Ottawa Forests & Greenspace

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Lansdowne Park Design

 

Lansdowne Park Design /
Conception du parc Lansdowne

Following discussion, the following motion was approved for inclusion into the Lansdowne staff report to Council, to be considered at City Council, June 24 and 25 2010.

Moved by member Hamilton

WHEREAS the mandate of the Forests and Greenspace Advisory Committee (OFGAC) includes:

helping to safeguard the environment of the City through the promotion of sustainable landscapes, and the protection and conservation (wise use) of trees, forests, wetlands, other natural systems, greenspaces, and biodiversity; receiving and soliciting public input on matters of importance within this mandate to the citizens of Ottawa, and providing advice gained from this consultation to council on said issues;

WHEREAS the OFGAC believes that development plans at Lansdowne Park should be primarily informed by the larger and longer term context of environmental sustainability, resilience and liveability;

WHEREAS the proposed redevelopment of Lansdowne Park provides an enormous opportunity for Ottawa to show leadership in creating a world-class, environmentally sustainable urban showcase adjacent to a World Heritage site;

WHEREAS the City has many environmental policies to help direct sustainable development and environmentally sound practices including, but not limited to, the Greenspace Master Plan, The Urban Tree Conservation By-law, Climate Change Plan, Environmental Strategy, Official Plan (eg. urban forest percentage cover targets), etc.

WHEREAS there are many healthy, attractive and mature trees on the current site of Lansdowne Park -- along Holmwood Avenue, in Sylvia Holden Park, adjacent to existing buildings in Lansdowne, areas bordering NCC lands, and including NCC lands along the Queen Elizabeth Driveway and Rideau Canal -- which are a valuable resource for the city; and whereas many citizens of Ottawa and the Glebe have expressed the desire to retain these trees and the existing greenspace in park settings in the re-development plans for Lansdowne;

WHEREAS the five Front Lawn design proposals all appear to have eliminated the existing healthy, mature trees along the Rideau Canal area and replaced them with new immature plantings;

WHEREAS the stadium and retail design plans seem to have adopted the “Space left over after planning (SLOAP) principle” with regard to greenspace and trees instead of integrating trees and greenspace as a core element of the plans;

WHEREAS over their lifetime trees provide multiple mental and physical health-giving,  and economically valuable eco-services such as stormwater attenuation, cleaning of polluted air, shade, cooling air currents, sequestration of carbon, production of oxygen, etc., that greatly contribute to a healthy population, and are worth millions of dollars to the economic bottom line for the city;

WHEREAS existing trees already provide these services and it would be wasteful to remove these trees and replace them with plantings of smaller trees, given that newly planted trees have a very high mortality rate in the City of Ottawa, and those that survive will take years to attain the same level of maturity and the resulting level of eco-services;

WHEREAS Ottawa has committed to meet LEED (Leadership in Economic and Environmental Development) standards for city-owned buildings/property, and whereas, in 2010, LEED will provide new standards for Neighbourhood Development projects which would be ideal for the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park; and whereas Ottawa does not yet have an active LEED Neighbourhood Development project;

WHEREAS the intensification of the Lansdowne site will probably result in increased traffic, greenhouse gas emissions, and an overall increased carbon footprint for the city; and whereas the city has not met its targeted public greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions goals, and, in fact these emissions have increased rather than decreased; and whereas the planting of trees is a common and effective way to accomplish carbon offsets and GHG reductions;

 

BE IT RESOLVED THAT THE LANSDOWNE RE-DEVELOPMENT:

- should have the principles of environmental sustainability, resilience and liveability as the basic bottom-line for all development plans;

- should meet or exceed the city’s sustainable development and environmental guidelines/policies (as mentioned above) already in place;

- should show leadership in creating a world-class, environmentally sustainable urban showcase;

- should retain the existing healthy, mature trees on the whole site as a basic component of any development plans. If mature trees are destroyed, the city should commit to immediately planting new, caliper-sized trees where appropriate throughout Ottawa in a ratio of 100:1 as part of a specific program to offset losing existing trees at Lansdowne;

- should set a goal of increasing the tree canopy in the Glebe above the current 17% by preserving all existing trees and planting new trees on the site;

- should create significant public greenspace on the whole Lansdowne site, not just the ‘Front Lawn’, in accordance with the Urban Greenspace Master Plan;

- should create an urban wetland for stormwater mitigation and biodiversity enhancement;

- should follow and incorporate LEED Neighbourhood Development standards, especially for trees and greenspaces;

- should have a comprehensive transportation plan in place which addresses increased levels of GHG emissions in advance of final approval of any plans for Lansdowne Park;

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT:

-  the City should determine what the enlarged carbon footprint will be and the projected levels of increased GHG emissions on an annual basis and incorporate the cost of tree-planting compensation into the budget of the Lansdowne project for its lifetime.  To meet these requirements trees should be planted not only on the actual Lansdowne site, but throughout the city, and existing city trees should also be given enhanced protection to reduce the numbers that die from injury, neglect and disease, or are cut down, and this should be reflected in an increase in annual city budgets for forestry and related environmental sustainability activities.

 

CARRIED

 

Related Minutes: http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/a-ofac/2010/05-31/minutes33.htm

 

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