Council approves Lansdowne rezoning

Ottawa city council has voted to approve zoning for the Lansdowne Park redevelopment.

In a written release sent out on Tuesday, council said the redevelopment would permit "a lively mix of urban, residential, public and commercial spaces."

The rezoning allows for two residential towers — 17 and 20 storeys high — on Bank Street, as well as a row of four-storey condos, with 30-metre buildings set just behind them, along Holmwood Avenue.

The site will also include a new urban park, a stadium and civic centre. In addition, the development will include stores, restaurants, a cinema, an office building and a site for the Ottawa Farmers' Market.

The development fulfills the city's plan of creating "pedestrian and cycle-friendly urban neighbourhoods where people can live, work and play," the release said.

Capital Ward Coun. Clive Doucet had put forward a motion to put off the rezoning until after the city has received heritage reports dealing with the project, but that motion was defeated.

Doucet wanted to defer the decision in part because the Lansdowne rezoning includes the elimination of Sylvia Holden Park, a strip of grass and trees on the south side of Holmwood Avenue in the Glebe neighbourhood.

Doucet argued decommissioning any city park requires two-thirds of council to approve the decision, and no such approval has been given. Doucet said it raised the prospect that other parks in the city could be decommissioned in a similar manner, in violation of a policy adopted by the city in 1994.

The city has said the park's designation occurred before amalgamation and that the city considers the strip of land to be part of the larger Lansdowne site.

A public meeting on the development is scheduled to take place at Lansdowne in mid-October.