Fifteen delegates voiced concerns about the city’s proposed Lansdowne 2.0 project as part of a June 23 “people’s committee” hosted by the community group Better Ottawa.
Better Ottawa’s Neil Saravanamuttoo said he decided to organize the event after a motion by Capital Coun. Shawn Menard — which proposed a public referendum on Lansdowne 2.0 — was withdrawn during a June 3 finance and corporate services committee meeting.
“It’s important that the people of Ottawa have their opportunity to say how they feel about Lansdowne,” said Saravanamuttoo, who is also the executive director at CitySHAPES, which he co-founded in 2023 with former city councillor and mayoral candidate Catherine McKenney, now the NDP MPP for Ottawa Centre.
“It’s important that the people of Ottawa have their opportunity to say how they feel about Lansdowne.”
— Better Ottawa’s Neil Saravanamuttoo, executive director of CitySHAPES
In the June 3 committee meeting, Kanata North Coun. Cathy Curry pushed to fast-track debate on Menard’s motion after he’d given notice of his push for approval of a referendum at a later meeting in June.
She said the measure could have deterred construction companies from bidding on the project, which was scheduled to begin on June 16. Along Curry and seven other councillors, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe voted to urgently add Menard’s motion — which proposed putting Lansdowne 2.0 on the ballot during the 2026 municipal election — on the June 3 agenda.
Given the likelihood his referendum idea would be soundly defeated at the meeting, Menard withdrew his motion.
“I felt (not dealing with the motion right away) added considerable risk to the project, to the budget and to the city’s reputation,” Curry stated in an email to Capital Current. “As an elected group of representatives from all across the city, we need to mitigate and manage risk, not introduce more.”
Saravanamuttoo says he interpreted Curry’s intervention and the committee’s vote to thwart Menard as an attempt to prevent councillors from hearing public delegations on the Lansdowne 2.0 issue.
“As someone who wanted the opportunity to speak on this issue, I was quite upset that the mayor would rob us of that option,” he said.
Menard has been a vocal critic of Lansdowne 2.0. and has brought attention to a petition started by Saravanamuttoo calling for a city-wide referendum on the project. It currently has over 6,000 signatures.
The final vote on Lansdowne is scheduled for this fall.
At Better Ottawa’s meeting, community members presented a range of arguments against the proposed next phase of development at Lansdowne, which would involve tearing down existing north-side stands, the Civic Centre and retail space to make room for two residential towers. The current plan also includes the construction of a 5,500-seat arena on the east side of the stadium, which some critics have pointed out would deflate attendance at Ottawa Charge games.
The existing TD Place Arena at Lansdowne has been praised as an excellent venue for Ottawa’s two-year-old PWHL team. The Charge, which reached the finals of this season’s Professional Women’s Hockey League playoffs, averaged 7,496 fans per game in the 2023-24 season and just under 7,000 in 2024-25.
The city initially estimated that the public-private partnership for the Lansdowne 2.0 project would cost $419 million, but last year the auditor general warned it could be closer to $500 million.
“The City’s Lansdowne 2.0 project addresses the need to reinvest in the site with more housing, better public spaces and more destination retail,” the city stated in an April 2024 update.
For Ottawa Charge fan Margaret Buist, these points are not enough to outweigh the potential rise in ticket costs that could come with a smaller hockey arena.
“Let me tell you about Charge games if you’ve not been to one first. It is the most welcoming, diverse and friendly sports event this city has ever seen… This is not your usual hockey game,” she said.
“Should council vote to accept (Lansdowne 2.0) this fall – I’m not kidding when I say we could lose this team and all that it brings to this city.”
Speaker Sharon Katz pointed out that a 2023 survey by EKOS found that 34 per cent of National Capital Region residents said they did not think Lansdowne 2.0 represents good value for money for citizens and taxpayers.
“This is not a priority. This is not what city council should be spending taxpayers’ money on. We have urgent priorities,” said Katz.
Still, the survey found that 59 per cent of residents supported the project while 29 per cent opposed it.
Other delegates raised concerns about consultation with local Indigenous communities, whether the plan aligns with the city’s Climate Change Master Plan and the potential loss of green space resulting from the new arena.
