Just in case anyone is interested, this turned up in my inbox this morning. For those who don't know, Councillor Doucet is the ward councillor for the Lansdowne area and is also the furthest left and most "new-urbanist" member on council. He is also my ward councillor. City plans to make stadium decision in record time - by April 22, 2009 Plan involves a 63 day ever-changing process The City of Ottawa recently launched a new process to deal with two unsolicited stadium proposals: one for CFL football at Lansdowne, and the other for MLS soccer at Scotiabank Place in Kanata. A two stage process is recommended: Stage 1) Consider information regarding the location of a stadium (select a location?) Stage 2) Consider staff analysis of the two proposals (select a proposal?) Under stage one, staff issued a report on February 19, 2009 entitled The Needs Analysis for Multi-Purpose Sports & Entertainment Facilities Study. This report was formally tabled at Planning and Environment Committee (PEC) on February 24, 2009 and was considered at PEC on March 10, 2009 with Council consideration on March 11, 2009. This report was commissioned by the City in August 2008 to provide Council with information on "the need for sports and entertainment facilities in Ottawa" and on the evaluation of 23 stadium sites throughout the City. Under stage two, a staff report on the evaluation of the business cases for both the football and the soccer proposals will be tabled at a special meeting of Council on April 6, 2009. This report will provide an analysis of the two proposals from both a land use and business plan perspective and will make recommendations for Council consideration. Staff will refer the business case report to a joint Planning and Environment Committee and Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee meeting to be held on April 7, 2009 for the purpose of hearing public delegations. The report will then be considered by Council at its regular meeting on April 22, 2009. Many residents and members of council are confused about the process because it's constantly changing. The latest news from yesterday's council meeting is that Council has the option to reject all or part of the Lansdowne Live proposal outright. If the city accepts part of the proposal, the remaining lands could still be subject to the Design Lansdowne Competition. This means that Lansdowne Park could potentially be split in two - one part facing Bank Street for the developers and the other part facing the canal for all the other uses that residents may want. It's all very convenient - the process and rules change day-by-day to suit the needs of a backroom deal and not the best interests of the site and the city. Why the rush to decide on the future of Lansdowne Park? Clearly, the current process is designed to facilitate the consideration of two unsolicited proposals at the expense of openness, fairness and competition. The Design Lansdowne Competition was to take a year, was for one site only, was backed by a motion of Council and cost $350,000. Critics at the time said the time frame was too compressed and there wasn't sufficient money to back it. We're now going to do it in six weeks and have no special budget attached to it whatsoever. How can we think this process will satisfy the need for a decision which will impact our city for 100 years or more? Fast tracking backroom deals risks leaving taxpayers to foot the bill. Once again, it's time to reopen the Design Lansdowne Competition so that the best ideas for the future of the park can be considered.
The reason that I post this is that I think there could be a very effective group of councillors who could form a group to oppose Lansdowne Live and approve Ottawa FC: Doucet Hume Cullen Bedard Legendre Holmes Leadman + Eli-Chantry who is the ward councillor for far Kanata Of course, they would have to get over the obvious critique of the Kanata stadium (being that it does nothing to develop the city) which is where I have a very big problem myself.
Just a quick correction on the Councilors Kanata is divided by the Queensway, Peggy Felmate is the councilor for Kanata South, where Scotiaback Place is located. Maianne Wilkinson is for Kanata North. . Eli takes care of Stittsville. (from Iber Rd West).
