa-Centre MP Ed Broadbent that "the 1960 Order in Council did not establish the park boundary." Adding to the confusion, NCC Chairman Marcel Beaudry said in a letter of April 12, 2005 to senators that Treasury Board had approved the park's new boundary in 1997. However, in response to a written question from Senator Spivak seeking clarification, the NCC now said that the Treasury Board decision had not established the park boundary...

And in the wake of these contradictions the NCC has also claimed that Gatineau Park's boundary was set by everything from the Meech Creek Valley Land Use Concept, to National Interest Land Mass designation, to section 10(2)(c) of the National Capital Act.

Little over a year ago, the NCC was trumpeting the fact that they had actually managed to figure out the park boundaries.

The expropriation powers of the National Capital Commission should be repealed to protect private property rights within Gatineau Park, federal Transport Minister John Baird told a House of Commons committee meeting Monday, while an advocate argued that the land must be given legal federal status, otherwise it is really just a park in name only.

Baird, who introduced a bill to protect the boundaries and natural environment of Gatineau Park, said the government wants to guard the rights of private property owners in the park.

Bill C-37 stops short of declaring Gatineau Park a national park, but designates its boundaries and allows the NCC to administer it. The NCC will also be required to maintain the park's "ecological integrity."

The chairwoman of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society's Gatineau Park Committee, Muriel How, said Bill C-37 has serious deficiencies, since it does not adequately deal with the issue of ecological preservation or provide the legal means to control private development within the park.

[...]Baird said Bill C-37 won't satisfy all concerns about the NCC and Gatineau Park, but it does require public board meetings, a five-year master plan and a list of lands to be preserved in the national interest. He said new regulatory powers would allow the commission to protect the park's ecological integrity.
Critics of the bill argue that new housing permitted within the park has been chipping away at its boundaries and causing erosion around some of its most beautiful lakes.

There's something exhilarating about living in the National Capital Region, where one is often compelled to stickhandle through more layers of government in an afternoon than most see in a lifetime.

But it's especially exhilarating when all those scrumptious layers start bickering with one another.

It's pure entertainment, really. Though it usually means as a city, we don't get a whole lot done.

But while the rather catty letter sent by the National Capital Commission last week to Ottawa deputy city manager Nancy Schepers - a letter which, in effect, told the city to get its grubby paws off certain NCC Greenbelt lands designated for a light-rail system - is a great example, it also illustrates another, more disturbing pattern.

And that is that the NCC, for decades tasked with "building a great capital for Canadians," has in effect become a big landowner first and foremost.

A builder of a great capital? That one seems a very distant second, in many cases.

Skinouk, which operates both recreational and competitive programs for its 300 members, had hoped to develop trails in the park suitable for hosting national competitions in accordance with the standards of Cross-Country Canada, the sport's governing body. Though the club has hosted national competitions in the past, the standards have recently become more demanding.

That hope has now been dashed, said Skinouk's race co-ordinator, Pierre Millette.

"The consultations last Wednesday put the last nail in the coffin," he said. "We find it deplorable that we have the burden of proof with respect to the environment, while I don't know how many cars go through the park, and have a much greater impact on the environment."

Millette said that by clearing one or two kilometres of new trails to link existing trails, the club could have created competitive-level circuits of 7.5K, 5K, 3.5K and 1K. With technically-challenging ascents and descents, those trails would have been open to the general public as well as club members, he said.

"We don't think one or two kilometres of trails will have a big impact on the environment," Millette said.

On September 15, 2009 I participated in the first of two workshops the National Capital Commission is holding to consult with the public about how people use Gatineau Park recreationally; and more specifically how these activities can best be managed in the future.

The bottom line is that there are changes coming.

There are going to be more restrictions imposed on park users.

What those restrictions are, we don't know yet. But now is the time to speak up if you have ideas on how the park should be managed.

Although discussion at the meeting was polite and usually constructive, managing recreation in the park has the potential to be a contentious issue and once or twice, more incendiary topics did get raised.

If you are a frequent park user, you may want to find out what's coming down the pike for your favourite sport. The deadline for this round of feedback is October 5, 2009.

The NCC board passed a motion supporting the concept of the commemoration, "but perhaps with a different title," after objections about the title were raised by nearly all members who spoke.

The title -- "monument to the victims of totalitarian communism" -- has already been changed once. In the first proposals, one by a non-profit group called Tribute to Liberty, the other by Open Book Group, it was to be called "monument to the victims of communism."

After beginning discussions with the NCC in March 2008, the groups had back-and-forth discussions with a committee of experts who suggested that the title be changed because it could be perceived as "unduly critical of Canadians who might associate themselves with communism," Egan said.

The group then changed the name to include the word "totalitarian." The title still did not sit well with the board.

"I was unsettled by this name, and other members of the committee agreed with me," said Hélène Grand-Maître, speaking in French. "We should make sure that we are politically correct in this designation."

Board member Adel Ayad said the name was troubling for its "very tight definition" and for the presence of the word "communism" in the title, as Canada has a communist party.

"It's not communism itself that we should be fighting here. It is rather totalitarianism we are against in any form," he said.

Richard Jennings suggested replacing "totalitarian communism" with the phrase "oppressive regimes."

Some also suggested that the monument should focus more on Canada as a refuge for victims of oppressive regimes.

The criticism that the monument's focus is too narrow came as a surprise to Zuzana Hahn of the Open Book Group, who points out that the monument represents people from three of the world's seven continents.

