Experimental Farm Plan: Bring On The Critics: BENN
I know I am wandering into a mine field on this, but the concept of a major land use change for the Central Experimental Farm is an idea that is long past due for consideration.
The initial concept of the Central Experimental Farm was created when Carling Avenue was part of the southern perimeter of the city’s built area for what was then considered to be developing leading edge crop enhancements. I suggest that precious few Ottawa residents could tell you what the Central Experimental Farm is actually used for. I also suggest to you that the number of people on city council and in the federal cabinet who could accurately describe the details of current Central Experimental Farm usage could be counted on one hand, and still have enough fingers left over to order a couple of beer.
It is time to change the Central Experimental Farm requirements to spaces more suitable for larger scale crop experiments to reset the requirements to reflect the current realities and to consider repurposing sections of the Experimental Farm between Woodroffe, West Hunt Club, Cedarview and Fallowfield. If more land is required, focus on space south of Kemptville. For grain crops, look at the wide open tracts of land in Manitoba and Saskatchewan to develop the enhanced crops in a climate and soil zone where they will actually be used.
The key to success starts with the creation of a cohesive, coherent vision for the space. Something that neither the City of Ottawa or the NCC has ever demonstrated they are capable of, both being populated by people focused more on reaction than planning.
Get ideas by studying what makes Central Park in Manhattan, Stanley Park in Vancouver and Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg so successful. They have a combination of recreational and cultural settings for the enjoyment of the residents of the forests of high rises that surround them and for visitors. Lots and lots of visitors. Note I said study, to look carefully at, to identify the elements that make sense and adapting them to Ottawa’s situation. Eliminate elements that don’t make sense.
Bulldog contributor Howard Crerar touches on this with his identification of the sector near The Driveway and Prince of Wales. Include the Arboretum on the east side. Include the adjacent northern sections, the parts near the new Civic Hospital campus and the old Dominion Observatory. Create a large shallow pond to collect storm water during the non-winter months and then use it as a natural ice skating surface during the winter. Consider a long winding route around the pond that can be groomed, during the winter months, for skating (no apology offered to the cyclists who believe that they should be allowed to roll where ever, whenever – because notwithstanding your self interests, it is not always about you).
Allow a few small restaurants to abut the pond. Ensure that there is a lot of room for picnics, including barbeque stands and some wide-open spaces for the kids to play under the somewhat watchful eyes of their siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. Look at how both Britannia and Andrew Haydon parks are used on summer weekends. Those two parks are backyards for the people who don’t have backyards. In essence, create a setting that draws people to it in every season. Ensure that there is sufficient on site parking, many small lots. The multi-generational families who use Britannia and Andrew Haydon parks arrive with a van load of family, coolers, chairs and toys. Loads that are not compatible with public transit.
As for the rest of the Experimental Farm, try new central neighbourhoods, designed with the 15-minute concept in mind. Higher density where views of the Ottawa’s Central Park can demand higher prices and along the major boundary roadways of Prince of Wales, Fisher, Baseline, Merivale and Carling. The inner sectors can be populated with lower density (six-to-nine storeys?) buildings, and townhomes. Ensure that Bus Rapid Transit routes are built into the median lanes of each of those routes to move people out and back quickly.
While the Bulldog’s readers contemplate this and more, I will get that Kevlar suit from my closet to protect from pot shots from those who disagree with this post.
Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.
For You:
Experimental Farm Housing? … ‘Ridiculous’: THE VOTER
Let’s Fix Homelessness … Now: PATTON
Bookmark The Bulldog, click here
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Lovely concept Ron and exsctly what this city needs. I still imagine what Lansdowne Park could have been.
Let’s just make sure that absolutely no one at the City of Ottawa has anything to do with any possible revamping of the Experimental Farm!!
Although I live outside the city proper in Metcalfe I drive by the Experimental Farm periodically when I am in town (Baseline serves as an excellent east-west transitway). In the last decade or so all I recall seeing in terms of public usage is the odd pedestrian or bicyclist using the pathway that runs across the park from east to west. I don’t recall ever seeing farm vehicles in the fields let alone farmers working the fields with rakes and hoes. To the best of my knowledge most of the work at the farm takes place in the research labs.
I used to think of Central Park in NYC and the Experimental farm potential, until I became aware that is is designated as a National Heritage site (monument).
” The Central Experimental Farm was designated a national historic site of Canada because: as a cultural landscape, the more than 400-hectare farm in the heart of the Nation’s Capital reflects the 19th-century philosophy of agriculture and carefully integrates an administrative core and a range of other buildings with arboretum, ornamental gardens, display beds and experimental fields”
That said, this is of National Value and is for all Canadians, not just the ones impacted by a city that cannot plan on providing appropriate parks for its growing urban areas.
Lansdowne is a park and yet the city is removing the park parts, for development. Go Ottawa Go!
waba, designations made by a government can be rescinded by the same level of government. Do not let artificial constraints get in the way of dreaming of the art of the possible.