Banner image: Lincoln Fields transit way station.

Community Issues

Proposed Redevelopment of Parkway House

An open letter from Julia Goodman

Folks:

This is an update to my message of April 3 regarding the Parkway House land development issue, which reported on the April 1 meeting.

The presentation made at that meeting by James McLaren, Chair of the Board of Parkway House, is on our website at: 01 April 2010 Presentation by Parkway House (in PDF format)

Peter Caskey, a long time resident in our community, a neighbour of Parkway House, and a policy analyst by profession, has provided his view of the history of the land since the 1970's, and the basis for the current plan of Parkway House and Windmill Development Group. See An Evaluation of the Parkway House Proposal

Following the meeting, I wrote to Mr. McLaren with an offer to organize a think-tank type of event to develop alternate means of addressing Parkway House's financial issues. There has not yet been progress to report on this offer.

Mr. McLaren and I also met with our MPP, Bob Chiarelli, on April 9, to request his assistance in resolving Parkway House's underlying financial issues. Mr. Chiarelli suggested pursuing alternate solutions, particularly in collaboration with other health-related interests. He specifically suggested that an appropriate use for the land might be for transitional housing, to free up hospital beds occupied by those not well enough to go home but not in need of hospital care. Mr. Chiarelli is pursuing his contacts within the Champlain Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) to see if this is a viable idea.

In early April, Mr. McLaren wrote to the City Clerk requesting a meeting to discuss the modification of the covenant on the land. This request is under discussion by City of Ottawa staff, and is expected to come before the appropriate committee in the weeks to come. The LHPCA will be informed of which committee and the time of the meeting, and the city staff report on the issue will be made available to us in advance. Members of the community will be able to appear before the committee to present their views.

In order to be able to focus on the various aspects of the development issue, we are forming three related focus areas:

  1. Alternative Solutions to focus on exploring the range of solutions that are supportive of Parkway House but are in the context of the broader community interests with the covenant and zoning considerations. Mike Carter (mtcarteron@gmail.com) is the lead on this.
  2. Outreach to focus on community relations with Parkway House, other community associations, the media, and elected representatives. Julia Goodman (julia951@rogers.com) is the lead on this.
  3. Municipal and Legal to focus on the process with city officials, planning and legal aspects of this issue. Parham Momtahan (parham@momtahan.com) is the lead on this.

If you'd like to contribute with your expertise to any of these focus areas please contact the appropriate leads.

I will provide further updates as the situation develops.

Supporting documentation

Other Issues

The following issues were also identified at the inaugural meeting of the association (2009) as being of particular interest to the community:

  • Neighbourhood Watch (including park and bike paths)
  • Improved access to transit way from this side of neighbourhood
  • Performance of winter snowplowing
  • Light-rail connecting Tunney's Pasture and Lincoln Fields along river parkway (or Richmond-Byron corridor, or Carling Ave.)
  • Outreach to other community associations and bodies (e.g. businesses)
  • Speeding in the neighbourhood
  • Social, recreational events, summer, winter
  • Winter parking on Regina

If you would like to suggest other issues that may be of interest to the Lincoln Heights - Parkway Community Association, please contact us.