"We feel that we are just broad enough," she said. "We represent everybody from Vietnam to South America and through Europe."

The monument aims to honour the 100 million people who died under communist regimes across the world and to recognize the experiences of Canadians who emigrated from communist countries. The monument will also thank Canada for its role in providing a homeland for those coming from communist regimes.

The search for a classy new tenant to transform the old mill at Chaudière Falls into a major waterfront destination is turning into something of a fiasco as the National Capital Commission fails for the second time to find the right proposal.

However, the NCC, keen to develop the site because it sees the Ottawa River as part of its vision to transform the capital, is willing to try again. It has put out yet another request for proposals, hoping to be third-time lucky. It hopes to attract a museum, art gallery, spa or retail destination to the site and to turn it into a city hot spot.

[...]Built in 1842 when Ottawa was a backwater lumber town, it served for a number of years as the Mill restaurant. Since that lease expired and the restaurant closed, the NCC has spent $1.6 million to restore the building in hopes of getting a big draw to a site that covers more than 7,000 square feet on two floors.

Despite interest shown by more than 40 businesses earlier this year, not one made an offer. Saying the recession may have dampened interest, the commission put out a second call in June that attracted two proposals. Neither made the cut. NCC officials acknowledge the building is too small for a portrait gallery and may not be appropriate for a museum because it might not meet temperature and humidity requirements. Its location and heritage also pose problems.

"This is a historic site and that creates specific requirements," said NCC spokesman Jean Wolff. "We want to protect the heritage of the site and that requires a different way of handling it. That's part of the difficulty."

Keenberg, however, says the NCC might have to acknowledge what he thinks is obvious: The site is just not suitable for commercial development. Pedestrian access and walk-on traffic is so limited that business owners might not imagine the site's working financially.

Continued construction in the eastern part of Gatineau Park shows that the National Capital Commission has neglected its duty to protect the park from development, a park activist said Thursday.

Jean-Paul Murray said one house is under construction on Carman Road off Highway 105 in Chelsea and three more homes will eventually be built on adjacent lots.

Murray said the work is shocking because the NCC purchased more than 35 hectares of land on the same road to stop a planned development that caused an uproar in 2008.

The purchase came after the NCC announced in April 2008 that it would buy up to $385 million worth of private property to stop further development in the park.

[...]"They keep saying it is the capital's conservation park and the main focus of the master plan is conservation. In what way is building houses in the park conservation?"

[...]Marie Lemay, the NCC's chief executive officer, said the commission sent the owner an offer to buy the land, but it had already been subdivided for housing. She said the NCC decided not to acquire the lots because they are near Highway 105 and are not ecologically sensitive.

Lemay said the house under construction on Carman Road is not a sign that the commission has failed to protect the park.

A public meeting will be held Thursday, September 3 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Dufferin Room of the Crichton Cultural Community Centre, 200 Crichton Street, second floor.

It is organized by the New Edinburgh Community Alliance to review the project. The NCC has declined to attend.

[...]A chain-link fence is to be built along the entire length of the park behind the adjoining houses. A mix of fences, stone walls and open gardens is there now. The sole declared purpose of the fence is to block access and the informal encroachment of gardens. Residents query why this significant public expenditure is necessary.

Why has the information and consultation process been so abrupt, and clarification difficult to obtain from the NCC?

[...]I sent a list of questions to an NCC media relations officer and requested a written response by email.

"I'm sorry, but email answers do not work for me at this time," was the reply.

Much is known about usage on NCC paths, but much is not.

The commission does not keep track of how many accidents occur on its pathways, a spokesman said Tuesday, or injuries. Nor does it know how many electric bikes are wheeling about.

It has a sometimes-posted 20 km/h speed limit for cyclists, but admits this is a rule without legislative force. It does not ticket anyone for speeding. And, frankly, how could the Crown agency expect an accomplished cyclist to go that slow?

The paths are a victim of their own success, with traffic steadily climbing.

According to surveys conducted for the NCC, there were 17 million trips on NCC paths (including a portion of Gatineau Park) in 1998, but 31 million in 2008.

The proportion of pedestrians, meanwhile, is shrinking: from 30 per cent in 1998 to 24 per cent a decade later.

Similarly, the share of cyclists has grown over the decade, from 56 per cent to 64. In other words, almost two-thirds of users are now cyclists. With greening attitudes, more central infill, a broadening path network, that ratio will probably rise.

Two wheels now rule. It is a point worth discussion: Is the safest long-term option to kick everybody but cyclists off the paths?

Houle and Jonah would like to see improved signage about e-bikes on the paths themselves, clear information on the NCC website and perhaps an education campaign. The NCC, meanwhile, has a 2006 strategic plan for pathways. Shared use and courtesy are big concepts. Twin, separated paths are not.

"I think the NCC has a good record of being attuned to what the people in the National Capital region want," said spokesman Jean Wolff.

From the CBC:

Park director Marie Boulet said giving visitors transit alternatives would be good for the heavily used green space.

"It is not uncommon that we have real traffic congestion in the park," she said. "We're concerned with the impact motor vehicles can have on the park environment. But also on the recreational experience in the park."

Boulet said the NCC is currently gathering data in order to come up with alternatives to cars, which could include building transit links inside the park.

Desjardine and his friend [...] biked from their homes in Crystal Bay to where the Grandview path meets the Ottawa River with a package of hot dogs and four cans of Dr. Pepper.

