Rochester Field, 529 Richmond Road, Ottawa

The park is being redeveloped.

On November 19, 2024, 529 Richmond Road was added to the Canada Public Land Bank. "Canada is facing a housing crisis that is impacting lives and communities across the country. We need to build more homes, faster, to get Canadians into homes that meet their needs at prices they can afford." (Government of Canada lists federal lands for housing and new tools for builders.)

Amy's Corner by Amy Kempster Champlain Speaker, March 2004, Volume 23, Number 6:

"The land closest to our community is west and north of Maplelawn on Richmond Road. If the NCC wins the appeal (with the Ontario Municipal Board) they could then ask for a zoning amendment. Their appeal states that this parcel is not deemed to form part of the 'National Interest Land Mass'".

In his campaign literature our councillor suggested he would ask the city to obtain the Maplelawn field (Rochester Field) for a park. So perhaps he knew it was in danger of disposal."

Friends of Rochester Field

Westboro Community Association "Say goodbye to Rochester Field"

Official Plan and Zoning Amendment, Rochester Field, January 12, 2018:

1.) The City of Ottawa zoned the land as Parks and Open Space.

2.) The land encompassed 3.8 hectares or 9 acres.

3.) The field connects Richmond Road with the Parkway along the Ottawa River and is one of the remaining pieces of undeveloped land along Richmond Road. The land has been used by the community informally as a park and as a short-cut to the Dominion Transitway station for many years. (The Official Plan document is much longer,)

Commentary by the Ward Councillor Councillor Leiper provided the following comments: "For over a century, Rochester Field has been a jewel in Westboro. If a plan being rushed forward through City zoning by the National Capital Commission (NCC) proceeds, we'll lose the best parts of it forever. It's time to take a second look.

Rochester Field is a large NCC parcel that straddles the land from the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway to Richmond Road. It is a barely maintained space. Through the years cow paths have been worn along natural desire lines as dog-walkers and people walking to the Dominion transit station have used the field, while the rest of it has lain largely fallow as habitat for various flora and fauna. It is a network connection in our City's greenspace between Byron Linear Park (soon to be revitalized), and the Sir John A. Macdonald Park.

"It is a large, natural park space in Kitchissippi Ward where greenspace is at a premium. Intensification in this part of the city has been rapid. Small homes on large lots are now being replaced with large homes on small lots as infill continues. We are losing permeable, green surface and trees to both infill and the proliferation of towers. Targets for intensification are being met in our ward as nowhere else in the city, and the effect on greenspace is increasingly obvious.

"The opportunity we have is to preserve a large piece of greenspace for the enjoyment of future generations of residents. When the City previously proposed not to allow development on the site, it was working in residents' interest over NCC objections. The development now being proposed is part of an agreement forged during a dispute over whether and what conditions the City could run the Confederation Line through the NCC's land in this corridor.

"In a memorandum of understanding that allows LRT to proceed the parties agreed to: settle the outstanding Ontario Municipal Board appeal by the NCC as it relates to Rochester Field by designating two-thirds of the northeast section of Rochester Field as 'General Urban' land use designation. The NCC acknowledges in this settlement that the remaining one third of the land area of the site on the western side will be retained as parkland with a 'Major Open Space' land use designation.

"Council was told specifically that the deal would retain a green corridor from Richmond Road to the SJAM.

"In 2015, the City and the NCC began to implement that agreement, but that process was put on hold while the NCC consulted about its larger park plan for the corridor. In the intervening months, that has become a plan that would cluster development along Richmond Road---six-to-eight story buildings that would hide the park behind mixed-use developments that will cut off forever the green corridor that we were promised. In the plan moving forward quickly through the approvals process, the greenspace won't be in the northeast at all. Residents are wondering whether and how the City could allow this to happen.

"It's time to press pause on the process. There is some legitimacy to the NCC's arguments that it needs certainty with respect to where it can build its proposed park. The LRT agreement includes $30 million in contribution to that, and the works that will be bundled in with the rail network to the benefit of taxpayers. It is in everyone's interest that the NCC receive the certainty it needs.

"But the long-term impacts of approving this plan, which clusters development in diametrically opposite the space where it was to have gone in the original deal, are too consequential to bludgeon through the City's processes.

"There are alternatives that would mitigate the impact of development in this parcel, if development is to occur at all. Residents, the NCC and the City are all owed the time to explore those. Council is bound to honour its commitments in return for the city-building benefits of moving ahead with light rail. But its commitments were clearly spelled out in black and white: We are under neither legal or moral obligation to approve zoning which meets neither the spirit nor letter of our pledge." (From: Official Plan and Zoning Amendments-Rochester Field, January 12, 2018. Pages 12 and 13 of 28 pages.)

City of Ottawa---Richmond Road/Westboro Secondary Plan, Amendment-June 24, 2009.

• Retain all usable public greenspace; (page 1/7)
• Increase recreational facilities. (page 2/7)
• Confirming all of the Rochester Field Maplelawn parcel and the Atlantis-Selby lands as major components of the greenspace network strategy. (page 4/7)
• Confirm the entire Rochester Field parcel as open space.(page 5/7)
• Heritage Buildings---City Council shall encourage the preservation and adaptive reuse of heritage buildings within the planning area, in keeping with the City of Ottawa's heritage policies. (page 7/7)  (I have included information from the Secondary Plan, that only pertains to Maplelawn and Rochester Field.)