Scotiabank Place and the land where the soccer stadium/complex is planned to go, are just inside the Stittsville/Kanata West ward. The councillor is Shad Qadri. He has been on local TV and seemed very supportive of the Kanata soccer location. Kanata North councillor is Marianne Wilkinson. I think she was the Kanata mayor when the original hockey stadium was approved. I expect she would be pro the Kanata location. West Carleton/Rural Kanata councillor is Eli El-Chantiry. He lines in Kanata North and has a business in West Carleton. I'd expect him to also be pro Kanata. Kanata South is all of Kanata south of the Queensway and east of the Scotibank area. Councillor is Peggy Feltmate. She seems to me to be unpredictable, but I'm sure the majority of residents would favour a Kanata location. She had a comment about traffic early on but the soccer stadium would generate less traffic than a hockey game. The rest of Ottawa council are to my mind very unpredictable and may be more likely to favour the Lansdowne/downtown location. I think the crucial thing will be how much it is going to cost the City to renovate and redevelop the existing Lansdowne stadium. It looked in poor condition when I was there one evening last fall. There were racoons running around the north side seating! If it's a similar $ amount to building new in Kanata, I'd expect Kanata would be favoured.
I completely disagree with the comment that the Kanata Stadium does nothing to develop the city, Chris. Kanata is part of Ottawa, therefore development there does, by definition, develop the city of Ottawa. I have never understood the argument that a development of businesses, entertainment facilities and a sport stadium develops Ottawa if it is put in Lansdowne, but not if a similar complex is put in Kanata.
That seems to be thinking some have.Some think having something built in kanata does not help ottawa.One comment someone made was if melynk cared about ottawa he would move the team to the the city.They went on to say kanata is not ottawa and said what next naming kanata the capital of canada.
The following was posted on Ottawa's Facebook MLS discussion board, in response to an e-mail that one member sent to Diane Deans: __________________________________ Thank you for providing Councillor Deans with this information concerning national soccer registration. No decision has yet been made by Council with regard to the stadium debate. This debate is going forward for public consultation at the joint Planning and Corporate Services Committee meeting on April 6th at 9:30am. If you would like to present your information to the Committee you are welcome and encouraged to do so. The process requires registering with the committee coordinator, which you can do through email to Rob Tremblay at Rob.Tremblay@ottawa.ca . At this time you can submit any documents you wish to use and they will be electronically distributed to Committee members. During the Committee meeting you will have 5 minutes to make your presentation. Councillor Deans appreciates the time you dedicated to making your comments regarding the stadium plan heard. I will ensure that she sees your email and hope to see you at the Committee meeting April 6th. Thank you, Lauren Berrigan Councillor's Assistant Office Of Councillor Diane Deans Ward 10, Gloucester-Southgate City of Ottawa 110 Laurier Ave. West, K1P 1J1 Phone: 613.580.2480 Fax: 613.580.2520 www.DianeDeans.ca
Sorry, to clarify... The development of a stadium in Kanata is not consistent with the goals for the development of the City of Ottawa as set out in the Ottawa 20/20 plan. That is where some of the central city councillors will have a problem with the Melnyk proposal. One big caveat to that is the recent call for office space by the federal government which consistently flouts Ottawa's development goals. They want 2 million square feet of office space in the three "satellites" (Orleans, Kanata, Barrhaven). Presumably Melnyk is looking to the feds for a tenant for the office portion of the grand development.
Building a stadium in Kanata is not against the 20/20 plan. Amongst many pages that say very little, the plan states: The funding for the infrastructure needed to support new development should be in place before the development proceeds. This “pay as you go” approach will help avoid deepening the City’s capital debt. THIS IS AGAINST THE HUNT PROPOSAL, WHICH IS BASICALLY TO BORROW THE MONEY TO REBUILD LANSDOWNE. Promote Ottawa to the world. MLS WILL DO THIS, CFL WILL NOT. An Innovative City Where Prosperity is Shared Among All – capital investment by industry cluster. SHARE SOME PROSPERITY WITH KANATA AND BUILD ON THE SPORTS INDUSTRY CLUSTER THERE (SCOTIABANK PLACE AND THE SENSPLEX). Encourage active lifestyle. THERE ARE MORE SPORTFIELDS IN THE KANATA PROPOSAL. A series of new town centres and main streets. BUILD UP THE KANATA TOWN CENTRE. Incidentally, not only is Kanata part of Ottawa, Lansdowne is not downtown, despite many posters who say it is. Admittedly it is nearer to downtown than Kanata is, but that is a poor argument for $100M investment.