The Nepean Third Scouts Troop veterans - each spent nine years in the club - also brought with them their pocketknives and a small axe.

They stopped at a fire pit that they said had clearly been used before and started a campfire. With their hot dogs almost ready to go, the cloudy skies gave way to rain, so they decided to build a shelter with nearby trees and a makeshift tarp.

Desjardine says he cut down four poplars whose branches were already dead.

The NCC says he cut down live birch and cherry trees.

Just as the youths were about to finish the shelter, four NCC officers crashed the party. Desjardine said they tried to intimidate the teens by lecturing them about causing trouble and saying they could be criminally charged for carrying weapons.

[...]In a written statement, an NCC spokeswoman said the commission had received a complaint from a nearby resident about fireworks and a smell of smoke coming from the area around Shirleys Bay.

"When conservation officers arrived on site, they found two youths building a shelter. According to the report, one of the youths had an axe," Marilyne Guèvremont said.

Guèvremont said it was illegal to cut trees on NCC property, adding it was also illegal to cut, break, injure, deface or defile any rock, shrub, plant, flower or turf on the commission's land.

As well, campfires are prohibited except on designated campgrounds, such as Lac Philippe in Gatineau Park.

As to why campfires - if handled responsibly - were not allowed, Guèvremont said it was simply illegal according to the commission's regulations.

"Is the question about finding a responsible way to do something illegal?"

She said the NCC believed the officers exercised their judgment appropriately, adding the teens were liable to pay fines of up to $500 and could even have faced jail time.

Desjardine admits not knowing he and his friend were on NCC property, and he probably would have acted differently if he had.

In just over a month, soldiers who served in the first Canadian ground units to see combat in the Second World War are to finally have a national monument to mark their service.

But demands by the federal government for the design of the Battle of Hong Kong memorial to be more interesting have doubled the cost just as construction is set to begin, the Winnipeg Free Press reported from Ottawa.

[...]The association has been working for more than five years on getting a national monument, including raising $150,000 needed to build it.

"They said it wasn't artistic enough, or innovative enough," said Carol Hadley, chairwoman of the committee working on the wall.

"It didn't fit with their concept for Ottawa."

[...]The association's original plan was for a four-metre granite wall engraved with the names of the units, the soldiers, two women and a dog who served in the campaign. It was to be installed along Sussex Drive, midway between the Parliament buildings and the prime minister's residence.

But in December the association was informed the design wasn't good enough for the National Capital Commission, the Crown corporation which oversees government land and structures in the Ottawa area, she said.

The NCC and the association went back to the drawing board and the new concept is for a seven-metre concrete wall inspired by the mountains in Hong Kong where the soldiers fought.

Despite replacing the pure granite wall with a concrete wall with a granite facade, the new bill will be $300,000, twice what the association has raised.

A request for help from the federal government was denied, so the association has sent a plea to its members to try to get the word out.

The NCC's board is required to hold at least four meetings in public per year, and may hold parts of a meeting in camera if required;

The NCC is required to submit, at least once every ten years, a 50-year master plan for the National Capital Region, for approval by the Governor in Council and tabling in Parliament;

The NCC's existing responsibility for the six official residences and for certain elements of transportation planning in the National Capital Region are reflected in the Act;

The NCC may designate or remove designations of properties that are part of the National Interest Land Mass only if regulations setting out the criteria and process have been introduced;

The NCC must manage its properties in accordance with principles of responsible environmental stewardship;

The NCC is required to give due regard to maintaining the ecological integrity of Gatineau Park;

The boundaries of Gatineau Park are described in a schedule;

The NCC may make regulations prescribing user fees, which under this new legislation, would require Governor in Council approval;

New and enhanced regulatory authorities and enforcement provisions to enable the NCC to better protect its properties; and

The NCC is no longer required to seek Governor in Council approval through an Order in Council for individual real estate transactions such as acquisitions, disposals and leases.

This follows on from previous tinkering after the Mandate Review from a couple years back. "Enhanced regulatory authorities" is, of course not something you want to hear about an already regulation-happy group like the NCC. And some motherhood statements about the environment and ecology. Oh, and lest we forget, they've nailed down those ever-elusive park boundaries. Again. In short, nothing substantive, and business as usual for the NCC.

I have given this long thought, and reached the conclusion that the NCC in its present mandate has outlived its usefulness, and needs to be substantially cut back.

[...]There are thousands of ways that the NCC regulates life and business, and it does so without direct accountability to the public.

[...]First, we should consider limited development in the current greenbelt, combined with a provincially mandated greenbelt somewhere outside the city, one that cannot be leapt (as is now the case in southern Ontario). Let's preserve wetlands, recreational areas and agriculturally valuable lands, while allowing scrub lands that are otherwise lying fallow to be used to intensify development of our city. In other words, get the NCC out of the greenbelt business; it has failed miserably.

[...]Height limits were intended to protect views of Parliament, but seriously, can you see Parliament from anywhere on its south side? No, you can't. The real effect of height limits is that they create more buildings and thus more sprawl. They create less profit for developers, and less profit leads to cost-cutting, which leads to boring and banal buildings.

Artificially low height limits were an NCC thing. Taller buildings would promote a more vibrant downtown, better architecture and more taxes paid to the city on more valuable real property. We will constrain sprawl as fewer buildings accommodate more people.

