Clive Doucet: A forensic audit of Lansdowne is required before more City money is invested

When this all started, in 1996 it was clear Lansdowne needed a makeover.   To get the makeover going, Mayor Chiarelli and his Council commissioned an international competition to come up with a design.  The competition cost the city $50,000.  To put that sum in perspective, just the facilitator for Lansdowne 1.0 cost the city $2 million. The project he facilitated without any competitive process whatsoever cost more than 300 million.

For what?

To poorly renovate the old stadium and subsidize the construction of a mall. Where did that idea of a mall come from anyway? From city planners? No. City planners said Lansdowne didn’t ever rate in the top 5 for a modern city stadium.  The idea came from the developers who promised revenue from the mall would pay for the old stadium’s renovation.

It didn’t.  It failed as the opposants of Lansdowne 1.0 said it would.  Presently, the mall is costing the developers ten million a year.   The solution now is to tear the mall down and replace it with condos to bail the developers out of a deal that they insisted on from the beginning over a community opposition that took them all the way to Ontario Superior Court in Toronto.

Their new solution is 2.0. Tear down the mall. build more condo towers and return the profits from the condos back to the developers.

Lansdowne 2.0 is distinguished from Lansdowne 1.0 principally by the fact that it’s worse.  Will cost Ottawa tax payers more than Lansdowne 1.0 did. The ice rink will be smaller and there will be less public space.

Remember Lansdowne arrived on the city’s doorstep as a gift from three farmers in 1868 and ever since was used as the city’s premier public gathering place.  Everything from Stanley Cup finals, football, Sunday afternoon promenades, Fall Fairs, and the construction of what are now historic public buildings like the Cattle Castle and the Horticultural Building.

What is it today? Nothing more than a failed real estate deal that the current council is as determined to make the public pay for as they were for Lansdowne 1.0.

The question worth asking is why?  Why can’t the city get our park back and at the same time ask for a forensic accounting be undertaken of Lansdowne 1.0 and 2.0 before more money is poured into this river of city mismanagement. 

Clive Doucet is a former City councillor for Capital Ward and an author.  His best known book is “My Grandfather’s Cape Breton.”