the latest iteration of lansdowne 2.0, which was unveiled at city hall on friday, will leave a lot of people dissatisfied. but that would be the case no matter what the city presented.
the new plan, though, which goes to planning committee and council next month, at least indicates that city staff actually heard the concerns of residents and acted on some of them.
chief among those was the apprehension many expressed over the scale of housing intensification on the site, with the result in the revised plan being that one of the three proposed residential towers — the one closest to the aberdeen pavilion — was scuppered, and another lowered to 25 storeys (the tallest remains at 40 storeys). the 1,200 residential units initially planned to sit atop a new set of north-side stands has dropped to about 770, with an attendant decrease in new parking spaces.
the
revised plan
is an improvement in terms of keeping the site on a more human scale. the three-tower scenario looked crammed in design renderings and ate up a lot of sky. a 40-storey tower is still monumentally tall, but the new plan does allow some breathing room.
one not inconsiderable consequence of that decision, however, is that the 10 per cent of units that were (through ottawa community housing) to actually be affordable were sacrificed. instead, the city is to get $3.9 million to make such housing available elsewhere — and much sooner than the decade or so expected to pass before the towers are completed. according to staff, affordable housing at lansdowne would cost up to 20 per cent more than at other sites that are already under consideration.