Return the NCC to its previous mission of beautifying the city. Let it keep the parks and bikepaths. They can make my jogs and bike rides more pleasant, but not regulate life or business in the capital. Let those we elect do the governing, for good or for ill.

In 2004, three companies competed in an National Capital Commission contest to redevelop the prime piece of land which was once home to modest housing and shops, but two dropped out at the last minute, leaving Claridge Homes as the sole bidder: 4.4 hectares of LeBreton Flats for a little more than $8 million, with Montreal architecture firms Dan S. Hanganu Architects and Daoust Lestage at the helm.

Some questioned the default win and called the Claridge proposal bland, institutional and ordinary.

At the time, the NCC said the proposed design was excellent, but lacked poetry and needed revision.

The NCC reminded the public that a detailed design for each building had to be individually approved by their national advisory committee before anything was built.

"It's a process," Malhotra says of the experience "It's been beneficial, and at times, you know, you're just arguing about pointless things."

After years of debate about proposals to protect Gatineau Park from development and overuse, the Conservative government is expected within the next several weeks to present its own bill giving legal protection to the park.

The Senate adjourned debate on a private member's bill by Senator Mira Spivak on Wednesday after Conservative Senator Pierre Claude Nolin told senators that a government bill to protect the park will be introduced soon.

[...]Speaking in the Senate, Nolin said unlike national parks, the boundaries of Gatineau Park can be changed, its land can be sold and roads can be built without parliamentary approval.

Catherine Loubier, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon who is also responsible for the NCC and Gatineau Park, said the government hopes to present a bill on the park and the role of the commission before the end of June.

"We are going to be more active in the coming weeks in the review of the NCC's mandate," Loubier said. "I can't confirm that we are tabling a bill today, but Minister Cannon is still living up to his commitment to provide more protection for Gatineau Park."

The National Capital Commission's ombudsman is open for business, ready to take complaints about the federal agency.

Lawyer Laura Bruneau, appointed to the part-time post by the NCC's board, said Wednesday that she will have a two-track approach to complaints. She will intervene and try to resolve a complaint, but if that doesn't work, she will start an investigation and present a formal report.

[...] Ken Rubin, one of the commission's longstanding critics, said he would not likely use the ombudsman's office. He said that if he wanted something changed at the commission, a more effective way is to go to the chairman, the minister responsible, a parliamentary committee or the press to raise the issue.

He said an ombudsman should be able to probe the organization on his or her own, without any specific complaints.

The ombudsman also has a website.

Achieving the balance is a critical issue because it has to do with a change of attitude and to what extent traffic engineering dominates urban design choices. "If only we could get the traffic engineers to agree to take down the ugly traffic lights and install something more reasonable," says Rideau-Vanier Councillor Georges Bédard.

The space in question is a triangle with busy roads on two sides and a blank wall. It used to be the site of the Grand Hotel, which was attached to the east wall of the former Union Station, now the Government Conference Centre.

What makes it work from a traffic perspective is the MacKenzie Avenue ramp extension and the sunken underpass -- which has become a hangout for the homeless.

In three scenarios under study by the NCC, the underpass and the ramp would be removed.

[...]The NCC sees the space as having potential for some sort of monument, though with the Rideau Canal, a world heritage site, and Confederation Square nearby some people question whether there is a need to compete.

It may be enough to make it an attractive urban space, a pause on the ceremonial route, as well as a breathing point in civic life, whether you're getting on a bus at the Rideau Centre, passing in your car or riding your bike.

"The monument part seems completely gratuitous," says Paul Kariouk, architecture professor at Carleton University. "It's never going to have the significance of the Cenotaph. This thing could be a glorified traffic circle." Kariouk says there should be an ideas competition. "If it's a vital threshold into the city for dignitaries let's rethink what that could be. It's almost like the front door to downtown.

"It has to have some quality that allows you for a moment to forget the city," he says, as well as "a stunning night presence" with illumination.

The NCC has worked since 1899 to make the Capital an expression of the Canadian identity. Thanks to the steady, persistent and focused efforts of generation after generation of planners and landscape architects, Canada's Capital is today a model of unspoiled shorelines, scenic parkways and boulevards, preserved heritage, monuments and expansive parks. Just as importantly, the Capital has become a place for national encounters, commemorations, learning and celebrations such as the Genie Awards.

Where will the national encounter/commemoration/celebration take place? Why, the Aviation Museum, where guests can take a last, long look at the Aviation Parkway, which, thanks to the steady, persistent and focused efforts of generation after generation of planners and landscape architects, is about to be turned into a truck route. This is being done to alleviate truck traffic downtown, where one of the previous generations of planners and landscape architects turned King Edward Boulevard into a smoking ruin.

The National Capital Commission continues to be cagey about the possible use of transit trains on a leg of the Ottawa River Parkway.

Why? How many more months, years even, must it cling to "maybe"?

The Crown agency has been saying the City of Ottawa should not presume it can plunk its trains and wires and platforms and fences along a three-kilometre stretch of the parkway, leading to Lincoln Fields.

One night this week, here was chairman Russell Mills on the subject:

"I think it would be a mistake, as I said, for anyone to presume what the board might decide."

Here was chief executive Marie Lemay: "The parkway is not a done deal."

Here is board member Jacquelin Holzman, a former mayor of Ottawa:

"If the city thinks they are going to get an easy ride on the western parkway, they are sadly mistaken."

It is high time the NCC said yes or no.

