This morning I spoke with Roger Greenberg, CEO of Minto, one of the three organizations behind the Lansdowne Live proposal. You may recall that I spoke with Clive Doucet (who I presume is the Councillor that Mr. Greenberg refers to) about this matter back in April.
In any case, the proposal goes before Council this week. Expect a mess of public delegations on Thursday, and I can only presume a heated debate amongst Councillors on Friday. I presume that efforts will be made to change the staff report suggesting that this plan move ahead, making it unclear what might actually be accepted in the end.
For what its worth, I am very much concerned that rejecting this proposal will just leave Lansdowne in the state that it is for the foreseeable future, which would be the real tragedy. I think that any development needs to be mixed-use, and think that a lot can be done to make any retail component something more than just a mall and benefit neighbouring businesses in the Glebe. How successful we are at this will determine how successful the new plan is. I also worry that we are developing a nasty habit of comparing every tangible proposal with every imaginable ideal one (and dread when we start to talk about the transit tunnel in greater detail.)
Roger Greenberg on Lansdowne Live [9:07m]:
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Fellow Travellers 
November 10th, 2009 
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