Construction thread

Good grief.

The Glebe had "frantic" birds in their neighborhood. Get a load of this video. I had to fast forward a few times, I couldn't take it.

[url=http://www.openfile.ca/ottawa/blog/2012/sylvia-holden-park-tree-cutting-resume-june-11-protest-video-circulates-youtube]http://www.openfile.ca/ottawa/blog/2012 ... es-youtube[/url]

Sorry but that was a bad move. For four years the City and OSEG had public opinion on their side. This could end up being a game changer. It was probably a mistake but this is not good.

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I wouldn't call it a game changer. They need clean up filthy, toxic soil that is so dangerous that is can't be removed on windy days or transported by road. This necessitates removing some of the trees. Spin it that way. This was always part of the plan, the construction company just jumped the gun a little bit, for which they have publically apologized. Notice will be provided, and the trees will be gone by June 10th. That's all much closer to the truth than what is coming out of the Glebe.

Besides, public opinion is so firmly against the FoL and the Glebe that a couple of over-dramatic mothers taping over their kids' mouths isn't going to change anything.

Got that right. Bang on. It’s been part of the plan all along to remove those trees, and replace them later. But these NIMBYs act like it was done without them ever being told. The only thing they weren’t told was the timing, which would have happened this week. Unfortunately, the construction company goofed in an attempt to get ahead of schedule (good intent from a project management perspective, but they messed up on the dependencies). Oh well. Things happen.

Too bad we couldn’t have taped over a few other mouths over the past few years…

Had the NIMBY's been told ahead of time, they probably would have used that info to organize a protest to try and stop the removal of the trees at that time.

Yep.

One bird.

OTTAWA — The councillor who represents the area encompassing Lansdowne Park planned to make an early appearance at the site Monday morning as confusion reigned over whether the federal government would be stepping in to prevent trees from being removed.

Capital Councillor David Chernushenko said Sunday night that based on an email area residents forwarded to him, he was unsure whether the city would be able to proceed with cutting down the trees on Holmwood Avenue.

The email, a copy of which was forwarded to the Citizen by resident Diane McIntyre, said the city would not be able to remove the trees because officials with Environment Canada, which oversees the agency responsible for protecting endangered species, had found a migratory bird living in one.

McIntyre, who demonstrated last week against the removal of the trees, had asked the federal government to check the site to ensure the city was following the rules. She received the email Friday afternoon, after employees from the agency visited the site.

City officials acknowledged McIntyre’s claim that Environment Canada staff had visited the site “at the request of a third party? but denied the municipality would not be able to continue the work.

“Claims that a stop work order has been issued for the City of Ottawa’s tree removal plan at the Lansdowne Park Redevelopment Project are false,? wrote Marco Manconi, the manager of design and construction at Lansdowne, in a statement emailed Sunday.

Environment Canada officials would be at the site Monday morning to ensure the city was following the rules, wrote Manconi.

But the email from Environment Canada said federal officials would be there to stop the removal of the trees because that would break a federal law designed to protect migratory species.

The email said wildlife service officials found a cardinal

on the street and they have “good reason to believe? there were chipping

sparrows to the east of where the trees were chopped down last week.

“The Canadian Wildlife Service will need to contact the City of Ottawa to inform them that work (tree cutting) cannot continue along Holmwood Avenue (Sylvia Holden Park) because we now have documented evidence that Migratory Birds are nesting in this area,? said the email signed by Martin Thabault, an operations manager with the wildlife enforcement division of Environment Canada, the federal government department responsible for the matter.

The Citizen could not reach Thabault for comment Sunday afternoon.

Chernushenko said he hadn’t heard from city staff or Environment Canada on the matter and intended to be at the site at around 7 a.m. Monday, the earliest time the work could start, to sort the whole thing out.

The city commissioned the contractor responsible for removing the trees, EllisDon, to inspect the site last week to see if there were any birds that might result in them breaking federal law if the trees were chopped down, he said.

