Provided by Kitchissippi Ward Councillor Christine Leadman.

On June 25th 2010 after public delegations had finished, City Staff released Document 27 of the Lansdowne Partnership Plan in advance of the June 28th vote by Council.

Document 27 defers the contentious and outstanding elements required for the June 28th vote by Council to “Stage 1” approvals. In the document it notes, “The first stage approval will provide a comprehensive master site plan that will reflect key plan refinements to achieve integration and will set out associated conditions that would be the basis for more detailed design development.”

As the comprehensive site plan master plan has not been received this directly violates a key condition set forth by Council that a “Strategic Design Review and Advisory Panel for the development of a Master Site Plan... (provide) independent third party peer review of the final master plan and architectural plans and advice to Council on the final master site plan and architectural plans when Council considers the final Partnership Plan in June 2010”.

Indeed last November, the staff report stated that the “...master site plan would then form part of the information presented to Council for their final consideration and would be a prerequisite to the partnership agreement”.

Despite the lack of any solution to major outstanding issues until November 24^th 2010, Council will be financially and legally locking the City into the plan on June 28^th without having these key problems resolved.

Specifically a few of the issues surrounding a proper site plan to be dealt with during Stage 1 (after this vote) include:

• Placement of buildings adjacent to the Aberdeen Pavilion,
• Movement of the Horticulture building,
• Details of the public programming component,
• Details on the integration of the urban park,
• Phased implementation of the green space (“multiple budget cycles”)
• Final mixed-use plans,
• Details of the proposed new site specific zoning,
• The proposed uses of the front lawn as a parking and shuttle drop off zone.

After so many iterations of the proposal, the City and OSEG have chosen not to provide answers or solutions to critical problems central to their proposal. Even when the Design Review Panel headed by George Dark clearly identified solutions to some of these problems, the implementation of the solutions have been relegated for further ‘review’ and ‘comment by staff’ during the months to come.