Saturday, October 5, 2019

The Dow's Lake parking lot in Ottawa is worth $4,021,000.

The people of Canada currently own the parking lot, but not for long.
"The National Capital Commission land ownership is known as the Dow's Lake parking lot at the southwest corner of Carling Avenue and Preston Street with an assessed value of $4,021,000."
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     "The Dow's Lake parking lot will be rezoned as Mixed-Use (MCF) instead of Institutional."
     "Queen Juliana Park will be left as Mixed Use instead of being rezoned as Institutional like all other Ottawa hospitals."
     "Which developers have expressed an interest in the Tunney's, existing Civic and Dow's Lake/Experimental Farm sites?"
When Russell Mills was head of the National Capital Commission he received a phone call regarding the location of a new Ottawa hospital.
(Google: "Questions Reimagine Ottawa".)
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A Timeline of Experimental Farm land grabs:
1.)  1970's - Agriculture Ministers Eugene Whelan and Bud Olson refuse to give the National Capital Commission 700 acres of the Experimental Farm in Ottawa for housing.
2.)  1988 - 91 acres of the Farm are sold to the City of Ottawa, where Walmart and the Skyline Towers are now located.
3.)  1998 - Ottawa Citizen reporter Tom Spears revealed that the NCC tried to buy the Farm for $1 dollar.
4.)  2008 - Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz refused to give the NCC 50 acres of land directly across the street from the Civic.
5.)  2016 - The NCC rejected the Farm as a location for a new health care facility; they preferred Tunney's Pasture.
6.)  2016- Shortly after that, an announcement was made that 60 acres would be annexed from the Farm so that a mega hospital could be built on the site.
Queen Juliana Park is located within the blue lines, and encompasses 33.5 acres of land.
Another view of Queen Juliana Park with the Sir John Carling Building in the distance. (This 1983 document is from a book at the downtown Ottawa Public Library.)





House of Commons Debates - Monday, March 20, 2017 - Official Report (Hansard.) Question No. 810 Mr. Pierre Poilievre: "With regard to the government's Ottawa Hospital Site Review, which concluded with a National Capital Commission to the Minister of Canadian Heritage on November 24, 2016: a) when did the Environment Minister decide that she would order this review;
b) when did the Environment Minister ask that the Heritage Minister take over this review;
.............
f) what are the precise boundaries of the property to be leased to the Ottawa Hospital, known as the Sir John Carling site or site # 11 by the National Capital Commission.
g) what price does the government plan to charge the Ottawa Hospital as rent for the Sir John Carling site, known as site # 11 by the National Capital Commission.
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The Queensway Carleton Hospital paid the NCC $1 million dollars over several years to rent the land on which the hospital is situated.
I believe that the Canadian Minister of Heritage was consulted by the Minister of the Environment because:
a.)  The Experimental Farm is a National Historic Site of Canada.
b.)  The Dominion Observatory Campus will be negatively impacted by the construction of a health care facility. In fact, the hospital does not want "irregularly shaped parcels of land" and is recommending that the Observatory buildings either be removed or demolished. The Astrophysical Observatory and 2 other buildings on the land are Classified. The Chretien government wanted to demolish the Observatory and Booth Barn during the mid 1990's.
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Reimagine Ottawa is correct, 12 acres of land that were designated for a new health care facility are being rezoned:
"City files re-zoning application for new Ottawa Civic Campus." CBC News, August 18, 2017:
     "The City has filed an application to re-zone five hectares of land on the Central Experimental Farm to be used for the future Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital. In a filing on Friday, the City said it wants to amend the Official Plan to re-designate the land from "agricultural research area" to "general urban area" and relinquish the green space from the Farm."
General urban area zoning will facilitate the construction of high rise condominiums on the Dow's Lake parking lot and Queen Juliana Park. In fact, the City of Ottawa's Official Plan encourages intensification near arterial routes, and Carling Avenue is an arterial route. The Preston-Carling District Secondary Plan allows heights of up to 20 storeys.
All of the land within the red lines will be taken over by a new hospital, massive parking lots, condominiums and commercial buildings. The people of Canada will lose a $4 million dollar parking lot at Dow's Lake; a 33-acre public park; the Dominion Observatory Campus; the Sir John Carling Building Annex or cafeteria; the K.W. Neatby Building and the CFIA Laboratory; at least 500 trees (see the letter sent to the NCC by former Ottawa Mayors Jim Durrell and Jacquelin Holzman); and green space.
The Civic already needs more land in order to expand, so the William Saunders Building and greenhouses will be sacrificed for this controversial, unwanted project. (Photo from CBC News.)




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