Lansdowne: The Answer Must Be No: THE VOTER

Respected community activist The Voter says Bulldog commentator Mike Patton has Lansdowne all wrong:

Negotiate? Why and for what?

Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group proposed this “deal” to the city. The city didn’t ask for it. When someone comes to you with a deal from which you will receive minimal, if any, benefit, then your answer should be a simple and straightforward, “No thanks”. You don’t open negotiations on a deal that, in reality, you don’t need and that will cost you millions of dollars that you don’t have for little or no benefit.

The city has in its hands a report that tells them that, for about $25 million, they can repair the north stands so they can last another 40 years. OSEG is offering them the chance to tear down and rebuild the stands and the Civic Centre rink beneath the stands for many multiples of that $25M. The answer must be no.

OSEG is proposing that the minimal green space left in the “park” should be reduced even further and a new arena and event space built east of the football field. The answer must be no.

OSEG wants to build apartment blocks up to 40 storeys high to the north of the football field, bringing over a thousand new residents to an area that is already painfully underserved by transit and other transportation modes. The answer must be no.

OSEG proposes all this and much more be accomplished through massive borrowing to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by the city which will place an enormous fiscal burden on the city and its taxpayers for years to come. On behalf of ourselves and our grandchildren, the answer must be no.

While this proposal will lock the city into massive debt and other commitments for 40 years, OSEG will only guarantee they will maintain the existing sports teams, supposedly the motivation for this huge real estate deal, at Lansdowne until 2032, nine years from now. Given that the estimate for construction time to bring their plan to fruition is seven to 10 years, a nine-year guarantee is not very useful. The answer must be no.

No negotiation, no deals. Just no.

The Voter is a respected community activist and long-time Bulldog commenter who prefers to keep her identity private.

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