Thursday 17 June 2010

Lansdowne Meeting Tonight

Tonight at 7:30 at Lansdowne, the Friends of Lansdowne are holding a meeting to look at the plans for the redevelopement of Lansdown Park. This is a very important issue. I do not live in the Glebe, but I live near there, in Old Ottawa South. It's about a fifteen minute walk from my house to the edge of Lansdowne. My street and streets all over my neighbourhood are slated for use as parking areas for this new development. Sunnyside ave in my area would be used as a main route to get to the new development - nevermind that it's already operating at 100% capacity, according to the city.

The city simply has not thought through the chaos that this development, including 350, 000 square feet of retail space, the large new stadium with far less parking, and a twelve story hotel, will bring. There is no rapid transit to the area. There is nowhere near enough parking. Bank street is already in effect a two-lane road because the parking is used all the time.

I urge anyone interested or affected (residents of the Glebe, Old Ottawa South and East, etc) to come out tonight to the meeting, or to go to http://www.letsgetitright.ca/ and send a message to city councillors. While I agree that Lansdowne needs a new plan and needs to change, this is not the answer.

Tonight there will be lots of great speakers discussing the plan, including Ian Lee, Director of the MBA Program at Sprott School of Business at Carleton University. You can see what he's previously said about the Lansdowne Live proposal in this video.

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