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| Sticky notes. How insulting. The photo is from a public information meeting regarding the Natural Resources properties at Booth Street in Ottawa. Members of the public gave suggestions about how the NRC buildings and land should be transformed.Decisions about zoning changes and demolitions were made ages ago. Ottawa City Councillor Peter Hume had this to say about the Veteran's Affairs land project, 363 Smyth Road: "The community is stunned and disappointed...The real problem is that when they sold the land they had no design control over the developer." (From an Ottawa Citizen newspaper article, November 30, 2005.) |
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The National Capital Commission decided years ago to transfer 60 acres of Experimental Farm land in Ottawa to the Civic Hospital and that is why the Sir John Carling Building was demolished in the year 2014. The Carling Building was designed by Hart Massey, son of former Governor General of Canada Vincent Massey. I have walked or taken bus rides past this landmark thousands of times. I cannot understand why people clapped and cheered when it was flattened, it was part of my history and now its gone, dust in the wind. YouTube has many videos of the collapse.
Business leaders and residents of Little Italy must feel like they are being invaded, overtaken by the proliferation of existing high-rise condominiums. Now they have to deal with the Natural Resources Canada redevelopment and they have lost a former Government of Canada green space at Preston and Gladstone because Ottawa Community Housing is building a residential tower. The coup de gras will be the Ottawa Civic Hospital relocation. Shame on you federal government for ever privatizing the Natural Resources Complex and Preston Street property and transferring them to a Crown corporation that needs money from developers in order to survive. Shame on you City of Ottawa politicians for changing zoning laws and potentially changing the character of this neighbourhood forever. You have no vision and you no do not care about the fact that this area will be bombarded by noise, vehicle and light pollution. Whenever my family and I celebrate birthdays and graduations we head over to Little Italy restaurants or the Mexican restaurant in the Dow's Lake Pavilion, I live half an hour away. The streets are already filled to capacity with cars, buses and trucks. It makes my blood boil to see what is happening to my city by politicians who have abandoned their responsibility to serve their constituents; and who cater to the demands of real estate corporations. Corporations that appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board to remove municipal height and density restrictions.
When he was campaigning to be Mayor of Ottawa Clive Doucet said that the new Ottawa Civic Hospital campus should be located at Tunney's Pasture and not the Experimental Farm:
"...the lease the federal government and hospital have signed could be torn up and the rezoning city council have approved undone." (From: "Clive Doucet's campaign of ideas would be so much stronger if it came with a plan." by Dave Reevely, Ottawa Citizen newspaper, October 21, 2018.)
In 1975 Agriculture Ministers Bud Olson and Eugene Whelan refused to sell part of the Experimental Farm to real estate entities, they said the Farm was untouchable and that it would sold "over my dead body."
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| A 1975 front page Ottawa Journal article. The National Capital Commission wanted to see 700 houses built on the CEF. |
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I took these photos of writer Andy Russell, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Agriculture Minister Bud Olson. Lethbridge, Alberta airport, 1972.
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See the 2017 YouTube video
Ottawa prepares to hand over Historic Federal Farmland to Corporate Developers.
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The National Capital Commission wanted to preserve the Sir John Carling Building, Dominion Observatory Campus and all of the Experimental Farm land in 1998. This document is from "Interim Report on the results of public consultations on the future of the Central Experimental Farm" - May 1998.
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| Her Majesty Queen Juliana and H.R.H. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands visit Dow's Lake, Ottawa, site of the Tulip Festival. I inherited this photo from a family member. |
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The Central Experimental Farm is a National Historic Site of Canada. This document is from the Heritage Conservation Background Report, City of Ottawa. From: The Ottawa Public Library, Laurier Avenue branch.
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