BMO Field is not in downtown Toronto either. However it's close enough that it still draws If there wasn't any pro-sports teams involved where would the better facility be? Promoting Ottawa to the world has nothing to do with CFL/MLS.
How long does it take to get to BMO Field from the centre of Toronto? I guessing it is probably longer than it takes to get from the centre of Ottawa to Kanata. I used to live just off Elgin and could get to work in Kanata in 17 minutes in the morning. Personally I would still say that the better location is Kanata, even without the teams. For the foreseeable future in Ottawa, the majority of people going to a stadium are going to go by car, which means that they need good road links and a major amount of parking. Kanata has both, Lansdowne has neither. Somewhere like Lynx stadium would have the same location benefits, but it doesn't have the space. Promoting Ottawa to the world is something that the city and the province are prepared to pay for, and if that can be accomplished by a sports team, rather than direct advertising or other methods, it is valid to throw that benefit into the mix. When I travel to the US, I'm sure that most people have only heard of Ottawa because of the Senators, and if you add another sports team that plays against US teams, that benefit is increased, even if it is very difficult to quantify.
Ottawa MLS Fan.... We disagree on the stadium location. However, we do agree on Ottawa getting an MLS team. So this is the last I will say on the subject. In an ideal worl, I would like the MLS team to be located at a downtown location well served by transit. But, alas, this is not the best of all possible worlds. So, I wholeheartedly support MLS in Kanata. And when it happens, I will hopefully be amongst the founders of the Supporters Club, and I will lobby the Georgetown or the Heart and Crown to set up a bus so I don't have to drive and pay their usurious parking rates.
So how do we move forward and convince the city to support MLS? The categories that they will base their decision on are: • the city’s need for their ideas, • community support, • risk to the municipality, • the business plans, • the design and overall usability, • transportation links, and • servicing needs It's difficult to seriously address most of these points without seeing both plans in detail, and I'm not sure how much of them will be made public, but community support is something we need to demonstrate.
Well, Melnyk has an email list of people who support the stadium. How about Senators Sports and Entertainment send somethingut urging people to contact their councillors ahead of the April meetings? With regard to transportation needs, presumably Melnyk has numbers of people on the bus/driving etc. to Sens games AND average travel time. Given that most mls games are on weekend afternoons, he should be putting forth info on travel time to and from SBP for Sens Saturday afternoon games. Hopefully he pledges to work with OCTranspo to run a series of expresses. I think transportation is where everything falls apart for Melnyk - Hunt and his group will just have to talk about how people get to McGill Stadium in Montreal for Als games when people bring up the lack of parking at Lansdowne bugaboo (or BC Place). This is where SSE has to be agressive in countering the idea that they are too far out because it is clearly the bid's weak point.
The Melnyk group appears reluctant to be seen to be orchestrating any public shows of support. Not sure why. I signed up on their web site when it first was announced and I have only received three e-mails from them, all pointing out on-line polls. Not like DC United ownership… D.C. United President Kevin Payne's plea to soccer fans this week to contact Maryland's lawmakers in support of a proposed $195 million stadium in Prince George's County has prompted one of the largest legislative e-mail campaigns in years. "Don't take anything for granted," Payne wrote on the Web site for professional soccer team D.C. United, which wants to leave its current home at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. "Call or e-mail today, if you care about your team!" Within hours of his request, e-mails began to flood Annapolis from around the world. Team officials say legislators received more than 28,000 missives that were sent through D.C. United's site, and lawmakers said servers crashed because of the volume.
Stittsville councillor Shad Qadri in today's West Carleton EMC: There is a lot of information to comb through first, but Qadri said if he had to make a decision at this moment, he wouldn't hesitate. "I would support Melnyk's against Lansdowne currently," he said.