Local residents and the National Capital Commission (NCC) remain at loggerheads over a proposal to turn 3.7 hectares of green space, west of downtown, into a new diplomatic precinct.
In December, the NCC asked the city to rezone the land next to the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway in Mechanicsville to permit the eventual construction of six diplomatic missions. The space lies between Slidell Street and Forward Avenue. An existing mission, the Indonesian Embassy, is on the western border of the property.
The NCC’s intention to use the location for diplomatic missions is long-standing and forms part of the Scott Street Community Development Plan and other land-use strategies. It has been included in three public consultations since 2015 and is in keeping with the city’s Official Plan policies, including intensification and use of existing infrastructure, according to the NCC.
The proposal is still at the conceptual stage, but it doesn’t sit well with many area residents.
“The lands are an iconic green space in the neighbourhood,” says Lorrie Marlow, president of the Mechanicsville Community Association. “It’s very popular with bird lovers. There’s a horned owl that’s beloved. There are 75 trees on the property. The long grasses, the wildflowers. So, it’s quite precious to us.” She says she’s received hundreds of emails objecting to the plan.
The commission’s proposal includes a park on the eastern side of the property. However, Marlow and others are concerned about the trees and wildlife habitat — frequented by, among others, 63 bird species — that will be destroyed.
The NCC’s zoning request is supported by a planning rationale from Fotenn Consultants, which identifies the creation of “new, green pedestrian/active transportation connections from the Mechanicsville neighbourhood to a new pathway along the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway.” But Marlow would like to see the entire property preserved in a natural state. “We don’t want it manicured with fancy little paths. We like it the way it is.”
The potential loss of green space in a neighbourhood experiencing infill and where many residents have no backyard isn’t Marlow’s only concern.
She says tight security surrounding diplomatic missions means they aren’t usually “community friendly.
“They’re usually very hardened. They’re walled, they’re fenced … we want residents that are engaged in the neighbourhood.” She also wonders about having to evacuate the area in the event of a terrorist or other attack on one of the missions.
Jeff Leiper is councillor for the area and would like to see the proposal paused. He believes the city should, instead, be addressing housing and environmental concerns in keeping with its declarations of housing and climate emergencies.
Like Marlow, he’s also concerned about the loss of green space in his intensifying constituency, a point driven home by the restrictions of the pandemic. “We’ve learned in the course of the past year how important it is in intensifying neighbourhoods like Mechanicsville to have as much open space as possible. Putting embassies in open space doesn’t strike residents as a particularly wise choice.”
Leiper held an online public meeting about the plan in February, and more than 200 people showed up. He says there was “highly consensual opposition” to the plan.
He adds there are other potential locations for more embassies, including Le-Breton Flats, and he would like the NCC to re-examine those options.
The NCC proposal will likely go to planning committee this spring before heading to council for a final decision, Leiper says.
The NCC’s plan for the space comes from “a general need for diplomatic missions in the capital,” says Andrew Sacret, chief of long-range planning and transportation. “Our plan for Canada’s capital has policies that state the need to have that inventory at the ready so we’re not caught flatfooted as a nation when a foreign mission needs something like this.”
No countries have yet been identified to occupy what’s being called Ottawa’s embassy row, a term that calls to mind, albeit on a far more modest scale, that section of Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., where multiple diplomatic missions are based. Many missions already have gracious digs in Ottawa, but others are currently using downtown office space and may need to expand their facilities in the future, Sacret says.
As to Marlow’s concerns about security, Sacret responds that ambassadorial residences and chanceries already exist in some Ottawa neighbourhoods and that each has its own security plan.
What will the NCC do if the city turns thumbs down on its plan for the Mechanicsville space?
“That would be very unfortunate,” Sacret says. “We would have some appeal rights … [and] we have the authority to plan on federal lands, which these are. Our hope is that the city can follow our lead in approving that land use.”
