Lansdowne 2.0 Gets Up to $22 Million in Ottawa's 2025 Budget

While we're increasing the bus passes of seniors by 60%, to raise $820,000.

Over the next three weeks, I will be publishing a number of short commentaries on the 2025 Ottawa Budget for paid subscribers to this or the Fix Your City newsletter.

This first short commentary is available to everyone. If you are not already a paid subscriber but value this work, I would be grateful for your support.

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Christmas comes early for Lansdowne 2.0

Budgets are about priorities

Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe says that “affordability” is his top priority for the City’s 2025 budget. That’s why he is keeping tax increases to only 3.9%.

To keep those tax increases as low as possible, the City is cutting costs and raising revenues wherever it can.

You have heard about the debacle of raising the cost of bus passes for seniors. The City’s latest proposal, coming to transit committee on Monday, is to only increase seniors’ bus passes by 60% (as opposed to the original 120%).

The only 60% increase will raise the cost of a monthly bus pass for seniors from $49 to $79, while contributing a modest $820,000 to transit revenues.

How much for Lansdowne 2.0?

In an affordability crisis, you’d think that everyone would be tightening their belts.

But apparently that belt tightening does not include Lansdowne 2.0.

I have been asking City Hall a simple question: how much does this Budget give to Lansdowne 2.0?

They haven’t answered me yet, but someone else who asked the same question got the answer that the Budget includes some amount of the $22 million for Lansdowne 2.0 design work that Council approved in November 2023.

So there could be up to $22 million for Lansdowne 2.0 in this budget.

(The amount could be even a few million higher, but that’s a discussion for another day.¹)

Surely some of that $22 million was spent in 2024. So how much are we planning to spend on Lansdowne 2.0 design work in 2025?

Buried in the Budget

I found the following reference to Lansdowne 2.0 buried on pages 3-4 of the Environment and Climate Change Committee (Tax Supported) Draft Budget Book:

Which corresponds to the following expenditure table:

It sounds like 3 projects (Adisoke library, ROPEC water treatment facility and Lansdowne 2.0) are spending about $19 million on design and construction in 2025. Much of that is salaries, plus up to $2.7 million in material and services, which I’m guessing is largely consultants.

How much of that is for Lansdowne, or the library, or the water treatment facility?

Time for some budget transparency

Maybe this is all a misunderstanding.

The City can clear it up by simply answering the question: how much is Budget 2025 spending on Lansdowne 2.0?

Say the City’s only Lansdowne spending is the $9 million in the Design and Construction Facilities budget line. Even that would be something that councillors should debate as part of budget trade-offs.

Given that we are asking seniors, students, youth, and indeed all transit riders, to pay more to ride the bus, we should be looking to trim costs everywhere.

Budgets are about priorities. I’d like some transparency around where the city’s priorities really are.

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If you have concerns about Lansdowne 2.0, then join over 4,000 other residents and sign the petition at Better Ottawa, calling on the city to hold a binding referendum before spending half a billion dollars to renovate a sports stadium.

1. There is a further $2.6 million in debt provisioning for Lansdowne 2.0 in Budget 2025, however, it is unclear how the City accounts for this under its modified-accrual accounting practices, and whether this is classified as a budget expenditure or not.