More cash set aside for affordable housing as Lansdowne 2.0 debate stretches on

During another prolongeddebate on Lansdowne 2.0, Ottawa city councillors tried to restore the proposed green arena roof, securefunding for parks and even defer a decision on the project entirely.

But a vote on competing motions to secure increased funding for affordable housing brought perhapsthe largest change to the contentious $419-million redevelopment plan.

That pitchfor Lansdowne Park,dubbed Lansdowne2.0, seeks to refresh the Glebe entertainment site andhelp it make money.

A key vote in Wednesday's council meeting involved air rights the right to build in the airspace above a property sold to developers to build residential towers.

As the plan originally stood, 10 per cent of the money from the sale of those rights would have gone to the city's affordable housing reserve.

A motion from Coun. Catherine Kitts more than doubledthatpercentageto 25 per cent, an amount that aligns with city policy.

The city estimates it can sell the air rights at Lansdowne for $39 million, so thischange represents about$6 million more.

Another motion from Coun. Laura Dudas added that half of any money made above that sale price would go to affordable housing as well.

Both motions passed.

Coun. Rawlson King triedto bump the percentage that would go toward affordable housing up to 40 per cent, four times the original plan,but his motion was ultimately defeated.

"If we have a project of this scope and magnitude, we need to have the appropriate amount of funding that's actually enumerated within the city's policy," King said in a scrum with reporters after the meeting.

"Of course, I think that we have to get more aggressive."

Attempt to defer

The debate comes after more than 80 public delegations weighed in on the redevelopment plans over the course of two full days of meetings late last week.

As the third day got underway Wednesday, Coun. Sean Devine tried to delay the decision until next year.

He introduced a motion to defer the vote on Lansdowne 2.0 until after the city's auditor general tabled a report on the project, likely in June 2024.

"I'm following the advice my grandfather gave me my grandfather was actually a politician but also a carpenterand he told me 'Measure twice, cut once,'" Devine said.

"Ithink he was talking both about politics and about carpentry."

City manager Wendy Stephenson said staff have spent "thousands of hours" preparing the report as it stands. She said it is not necessary to wait for the audit because staff will take the audit's recommendations into account as the process moves forward.

"There's a significant amount of due diligence that staff have done to get us here to date," she said.

Devine's motion failed by a wide margin andwasn't the only one to do so.

More motions on parkland, green roof

Coun. ShawnMenard, whose Capital ward includes LansdownePark, introduced several motions on the day that failed to get the support of council.

Among them was a motion that staff develop a mitigation plan for the possibility ofOttawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG), the for-profit group that leases Lansdowne in a complex partnership with the city, defaultingon its debt.

Menardunsuccessfullymoved to bar any companies owned by a partner within OSEG from bidding on rights to develop the residential towers.

He also tried to pass a motion to force developers to pay the waived cash-in-lieu-of-parkland fees a charge if they don't meet the green space requirement for new development.

"The bottom line in this isthat there's a principle at play here,"Menard said during a heated exchange with Mayor Mark Sutcliffe."In this case, we're actually losing green space and they're not paying it. So it's a double whammy."

Coun. Glen Gower argued forcing developers to contribute to the city's parkland fund would simply cause them to lower their bids by the amount they'd be forced topay into it thus reducing the money the city could raise on the sale.

Ultimately,staff said a citybylawdictatesthat theparkland requirement must be waivedbecause the city itself isa partner in the site.

Menard's othermotions on increasing active transportation access to Lansdowne and askingOSEG to consider options for a roof over thenorth-side stands carried, while amotion from Coun. Theresa Kavanagh to reintroduce the green roofconspicuously missing from the 2.0 version of theplansfailed.

"Although there are minor concessions being made, it still in my view doesn't improve the deal enough to make it a great public investment," Menardsaid after the meeting.

Councillors will pick the discussion back upat noon on Thursday.