Build High-Rises On Experimental Farm: CRERAR
It’s time to build housing on the Central Experimental Farm. Here’s why.
Planning committee chairman Jeff Leiper has upset residents of numerous neighbourhoods with his plan to drop multi-unit residences into areas that have traditionally contained single-family dwellings.
A better solution to increase homes within the city would be to rezone the experimental farm and build high-rises on it.
Ottawa is a city that loves its traditions but when needs change its residents are reluctant to eliminate cherished but outdated historic sites. There’s lots of potential farmland within a short drive of Ottawa, plenty of room to till the soil and create pastures for a new Un-Central Experimental Farm. The experimental farm might be a National Historic Site but dirt is just, well, dirt.
Instead save the real historic curios like the buildings, one of which was demolished in 2014 (The Sir John Carling Building), and two gardens, the Ornamental Gardens and the Fletcher Wildlife Garden.
Since the Experimental Farm is centrally located, it is already close to OC Transpo bus routes, shopping malls, and within walking distance of the Civic Hospital.
Keeping the historic buildings and gardens intact and adding some separating property between these areas and the new high-rise buildings would still leave a considerable amount of land available on which to build a cluster of high-rise dwellings which, if designed and built properly, could rival the beauty of Chicago and New York.
The existing historic buildings could be set up as museums and serve as tourist attractions, creating jobs. The construction would create new jobs. And, best of all, old neighbourhoods would be saved from the planning committee’s half-baked intensification approach to rezoning the city.
However there is one proviso. While people living in Ottawa will benefit most from this project, the experimental farm is owned by the federal government. So, any project undertaken on this land should be overseen by the feds and not left for the City of Ottawa planning to botch.
Howard Crerar is a project manager and has worked in the software industry for three decades.
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I can’t be the only one who remembers the recent uproar of the Save the Farm brigade for that high rise condo slated for Carling Ave across from the farm … can I?
Of course, building on unused farmland is a great idea and, if done properly, would be an excellent use of that area but … the protests, injunctions, mass hysteria … well, definitely would be worth the price of admission.
Donna:
I hope Howard is prepared for criticism on this post. It’s very controversial.
cheers
kgray
I believe the farmland belt around Ottawa is greatly diminished…all I see is bought farmland by developers..in all directions….central experimental farmland is an oasis of sanity…the city decided to proceed with having the civic hospital built by dow’s lake ! That was enough distruction of natural space …more then necessary since Tunney’s pasture is a huge area , please build high rises there and leave the Farm alone. People will need hospitals less if there is more natural environment to access in their lives, proper parks within walking distance. The push to get rid of the farm is a money grab by developers and an exaggerated claim of housing needs.
We’ve heard lately that, contrary to the self-serving claims of some landowners, the City has greenfield development land reserves sufficient for quite a while, I believe it was at least 25 years. We don’t need the Farm for that.
At the same time we have a unique greenspace that many, many of our Citizens enjoy on a weekly basis. Can we not have nice things?
An then, you’re picking on the wrong guy in Councillor Leiper. Yes, he’s the local politician who is the chair of Planning & Housing and, yes, it is his job to talk up the necessary intensification in our urban neighbourhoods but it was the Feds who pushed the issue with their money. The City accepted the money and now has to enable intensification. The fact is, without that kind of intensification, we will not be able to afford the city services that we enjoy for much longer. Developments out on the edge like Tewin will bankrupt the City.
So your solution is to build on the Farm. I really do not agree. I think we can easily accept a bit, and it is only a bit, of intensification in my neighbourhood of Old Ottawa South and all of the single-familiy home neighbourhoods of the City and save the nice things to enjoy.
I can’t wait to see the Canadensis Botanical Garden take shape along Prince of Wales on those “empty” fields by the Canal!
Crerar’s advice indicates no knowledge of the value of the 100-year-plus agricultural research done on those fields. A few years ago, international scientists weighed in on the importance of the long-term work done there and stopped the hospital being planted on its fields. Does he have no pride in Ottawa’s history, no clue about the physical and mental benefits of green space or its climate-cooling effects for blocks around the Farm? It is the closest asset the City has to NYC’s Central Park, Montreal’s Mount Royal Park, or the multitude of parks in highly dense Paris and London. It was a horrendous political decision to choose the current site of the new Civic hospital on the Farm and across from Dow’s Lake — especially since the NCC, after considering 12 sites, chose Tunney’s Pasture as most appropriate.