On the same day the city auditor-general approved the plans for Lansdowne Park, a group of citizens gathered to form their own public meeting about the proposed redevelopment. Most who attended weren't happy about it.
"How they do things is very important to us. And what we see here is a process that just reeks with unfairness," said Bob McKinley of the Rural Council of Ottawa-Carleton.
"When the private sector is engaged in dealing with public assests they should have to compete for them," he added.
Accusations of sole-sourcing
Some of the 400 people in this room used strong language, going as far as to call the proposal from the Ottawa Sports Entertainment Group a backroom deal.
Their plan calls for the park to become both a stadium and a retail centre, with no big box stores but many smaller outlets. The stadium's capacity will be 24,000 people, and the area would have 1,200 parking spaces.
The project should be completed by June 2013, if approved.
Not too late for protest, say organizers
Organizers said the meeting is to prove Lansdowne is far from a done deal, even though the final vote is just over a week away.
"I think it's not late in the game at all," said Martin Canning, organizer of Friends of Lansdowne. "I think it's appropriate. I think it's timely. We're seeing that with the amount of folks showing up."
"We care about the development in Lansdowne over in Kanata because we are citizens of Ottawa and we share this big bird here," said Gord Henderson of the Kanata-Beaverbrook Community Association.
Council will vote on the proposal June 28. Lansdowne Live organizer Roger Greenberg announced about a dozen retailers are already interested.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Stefan Keyes
