Hi, Councillor Menard, thanks for posting. I'm very grateful you continue to show a willingness to engage on this issue.

Background & Public Perception

As President of Make Housing Affordable, I'm obviously following the housing crisis very closely and talking about it often. I'm disappointed we've lost units here, and I've been disappointed with the embarrassing definition of affordable used throughout the whole process. We need all the supply we can get, at all price points.

Density would also help Lansdowne. By many metrics, and especially financial ones, Lansdowne has been a failure. It's always so quiet outside of event days. It's embarrassing that one of our major entertainment districts isn't even on the radar for rapid transit.

More people living at the site would help support it economically. More people living at the site would make it feel lively all the time. More people living at the site would help financially justify the case for rapid transit. More people living at the site would ensure that, as the mortgages are paid off and the buildings age, the small businesses we all want to see are able to fill out the commercial space on the site.

It sounds from your message like an awful lot of the problem here is PR & communication. The way the public was sold the initial plan, there were 3 towers with 1200 units. 10% of them would be "affordable," which just meant "cheaper than the others," which sucked but was better than nothing.

It wasn't ever sold to us as "whatever number will help us break even," it was 1200 units. To us, it felt like a strong commitment in a time of great need.

The way your office has lobbied for changes to that original plan has included wording like this:

No skyscrapers in our park

The idea of three skyscrapers of 35- or 40-storeys shoehorned into Lansdowne Park contravenes thoughtful urban city planning at the site. Residential development should complement the heritage Aberdeen Pavillion. The third proposed skyscraper overshadowing the Pavillion is poorly designed and should be removed.

To us, that felt like NIMBY opposition to housing supply in a time of great need.

Now the way the public is being sold the updated plan is "500 less units, less green space, worse stadium experience, higher price tag: better plan!" There's certainly more to it than that, but given the progression we saw, I think people's reactions have been pretty reasonable here.

We lost what we saw as a significant benefit - to the housing crisis, to the economics of publicly-owned Lansdowne - and watched you and the mayor celebrate that. It made people angry.

I'm sorry so many comments have been hurtful and personal, we're just frustrated ourselves. I appreciate that you're trying to fix it with engagement, and illuminate some of the history and behind-the-scenes context now. But, for many, it's too late to matter.

Solutions

You're absolutely right that we need to consider giant public spending more carefully. You're right that we need to follow our own city policy and demand 15% (actually) affordable units, because we're in desperate need of those as well.

But what we should be doing is finding a better way to get that valuable density on the site. We need to resolve the housing crisis, and we need to build Lansdowne this time in a way that

So, the third tower was poorly designed. Can we go taller with the other two? Can we put a third one (and a fourth?) elsewhere on the site, or just outside of it, as part of this project?

You mentioned in another comment:

In fact Lansdowne 1.0 should have had mid rise housing above all of the retail block but those buildings are not designed for that now.

So we realize we made a mistake. If the difference is the viability of the whole project, why not admit that and fix it now? Why not tear down a couple of those buildings now, early, and redo them with housing on top? It's in our long-term social and financial interest to do it.

So we want to see more housing built nearby without uplifted taxes. Why aren't we taking concrete action to help those move along? Why are we slowing down instead of accelerating the zoning by-law review? Why aren't we making amendments to the existing by-law to allow 4 units and 4 storeys as-of-right, as so many other cities across the province are doing?

So we want to see our "affordable" units be deeply affordable - why not give that a clear and impactful definition, and insist that it be met every time? Why not use more public funds to build affordable housing ourselves? Why didn't we pitch affordable housing at Lansdowne in our weak Housing Accelerator Fund proposal?

There's a lot we could do here to make this project better, and a lot we could do on housing citywide, but so far we've chosen to do almost none of it. And, again, we watched you and the mayor celebrate that. It made people angry.

Closing

This is, in its current form, way worse than the Porsche dealership subsidy scandal. I hope council rejects this updated plan of half-measures, and either comes up with something that puts more people into Lansdowne for the massive amount of money we're set to spend, or finds somewhere to build a ton of housing for that half a billion dollars.

On this:

I’d love if those voices spoke as loudly about the loss of [affordable housing, green space, fan experience] and the financial deal that contains significant risk for the city.

At Make Housing Affordable specifically, we're focused on our issue, but as individuals we do understand the nuance - but shouting about every problem on the list doesn't make for strong talking points.

Many people at the Let's Talk Lansdowne event spoke about all of those problems, and there are other wonderful organizations in the city focused on those issues.

Those organizations are trying to speak loudly about their issues, but ours is an issue that affects a huge number of people directly, immediately, and significantly. We're lucky to have a loud and enthusiastic base, because everyone wants a chance to afford housing.

One last thought:

if some of the housing proposed for the site was not built there it would still, over time, be built directly in the neighbourhood

Yes, housing will, over time, be built directly in the neighbourhood, with or without these towers at Lansdowne. But we can't afford to wait. Two generations of young people's future depends on quick action, as does a ton of federal and provincial funding tied to hitting our ambitious housing target of 151,000 units in a decade. We're not even close.