Windmill Development Group and Dream Unlimited Corp. launched “Kanaal” on Nov. 6, the first of numerous planned condo projects on the Ottawa side of their controversial Zibi development on the Chaudière Islands.
The developers saw significant consumer interest at the Kanaal showroom Saturday, said Windmill executive Rodney Wilts, in the first round of sales.
That project, and the rest of the huge Zibi development, now has the go-ahead after the Ottawa Municipal Board denied a high-profile appeal on Nov. 16 from a group of objectors led by renowned aboriginal architect Douglas Cardinal. Cardinal is known for designing the Canadian Museum of History and Ottawa’s Wabana Centre.
Free the Falls and five others, including Cardinal, filed the appeal in December 2014, arguing the land around the Chaudière Falls is sacred to First Nations because of its deep historical association with tobacco rituals and other indigenous activities focused around its once-turbulent waters.
William Commanda — an internationally recognized Algonquin elder, environmentalist and indigenous activist — died in 2011 with the dream of restoring these islands to their natural state in the hands of indigenous peoples. He wanted to showcase peace by bringing people together, making an aboriginal centre on Victoria Island, which Cardinal already designed.
The OMB decision stated the appeal was “well-intended,” but, “consist of mere apprehensions raised by the Appellants that are not worthy of the adjudicative process.” The provincial panel decided the protestors’ objections did not merit a full hearing.
Free the Falls has launched an appeal of the decision continuing a second set of proceedings at the Ontario Divisional Court to stop the Zibi development, which will begin in February.
Peter Stockdale of Free the Falls says the group is determined to halt the project and is confident in doing so.
The Kanaal condominium village at Zibi — an Algonquin word meaning river — is to be built on the south side of Chaudière Island on unceded Algonquin territory. The developers plan to celebrate the long history and industrial heritage of the site honouring First Nations and the land’s significance in Ottawa’s lumber industry.
This development is designed to have 26-stacked condos, 35 apartments and a public square filled with community facilities and retail stores, as well as bike paths and trails giving public access to the Chaudière Falls for the first time in more than 150 years.
“We’re also putting in place a heritage interpretive plan that we’ve been working on throughout the site that tells the rich history,” says Wilts. “Starting with of course the First Nations, but also telling the story of the national capital region as it related to lumber and industry and of course the history.”
Stockdale says the promise to share the Aboriginal people’s culture and history is a great thing but is “extinguishing the Aboriginal reality.” He says the land is moving from “lumber industrialism to condo industrialism” and is “just part of the process that we settlers have put in place hundreds of years ago.”
The site, adds Stockdale, is a 5,000 year-old sacred meeting place woven into the culture and language of the Anishinabe people and should be kept as such.
Representatives of the Algonquin-Anishinabe people are working with the designers of the condos to make sure their story is told accurately while highlighting the values of the Anishinabe people in the environment and community. The history of the waterfall and the Algonquin-Anishinabe’s spiritual beliefs will be displayed.
Wilts says the developers are also working with the Canadian Museum of History to tell the story of industrial growth and labour history in this area.
Construction of Kanaal is expected to begin this spring.