They determined they would not be breaking the relevant migratory bird law and ruled the work could proceed.

Work crews abruptly stopped removing the trees last week because the city had not informed residents of the date when they were to be knocked down. The removal was then rescheduled for Monday morning.

EllisDon later apologized for cutting the trees down when they weren’t supposed to.

The tree removal is part of the plan to redesign Lansdowne Park so that new elements, such as commercial buildings, can be introduced.

The city needs to knock down roughly 60 trees so it can begin “remediation? of the surrounding soil, wrote city spokesman Michael FitzPatrick in an email last week. That is part of work that needs to be done before crews can move the Horticulture Building. City manager Kent Kirkpatrick said last month the building needs to be relocated before any redevelopment of Lansdowne can begin.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology … z1xU58d9ga

Using all the tricks in the book. Looks like some civil servant got a little ahead of himself.

And now apparently, treest are going down as we speak. Another swing and a miss.

They'll be replaced about three times over during the next couple of years. But those on the street won't have them directly across their front yard, so it's a tragedy. :roll:

Ugh. From Twitter:

Residents are crying as the first tree falls. #ottnews

What a bunch of drama queens.

And migratory birds in the area? Turns out there was one bird in one tree - a cardinal. Hardly rare. Or endangered. (I’m surprised that they didn’t have the by-laws officers try to evict them. They’re kind of loud.)

Myess, Myesss, their anguish sustains me!!!

better keep those poison trees there, thats great for the enviornment

As much as I want the stadium completed, I’m not foolish enough to believe the trees are bad trees. Anyone who followed the expansion of Molson stadium in Montreal will recall how the trees that were in the way got labelled ‘rotten and dead’ too. How convenient. Lol.
Whenever there is a tree that is in the way of construction, it coincidentally is a poisoned/dead/rotten/bad tree. :lol:
It doesn’t bother me, though, because they always get replaced. Often times, they add more trees than they removed.

They are trees!!! Plant some more. I’ve planted over a half million of them, I guess that has made me much less sentimental about them.

That’s the case here. I don’t recall the exact numbers but they’re going from something like 260 to 880.

The complaint is that the 880 are not going to be MATURE trees. There’s no winning.

One part of the article states that Environment Canada found one cardinal nesting in one tree, and also heard sparrows in the trees. Later, it states that Environment Canada found a single migratory bird nesting in one of the trees, but not one of the ones slated for removal. I’m hoping that these two statements are talking about different birds. If not, I think someone at Environment Canada needs to learn a thing or two about birds, as in which birds are migratory and which are not. (FYI - Cardinals, like the infamous African swallow, are non-migratory.)

Wait. Trees were cut down in order to create the neighbourhood? Here’s a suggestion. Tear down all the houses in the Glebe and plant new trees to replace the trees that were cut down all those years ago. Now there’s a cause I could get behind.

This reminds me of the character played by Farrah Fawcett in the original Cannonball Run.

Exactly, these people life in the neighbourhood but don't seem to want to talk about the trees that got taken down to build their houses, how many birds and other wildlife got displaced for them?

Sure it sucks they are losing their little area for their kids to run and play, but am I to understand that none of these people have trees in their yards for their kids to climb?
and psh about the new trees not being "mature" they will become mature. It's not like they are clear cutting a forest, Lansedowne to my understanding has been a sports and entertainment area for a long long time, around 100 years. it's not like some park that is a duck pond, some benches and a kids soccer field, it has an arena and stadium on it, it's not like adding retail/commercial into the mix is shocking.
Not to mention these residents have known for years this was going to happen.

Here you go, homies. I don't tend to talk about my site and blog here much, because I don't want to come off as though I'm just here to "advertise", but this was the easiest way to do it, I think.

http://capitalregionfootball.info/blog/?p=3065

I can't believe they are moving that building. What a joke. That thing should be thorn down.