The National Capital Commission yesterday reminded the City of Ottawa that it cannot bank on using the Ottawa River Parkway for a key part of its $7.2-billion transit plan, and urged a serious consideration of other options.

[...]"This is our property and we've said all along that the western parkway is not a done deal. I met Mr. O'Brien and confirmed that," Ms. Lemay said. "The plan they are adopting will not dictate the course of the parkway."

Russ Mills, chairman of the NCC board, also cautioned the city not to make assumptions on the parkway that may come back to haunt them.

Charlesfort Developments president Doug Casey also took a critical position in the discussion on the factors shaping Ottawa's future and heaped scorn on the National Capital Commission (NCC) in general for its 'lacklustre' development projects, and, in particular, its handling of the first phase of the LeBreton Flats redevelopment project, which has been publicly lambasted as uninspiring.

'You can't dictate design ... and by doing so you ended up with only one proponent,' he said, drawing applause from the audience.

Seated beside him, NCC chief executive Marie Lemay conceded some mistakes were made and said the NCC must do a better job engaging the private sector, as well as members of the public, in future redevelopment phases.

But she also noted that criticism so far has been largely directed at a single residential tower in a larger planned complex.

This is something of a first - the NCC apparently conceding that not everything they have done on the LeBreton Flats has been a raving success.

"The NCC then set out to prove that [the houses there] were slums, and knock them down," says Jenkins.

"[Nearby] Lorne Avenue looks exactly like LeBreton Flats would have today and it is now a heritage conservation street. So there's a little bit of irony there."

[...] Jenkins says that the new development has revived many Ottawa residents' emotion about the area.

"People take their city personally, they take their landscape and cityscape personally," he says. "People are watching [Tower 1] going up and I think they are profoundly disappointed. They know that's not a neighbourhood. That's warehousing. That doesn't look like a neighbourhood."

Others, including Ottawa architecture critic Rhys Phillips, have also criticized the building.

"I had aspirations for a neighbourhood that was aware of its own history," Jenkins says. "But that seems to be considered a sin by the NCC."

Considering the NCC's role in the 40-year (and ongoing) fiasco, seems understandable that they have no interest in history.

"The architects on the National Capital Commission's design panel should resign because they are responsible for the commission's failure to produce great buildings in the capital, a prominent Ottawa architect says.

"Ron Keenberg, who has won numerous Governor General's awards, says the rather mundane NCC buildings in the city, including the ongoing LeBreton Flats project, show that the architects on the design committee are not championing great architecture. He says it is vital to make radical changes now before the second phase of the LeBreton development -- which could begin in three years.

"'The architects on the NCC design review committee should all resign because I believe that it is their responsibility to make sure that major projects in Ottawa, in the national capital region, especially on lands like LeBreton Flats, be at a world-class level,' Mr. Keenberg said. 'But they do not do that. They accept anything and everything, or they say to the developer, 'Make this little wee modification here or there, and all will be fine.' The only way to influence the second phase is to restructure the NCC's review committee and get people on it who are prepared to demand the best architectural excellence available in Canada.'

"[...]Ottawa architectural critic Rhys Phillips agrees that the NCC has a poor record in producing high-quality architecture, pointing out that on some of the most prominent and desirable lands in city, it has produced buildings that are just adequate, when the sites cried for something grand or spectacular.

"'The NCC is engaged in a process of city building that is a disaster. It is one debacle after another,' Mr. Phillips said, pointing to LeBreton as the latest example.

"While the architects on the design committee remain culpable, he says, they are often toothless, because the process gives them little room to champion quality.

"'It is like they've given you three paintings to pick from and all of them come out of the starving artists' school, and you desperately try and pick the one that comes closest to not looking like it is a piece of slop,' he said. 'The only thing you can really hold them accountable for is not resigning and basically exposing the fraud that is the process that's going on.'

"The National Capital Commission rejected key parts of Claridge Homes' design for the first building in its LeBreton Flats development because changes to the original plan contravened federal guidelines for the project, documents obtained from the NCC show.

"The NCC not only rejected a design for the flagship glass tower now being built on the Flats, but also refused to approve a plan for a six-storey building that was to be the core of the second stage of the development.

"Construction on a compromise design is now well under way, but for more than a year, the commission worked with Claridge to come up with an acceptable design for the first tower.

"[...]The NCC design committee also would not approve the second stage of the project because officials didn't like a modified design for the doors of the ground-floor units, which it found to be "contrary to the planning principles and objectives" of the LeBreton Flats design guidelines.

"[...]The documents show that two years after the NCC approved the first phase of the landmark development, it was still in constant discussion with Claridge about changes to the design. One memo said changes to the tower were 'significant enough in colour, finish and appearance to cause some concern among members.'"

The NCC refused to comment on the documents, while Claridge president Bill Malhotra was just irritated - "I don't understand why you guys are wasting your time on things which are absolutely not relevant. You guys are just wasting your time, you don't have anything better to do?" Architects Rhys Phillips and Ron Keenberg were also quoted:

"Rhys Phillips, an architecture critic, said the fundamental mistake was made four years ago and now the NCC and Claridge seem to be 'arguing about rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

"'You basically have a design that is somewhat better than what you see on Rideau Street. It is pretty bland, lacks animation and tends to be rather institutional,' Mr. Phillips said. 'It doesn't matter whether it is curtain or window wall, blue or green. It is a moot point. It is just going to be second-rate.'

