Beautifying Ottawa one year at a time
By Michael Rappaport
Despite critics in Centretown calling for the abolition of the National Capital Commission and Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson demanding the federal government to reign in its powers, the NCC persists with its plans for shaping Ottawa.
Over the past 100 years the NCC and its forerunners have transformed Ottawa from a backwater lumber town into one of the greenest capitals in the world, NCC supporters say.
“The capital would be just an ordinary dreary town,” says Jean Pigott, chair of the NCC from 1985 to 1992. “Between Gatineau Park, Greenbelt, pathways and the canal, Ottawa is unique as a green capital.”
She adds, “I’ve heard hundreds of ambassadors say that Ottawa is fortunate to have protected its green space.”
Others, however, are not as convinced.
John Taylor, a history professor at Carleton University, says the NCC overstates its role in shaping Ottawa and preserving its natural setting.
“Whether or not the NCC existed, Ottawa would still have had to make the conversion from wood-based industries to something else, and may have opted to create scenic green spaces to increase tourism,” Taylor says.
“There are many other institutions involved in the planning of Ottawa besides the NCC, like the Region and the Department of Public Works,” he adds.
Ottawa Improvement
Commission (1899 to 1927):
When Ottawa became the capital of Canada in 1867, it was a remote village whose economy depended on lumber- yards and paper mills. Governor General Lord Dufferin described Ottawa in the late 19th century as:
“Very desolate … a jumble of brand new houses and shops, and a wilderness of wooden shanties spread along either side of a broad strip of mud.”
In 1899, Sir Wilfird Laurier, impressed by a recent tour of European cities, created a Crown corporation, called the Ottawa Improvement Commission, a predecessor to the NCC, to try to beautify Ottawa.
With a budget of $60,000, the commission’s mission was to acquire, maintain and improve public parks, squares, streets, avenues, drives or thoroughfares, and erect public buildings. The first task of the commission was to remove warehouses, sheds, lumberyards and piles of construction material alongside the riverbanks and the Rideau Canal. The commission also started the Queen Elizabeth Driveway, the first of the scenic drives, and took over maintenance of Rockcliffe Park.
Federal District Commission (1927 to 1959):
Parliament granted the commission more power and a bigger budget in 1927, to help shape the rapidly modernizing capital. It also changed its name to the Federal District Commission and expanded its jurisdiction to include parts of Quebec.
From 1934 on, the commission was responsible for maintaining and landscaping all federal lands in the capital, including the grounds of Parliament Hill.
During this era, the commission built Champlain Bridge, installed the National War Memorial at Confederation Square and created Gatineau Park.
In 1950, the commission hired French planner, Jacques Gréber, who proposed an elaborate plan for the capital.
His idea was to build a capital that would function smoothly as a modern city and, at the same time, work as an inspiring capital.
The Gréber Plan had five recommendations: relocation of railways out of the downtown core, extension of parkways along regional waterways, decentralization of federal office buildings out of the downtown, expansion of Gatineau Park and creation of the Greenbelt.
From a few years before the implementation of the Gréber plan to the present day, the history of the commission has been filled with controversies.
“So the story from 1945 onward is largely a chronicle of action and reaction, challenge and response, between the planning body set up by the federal government and the corporation of the City of Ottawa and of the adjacent municipalities,” Eggleston writes.
National Capital Commission (1959 to present):
In 1958, Parliament renamed the organization the National Capital Commission and granted it greater planning authority and control over more land, from 2,330 to 4,660 sq.km.
In the late 1950s, belching smoke from steam trains gave the city an industrial atmosphere.
Following the Gréber Plan, railway lines were ripped out of the heart of the city and replaced with roads and parkways.
In the 1960s, the NCC acquired land circling the city, to create the Greenbelt, with the purposes of maintaining an area of transition between rural landscape and town, and confining urban sprawl.
Taylor says the Greenbelt did not succeed in constraining the city’s growth and has created many structural and environmental problems.
“Kanata, Nepean, Gloucester, have all straddled the Greenbelt…creating problems for servicing, since the city has to run buses and hydro out to those areas,” Taylor says.
“Given the thousands of cars that have to cross it every day, many would say that the Greenbelt is a poor trade-off for the environment.”
In 1969, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau extended the borders of the National Capital Region to include Hull and parts of Outaouais, and began the transfer of federal government office buildings to Hull.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, the NCC started building recreational pathways throughout the capital and created Confederation Boulevard as a ceremonial route in the downtown.
In 1988 Parliament decreed a new mandate for the NCC. According to the 1988 Federal Land Use Plan the NCC would focus not only on building the capital but also on using it as a national meeting place and as a stage for national events and celebrations.
Controversy and the National Capital Commission:
Today, the NCC owns 10 per cent of the land in the capital and had a budget of over $90 million in 1998-1999.
The NCC has both a ceremonial planning function and an urban planning role.
Conflict between the grandiose plans of the NCC and the concerns of the residents of the capital continue unabated.
“You can’t be an agent of change and expect people to love you. I never minded controversies. Debate is part of democracy — it helps us to arrive at better decisions,” Pigott says.