"This is a beginning, not an end, but we can see the end from here."
An agreement in principle between the National Capital Commission, the City of Ottawa and the Mechanicsville Community Association is expected to avert an Ontario Land Tribunal hearing and to both facilitate the construction of up to five new embassies in the neighbourhood and cement a connection to what the community calls Lazy Bay Commons.
“This is a beginning, not an end, but we can see the end from here,” Roy Atkinson, a community association board member and chair of a working group that opposed the NCC’s embassy plans for three years, said Wednesday evening.
The NCC had submitted an appeal to the provincial tribunal after a majority of city councillors voted in February 2022 to go against staff and planning committee recommendations and reject the Crown agency’s plan for embassies on a parcel of Mechanicsville green space.
Hearing dates were set for May 1-5, but a statement from the community association on Wednesday said the agreement in principle was reached after a month of “intense” negotiations.
An NCC statement said it was also “pleased,” adding the agreement would maintain zoning rights for development of up to five embassy buildings.
“The NCC will retain approximately 9,000 square metres (0.9 hectares) of federal green space at the intersection of Burnside Avenue and Slidell Street, north of Laroche Park and improve the local pedestrian network as well as enhance access to the federal riverfront park with an active transportation connection from the local streets,” the statement said. “The NCC looks forward to continuing to work with its municipal partners and community stakeholders to accomplish these important initiatives that balance required functions of a national capital with local interests.”
The NCC originally proposed six new embassy buildings for the area, but later trimmed that number to five.
In a community association statement, president Lorrie Marlow said the organization was pleased the NCC was respecting its desire to maintain the green space north of Laroche Park as parkland, adding the principles of the settlement were in line with a parkland vision set out in the Scott Street Community Design Plan in 2014.
During the fight against the embassy plan, Mechanicsville residents dubbed the area Lazy Bay Commons, a reference to what is now a small bay on the shores of the Ottawa River. Before the western parkway was built, the bay was larger and extended to Burnside Avenue, the statement noted.
Marlow described the area as “an oasis” for residents of municipal Kitchissippi ward.
“This is a relief for us,” her statement said. ”Communities like ours are cash-strapped and having to raise $40,000 or more to pay lawyers and experts is a big burden on our working-class residents.”
Atkinson expressed relief that community association efforts had convinced the NCC to retain a “significant” park at the east end of Lazy Bay Commons, to build sidewalks around the site and to provide a west-end pedestrian corridor. Twenty-four per cent of the site will remain as green space.
The 2016 Census reported approximately 2,500 residents in Mechanicsville, said Atkinson, who described the prospect of a battle with the NCC before the Ontario Land Tribunal as a matchup between David and Goliath.
“I’m confident we had a really good case, and, if we could have a hearing where the public interest is considered, we were in a strong position,” he said.
The agreement in principle must still be turned into a finalized document and submitted to the Ontario Land Tribunal, Atkinson added.