"[...]Prominent Ottawa architect Ron Keenberg said no one should blame Claridge because the NCC is getting what it bargained for when it selected the company as the builder. Mr. Keenberg said Claridge is in the business of making money. It is the NCC, whose duty is to demand architectural excellence, especially on as prominent a site as LeBreton, that should be blamed for any failure, he said.

"'You are getting an OK apartment block, nothing special, but nothing bad. If it was built on Montreal Road or Richmond Road, we'd probably say, 'that's nice.' On LeBreton Flats, I'd have expected more. But the NCC got what they wanted,' Mr. Keenberg said.

"Turning Gatineau Park into a national park managed by Parks Canada would cost taxpayers a "significantly more" [sic] each year than the amount being spent on the park now by the National Capital Commission, says a government memo obtained by CBC News.

"'Simply transferring the operating budget for the Park from the NCC to Parks Canada would not be sufficient,' said the document dated April 21 obtained through an access to information request.

"[...]The document was written by Parks Canada CEO Alan Latourelle in response to calls from activists with the Canadian Park and Wilderness Society [sic] to transform Gatineau Park, which is mostly owned by the federal government, into a national park.

"The predicted higher costs under Parks Canada management are caused by the standards that national parks must meet under guidelines set by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, including maintaining the 'ecological integrity' of the park.

"The memo said maintaining the ecological integrity of Gatineau Park would be a challenge due to the increasing roads and private property in and around the park and growing demands by users such as mountain bikers and snowmobile clubs."

How much more they don't say. The price of building a freeway through the park, perhaps?

"In a major remaking of downtown, the NCC wants to transform the messy Rideau-Sussex-Wellington-Colonel By intersection into a grand new gateway into the heart of the capital, complete with a commemorative national monument.

"And on the western edge of the ceremonial route, officially known as Confederation Boulevard, the NCC will dramatically alter the Wellington-Portage intersection into a major landmark and western entrance into the city. The new intersection will be adorned with a "national commemoration of the highest order."

"[...]According to the documents, the Sussex-Rideau-Colonel By intersection is the starting point of the project because it is the "historic centre of the capital." To reflect its importance, several plans are under consideration to reconfigure the intersection, but they would require the removal of the pedestrian tunnel underneath Colonel By, and the space in front of the Government Conference Centre, including the ramp.

"[...]The Wellington-Portage redevelopment, however, offers less difficult challenges. On the edge of a waterfront area steeped in its own rich history and linked to Ottawa's lumber heritage, it is also the bridge between Ottawa and Gatineau. The NCC wants to turn it into the western gateway to the city."

The Sussex-Rideau-Colonel By work amounts to little more than fixing the work they botched the first time around - the odious pedestrian underpass never should have been built in the first place. But what of the monuments? Well, apparently they "would celebrate all aspects of Canadian life, everything from culture and economics to ideas and events. The only barrier to what can be done is the limit of one's imagination." The NCC is in charge, so the options are more or less limited to banal (the Peacekeeping monument) or laughable (the Human Rights monument).

At the east end, of course, there's already a "grand gateway into the heart of the capital, complete with a commemorative national monument" - any new monument would be redundant considering the war memorial is better situated and already provides whatever gateways are required. At the west end, NCC Watch suggests a monumental commemoration of the NCC's monumental 50-year blunder on the LeBreton Flats. A four-story bulldozer should do the trick.

"The NCC this week approved a two-building complex at its 'Canlands A' property, which is between Sparks and Queen streets, just west of Metcalfe Street and within easy walking distance of Parliament Hill. Today, the Sparks Street side of the property is two boarded-up buildings and the Queen Street side is a parking lot.

"The commission, after many years of false starts, has chosen David Choo's Ashcroft Urban Developments as the developer for the property, with a design from Ottawa architect Roderick Lahey. Under the deal, the developer will have use of the land for 66 years, beginning Dec. 1 of this year, paying $166,500 each year. The two parties can renew the lease when it comes due.

"Ashcroft won the project after a national request for proposals. The NCC has owned the land since the 1970s."

One is invariably reminded of the NCC's triumphs with the Daly building and on LeBreton Flats as yet another "national" request for proposals nets a single bid from another boring Ottawa developer. But no question that Ashcroft is eminently qualified to build the beige buildings the NCC demands.

"Despite the years of study, the development managed by the National Capital Commission has been labelled a failure by some. How can that be?

"[...]Francois Lapointe, the NCC's director of capital planning and real-asset management, puts much of the blame on the laborious process of having the three different levels of government trying to work together, trying to figure out who would develop the land, and who would be responsible for what.

"[...]While the NCC has shouldered much of the blame, Lapointe refuses to delve into the discussion.

""I'm not going to comment on that. There were three players around the table. What's important is we have a situation now where things can happen. We need to look forward," he said."

"If only that were happening.

"The NCC admits it wants to improve the next phase but there's not even a timetable for that."

"The acquisition of this land on Carman Road reaffirms the National Capital Commission's commitment to preventing further development in Gatineau Park," said Marie Lemay, NCC Chief Executive Officer. "Since becoming aware of the Carman Road project in January, I said that the NCC would take this seriously. This acquisition is the proof that we have done so."

And who knows, if they'd taken this whole park thing seriously even sooner, say, before the development was approved by the municipality, maybe they could have saved a few bucks.

"Several prospective tenants have lined up to snag this scenic site by the Rideau Falls, including the Governor General, the Australian high commission and the municipal Ottawa Art Gallery. The battle has become so politically sensitive that the Prime Minister's Office has taken control of the file from the NCC.

