City defending Lansdowne redevelopment plan in court
Posted Jun 21, 2011 02:52:31 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The City of Ottawa is in court beginning Tuesday defending itself against the Friends of Lansdowne, a group taking action against plans to redevelop the park and refurbish Frank Clair Stadium.
The group said it is hoping to set a new precedent for municipal governments in Ontario that would force transparency in major deals like the Lansdowne Live project.
The group is adamant it doesn’t oppose the plan itself but rather the way the City of Ottawa worked to arrange the deal and the actual planning process.
Jo Wood, a spokesperson for the group said one of the major issues it has with the City is in what they see as a misrepresentation of the expected costs of redeveloping the park.
“It’s the accountability, it’s the transparency, it’s basically good governance,” she said when asked what the City had failed to do.
“We feel that it’s really important for citizen’s groups to be able to do something about it when those principles have been violated.”
Gord Henderson, also a member of the group, said it believes the City broke the law.
“It didn’t follow its own procurement rules,” he said. “That’s what we want them to do. If we win … we expect the City to open up the bidding process.”
He said the group would be happy to see the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group take part in that process.
However OSEG has said it would back out of its current deal with the city should the Friends of Lansdowne win this case.
The case is expected to run into next week.
