Ottawa Citizen, By Blair Crawford

The city's planning and housing committee considered, and approved, a zoning bylaw amendment for towers of 32 and 24 storeys at the farm's southeast corner.

Will two highrise towers on Baseline Road adjacent to the Central Experimental Farm steal its sunshine?

That was the immediate question faced by the City of Ottawa’s planning and housing committee Wednesday as its members considered, and approved, a zoning bylaw amendment for towers of 32 and 24 storeys on Baseline Road at the farm’s southeast corner. Defenders of the farm say they will do so, with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in a letter saying the towers’ shadows will make tracts of farmland “unusable for most field experiments … and unsuitable for research purposes.”

But, with the city trying to solve a housing shortage and with more development expected along the farm’s margins, a larger question looms: Who will protect the farm?

“We recognize that there will be shadow impacts on the farm if Carling Avenue, if Fisher, if Baseline are intensified to the degree that our official plan contemplates,” planning committee chair Jeff Leiper told reporters after the meeting.

Echoing the fears of one of the public submissions opposed to the Baseline development, Leiper expressed concern that the experimental farm would suffer “death from a thousand cuts” as more and more highrises were built beside it.

“What kind of research can be done there? How does the federal government see the long-term role of the farm? Those are critical questions to answer, but it’s not incumbent on the City of Ottawa or city council to answer those questions,” Leiper said.

“If there is some point where there is just no research possible and the federal government determines that it no longer needs the farm and it goes into development with Canada Lands, for example, that is the fundamental fear people have with the development approvals that are moving forward right now.”

Leiper challenged the federal government and Ottawa-area MPs to come to the farm’s defence.

“In order to put those fears to rest, I would love to hear from the federal government. What does the Central Experimental Farm look like for the long term in a city in which we are intensifying to the degree that we have to?”

The application for the 32- and 24-storey towers marks the second phase of a development by Theberge Homes at the intersection of Baseline and Fisher Avenue, now occupied by a strip mall that’s home to a Lone Star restaurant. The first phase with a 24-storey tower facing Fisher was approved in November. When complete, the complex will add 1,089 residential units.

Hoping to lessen the shadow effects, the committee passed a motion Wednesday increasing the height of the podium surrounding the towers to seven storeys, a move it hopes will allow the developer to reduce the planned height of the towers.

The planning committee decisions must still be approved by the full city council.

The Theberge rezoning application comes just months after the city gave a green light to another controversial highrise complex: two towers of 16 and 27 storeys at 1081 Carling Ave., near the northwest corner of the farm.

Somerset Ward Coun. Ariel Troster said she was frustrated that the federal government had not given more guidance or offered more protection to the farm. The Central Experimental Farm is designated as a national historic site, but that designation doesn’t come with legal protection.

“Intensification along Carling was very clearly communicated when the city debated the official plan. At that point, the federal government didn’t come forward,” Troster said. “They really need to come to the table. We are tasked with approaching housing and we are tasked with solving our housing crisis. I have learned so much about crop studies and shadows, but this is not the place to make those decisions. Being asked to grapple with the impact on nationally significant research is not the purview of this committee.”

Leslie Maitland of Heritage Ottawa said that federal legislation was in the works that could offer the farm protection, but added that Agriculture Canada and the city would have to work together to protect the farm’s value in crop research.

“We agree development has to happen,” Maitland said. “We need housing and we need mass transit. But it can be done on the periphery of the farm that will protect the research values of the farm.

“It’s not a case of either or. We can have both.”

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