"Insiders say that the Governor General is the most likely winner of a long and vigorous lobbying campaign by the various parties to occupy the building and that the Ottawa Art Gallery, despite interventions from Mayor Larry O'Brien and vocal grassroots supporters, has virtually no hope of moving there from its cramped, drab location downtown in Arts Court."

The Aussies are in with a chance as payback for giving Canada a nice spot in Canberra for our high commission. Perennial no-hopers the Ottawa Art Gallery remain out of the running.

"On Monday the Ottawa Valley chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society released a new booklet arguing for legal protection of Gatineau Park and for its establishment as a national park.

"To make its point, the organization took reporters to Meech Lake Valley, where the nearby extension of Highway 5, carving road out of the countryside, is an ugly backdrop to the spectacular scenery of Meech Creek and its surrounding rolling hills.

"The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Ottawa Valley Chapter, has prepared a a report entitled "Gatineau Park: A Threatened Treasure", which urges governments at all levels to develop a comprehensive strategy on the future of the park that respects the sensitive ecology and controls future development.

"[...]Gatineau Park, 361 square kilometres of natural beauty, is most immediately threatened by roads, traffic and new development, says the Parks and Wilderness Society. The extension of the McConnell-Laramee Boulevard, now known as Boulevard des Allumettieres, cut a swath through the park near Lac des Fees and was a huge disappointment to conservationists. They worry about the next big road battle over the park: the extension of Highway 50 through the park south of Pink Lake.

"[...]Today, to mark Earth Day, Paul Dewar, the New Democratic MP for Ottawa Centre, plans to launch a petition campaign at the Gatineau Park welcome centre to have the park protected under federal law. Mr. Dewar is also planning to reintroduce a private member's bill into the House of Commons that would require that Parliament approve changes to the park's boundaries and give the NCC first rights to purchase property within the park that comes up for sale."

The NCC, making great strides, recently figured out the boundaries of the park.

"The National Capital Commission’s (NCC) Board of Directors, during their board meeting held this afternoon in Ottawa, demonstrated its continued commitment to the long-term protection and integrity of Gatineau Park by confirming that Gatineau Park, the jewel in the NCC's crown, does in fact have boundaries. The Board also discussed a strategy for not losing track of the boundaries again in the future, another example of how the NCC is working to maintain Gatineau Park as an important greenspace in Canada’s Capital Region."

"Whatever they are conserving, it certainly isn't taxpayers' money as they travel the capital in a fleet of shiny trucks doing their dogged doggie duty in pairs, decked out in enough expensive gear for the Afghanistan war, save the artillery.

"The NCC bowser brigade should not be confused with the large numbers of provincial conservation officers on the public payroll, nor with the many hound hounders working for municipal canine control departments.

"These are federal mutt-minders wandering the nation's capital on the payroll of taxpayers from Comox to Come By Chance.

"God forbid a local dog-catcher might deal with pet problems on federal land - nosirree, clearly we need a separate bureaucracy.

"If all this sounds like a waste of public money, it is at least in the grand tradition of what may well be Canada's most redundant government agency.

"Once considered somewhat useful, the National Capital Commission now sucks almost $100 million a year out of Canadian taxpayers' pockets for federal pooch patrols and other essentials of life as we know it."

"Stroget is one of the world's great streets. Lined with historic buildings, it winds for 1.8 kilometres through the heart of the city and connects two squares. The attractively decorated stores run the gamut from top Danish companies such as Georg Jensen, for jewelry and works in silver, to fast food and jeans.

"In contrast, Ottawa's pedestrian street - the Sparks Street Mall - has seen better days. On many winter mornings, smokers shiver in doorways. A few office workers hurry past vacant storefronts, blank walls, and undistinguished window displays. Busiest at lunch, the five-block mall offers little reason to linger past quitting time."

"The National Capital Commission spent nearly $10,000 last year sending Christmas poinsettias to MPs, senators, bureaucrats and other officials, newly released records show.

"[...]Records tabled last week in the House of Commons in response to a question from Mr. Reid show that the cost of the program totalled more than $46,000 for the past 10 years.

"But the price of sending out of the flowers doubled last year because it included the cost of shipping and delivery that had previously been done by NCC staff.

"The records show that poinsettias sent to MPs cost $881, with another $326 spent to send them to senators and $8,193 to send them to unspecified unelected officials.

"The NCC says that sending poinsettias is a holiday tradition that dates back more than 25 years, when the commission used to grow the flowers in its own greenhouse. The commission switched to a private supplier in 1995.

"'It really is a gesture of thanks for those that have collaborated in building a capital for all Canadians, from the chair to people that he or she has worked with,' said spokeswoman Kathryn Keyes."

"Ms. Lemay, a 45-year-old engineer who has lived mostly in the Ottawa-Gatineau region since childhood, won the CEO job after 15 years of work with municipal governments, followed by a stint as chief executive of Engineers Canada, the national association of engineers. She says that in her work for that group, she travelled the country extensively and she wants to have the capital reflect the diversity she saw and found so interesting.

"'We've got to find a way to be the real reflection of Canada. I think that part's missing,' the University of Ottawa graduate said.

"Ms. Lemay was hired by the federal government, but reports to the NCC board. She started the job in January."

"But when an engineer from Public Works and Government Services Canada investigated the state of the building, which is owned by the National Capital Commission, he found toxigenic mould.

