HERITAGE OTTAWA

UPDATE

On August 23, City Council referred the rezoning application for the proposed towers back to the Planning and Housing Committee for further consideration on September 20. 

Planning and Housing Committee (PHC) had voted on August 16 to recommend approval for the proposed tower development at 1081 Carling Avenue, despite Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada's detailed shadow impact study indicating that research lands so important to climate change studies will be rendered useless. 

For its part, the City staff report insisted on evaluating impacts to the Farm as though it is public greenspace, and not an agricultural research institution. They also took the position that the shadow impacts would not damage the Farm's heritage character, somehow ignoring the key point that the heritage character of the Farm is its research capacity, as is clearly stated in its national historic site designation.

If you are concerned about the negative impacts of this development on the Central Experimental Farm, read on and take action. 

BACKGROUND

It is hard to believe, but the science fields of the Central Experimental Farm are once again under threat. In fact, they are the exact same science fields that Heritage Ottawa and others struggled to save (and succeeded - we thought) when there was a plan to locate the new Civic Hospital on this very location.  

This time, the threat comes from 1081 Carling Avenue, at the corner of Parkdale and Carling (where the medical building is now), where Taggart Realty Management is proposing to erect 16 and 27 storey towers. This site being northwest of the Farm will cast considerable shadow over critically important research lands, and by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's (AAFC) own estimation, the buildings could render as much as 12 % of the research lands useless. 

Senior officials at AAFC are urging that the fields essential to research that help breed crops better able to endure climate change be protected. Their letter to the City included a detailed shadow study that found the research lands would lose sunlight critical to the study of drought on crops — everything from disease resistance to winter survival.

Heritage Ottawa wrote to the Planning and Housing Committee detailing our concerns. Read our letter HERE and, along with many others, made a public presentation before the committee. 

Our concerns in brief:

• Farm's scientific research is integral to its National Historic Site designation. Impairing that function significantly diminishes the character-defining elements of the National Historic Site.
• The fields are essential to research that helps breed crops better able to mitigate impacts of climate change (AAFC has been studying the effects of climate change on Canadian agriculture for 40 years. And no, the experiments cannot be moved to a different area with setting the research back to zero).
• The City's own Climate Change Management Plan should be taken into account in the analysis of this development proposal and its potential impacts.
• This is a precedent setting risk to the future of the Farm as an important agricultural research institute and National Historic Site of Canada.

CALL TO ACTION

On August 23, City Council referred the rezoning application back to the Planning and Housing Committee for further consideration on September 20. If you are concerned about the negative impacts on the Central Experimental Farm of the proposed tower development, contact Committee Chair Jeff Leiper and Co-chair Glen Gower, as well the members of the Committee before September 20 to register your opinion.  

CLICK HERE for the Mayor and Councillors' email addresses.

 

Related Reading: 

Letter from MP Yasir Naqvi to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada / August 23, 2023

Letter from Warren A. Dick, Soil and Environmental Scientist, Ohio State University to Mayor Sutcliffe, Councillor Leiper, Planner Gorni / August 22, 2023

Letter from Clarke Topp, Soil Physicist, to Mayor Sutcliffe and City Officials / August 7, 2023 

Letter from Civic Hospital Neighbourhood Assn. to Mayor and Councillors, August 22, 2023

Heritage Ottawa Letter to Planning Committee, August 16, 2023

Heritage Ottawa:  50 Years | 50 Stories: Central Experimental Farm, Part 1

Heritage Ottawa:  50 Years | 50 Stories: Central Experimental Farm, Part 2

Heritage Ottawa Video: Central Experimental Farm, Conserving a National Treasure