"'There is a high risk to the Crown to proceed with this project,' engineer Joseph Wong reported.

"'This facility presents a risk for developing significant mould-related problems that can induce allergies and other health and comfort problems,' he wrote.

He reported that replacement of walls to solve the mould issue in the office areas had not fixed the problem.

"'The issue of mould will not go away,' wrote Mr. Wong. 'It will be a great challenge to mitigate the potential dispersion of mould spores within the building due to the traffic and openness of the space.'

[...]The source of the water appears to have been a leaking water intake at the Rideau Falls power plant next door, owned by Fortis Power. Repairs were done last summer and fall and now the NCC is waiting to see if there is more water infiltration when the spring runoff begins.

In one of his e-mails last spring, Mr. Wong said the high water table in the area could pose a long-term threat. "This problem will never go away," he said."

"A couple of weeks before the trial, I was sent a package of information by the National Capital Commission. It contained the officer's notes. There were a few omissions and discrepancies. He never describes George, for example, and I am quite certain that I gave him my name before we entered the garage; nor did he mention my reason for refusing to show ID. He did note that he had written the incorrect offence number on the ticket (which had led to my conviction for "Possess Liquor"). But what was most interesting was his description of what had happened after we entered the NAC garage:

"'I called the RCMP for assistance. I followed him to his vehicle (and he) put his dog in it. I recorded the plate number and told him he would be charged for the off leash offence. I left as he got in the car and started the engine. I met four RCMP officers outside the lot and we waited for him to come out. Two bike officers went in to look for him. ... The RCMP constable and myself went back to the car. Mr. Milner was not in it, but the dog was. We then drove around the area for 15 minutes, looking for him without success. I informed my supervisor who came on scene ...'

"Four RCMP and two NCC officers, all for George and me! It doesn't seem quite so funny now - after Robert Dziekanski. Good thing I managed to elude them.

"Ask the National Capital Commission, Parks Canada and the Quebec government who owns a 61.5-square-kilometre section of Gatineau Park near Lac Lapêche and it's impossible to get a straight answer.

"In fact, no one really seems to know who owns the property, which is nearly half the size of Kanata.

"Jean-Paul Murray, a Gatineau Park activist and Senate speech writer says the confusion is due to bureaucratic mismanagement and a lack of political will to make Gatineau Park into a national park protected from new housing development and roads that split it up."

"Once one of Ottawa’s prime industrial areas, LeBreton Flats saw some 2800 residents moved in 1962, when the federal government expropriated the land and bulldozed the homes and businesses that had existed there. The purpose was to improve the view of the Parliament buildings when approaching from the west.

"Plans for redevelopment have come and gone, but in 2004, the National Capital Commission announced its plans to begin in earnest and put the first Phase of the development out for proposals, and Phase One is underway.

"The NCC is set to embark on Phase Two, and will use the same process as it did for Phase One."

Alert readers will recall that the NCC's famously bungled "process" for Phase One resulted in all of one bid, from Claridge, known more for their deep pockets than the quality of their building.

The Dialogue will take place Saturday, January 19, 2008, from 10-2 pm, at the Bronson Centre, 211 Bronson Avenue. Visit Dewar's website for details.

"The NCC's urban-design experts have done a detailed analysis of how the new building on Colonel By Drive will affect postcard views of the capital. This includes a three-dimensional video showing what the views of downtown will be like once the new building is in place when people are driving along Colonel By Drive toward Rideau Street."

"With one of the Greenbelt's two chief purposes in ruins, it's reasonable to discuss whether parts of it can be put to better use, as Mr. Mills (a former publisher of the Citizen) proposes.

"Finding urban uses for parts of the Greenbelt must not be done hurriedly or arbitrarily. The jury will be staying out on the NCC's development of LeBreton Flats for a long time, but in principle, it's a bad example to follow: the commission kept the land for 40 years before devising a competition to develop it that was so problematic that, in the end, only one builder bid for the rights to the most sought-after parcel in Ottawa-Gatineau. That's no way to run the NCC lands."

"With one of the Greenbelt's two chief purposes in ruins, it's reasonable to discuss whether parts of it can be put to better use, as Mr. Mills (a former publisher of the Citizen) proposes.

"Finding urban uses for parts of the Greenbelt must not be done hurriedly or arbitrarily. The jury will be staying out on the NCC's development of LeBreton Flats for a long time, but in principle, it's a bad example to follow: the commission kept the land for 40 years before devising a competition to develop it that was so problematic that, in the end, only one builder bid for the rights to the most sought-after parcel in Ottawa-Gatineau. That's no way to run the NCC lands."

Also recently announced were two new board members - a Kory Bobrow from Montreal, who has served on various boards of some sort or another, and, somewhat more interestingly, former Ottawa mayor Jacquelin Holzman.

According to the Citizen, "Mr. Mills had a long newspaper career that began as a reporter with the London Free Press and included several executive positions with the Southam Newspaper Group. He is dean of the Faculty of Arts, Media and Design at Algonquin College." He is perhaps most notorious for being sacked from the Citizen by the Aspers back in 2002. Contrasted with Marcel Beaudry, he should at the very least bring a fresh outsider's perspective to the job, being neither a former developer or politician, and, as a former ink-stained wretch at the Citizen, a little less mistrust of the press and a more relaxed attitude to open board meetings. NCC Watch wishes Mr. Mills full enjoyment of his new sinecure.