Search string: "landlord"
Matches found: 23Tuesday, July 8, 2014
OK, that's enough animation
The popup bistro on the Canal is learning what a pain it is to have the NCC for a landlord. From the Sun:
8 Locks Flat is located on the east side of the canal across from the University of Ottawa, just north of the Corktown Bridge. It was allowed to open under a three-year trial by the NCC starting in 2012.
Bistro owner Colin Goodfellow said by e-mail Monday the two sides started lease negotiations but the NCC recently withdrew. According to Goodfellow, he has to remove everything from the site by the end of October.
The NCC e-mailed a statement to the Sun suggesting talks for the 2015 season are still happening.
"NCC remains committed to animating the shorelines. Discussions with the proponent of 8 Locks Flat are ongoing but the NCC cannot discuss negotiations in public by respect for all the parties involved, as per our usual practice," the agency says.
[...]8 Locks Flat has operated on a red cedar deck overlooking the canal. It has been a new site for live music and other events. In many ways, it has been an answer to calls for more food-and-beverage attractions on the canal, as an addition to places like Canal Ritz and the Dows Lake pavilion.
Sun: Future of canal bistro up in the air [8 July 2014]
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Mayors not ready to give up on NCC yet
The Ottawa and Gatineau mayors have joined forces to criticize the NCC and demand a seat at the table. The Citizen's David Reevely reports:
The National Capital Commission doesn't know enough about local affairs and is getting in the way of progress, the mayors of Ottawa and Gatineau charged Wednesday, and putting them on its board is their solution.
After their first formal meeting since Gatineau's Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin was elected last fall, he and Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson emerged with a list of grievances, from "relentless obstruction in the City of Ottawa's efforts to create a world-class transit system for the National Capital Region" to the "unilateral decision to close Rue Gamelin" in Gatineau. They signed it and sent it to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, demanding reforms that should start with adding an elected official from each city council to the 15-member NCC board.
[...]The commission's refusal to accept Ottawa's plans for running a light-rail line along the Ottawa River near Highland Park clearly angered Watson the most. The board's constant demands for the city to spend more on the project, which is already estimated to cost $980 million, are just unreasonable, he said, calling them "micromanagement and second-guessing." He scorned the commission's demands in the first stage of the rail line, now under construction - which went as far as approving the shrubs the city intends to plant around its new stations.
Watson also complained about the state of Sparks Street, where the NCC is a major landlord and famously indifferent to the needs of small businesses. Few restaurateurs want to invest in outfitting kitchens if they can only get the short-term leases the NCC insists on, for instance.
[...]The fact the NCC board had an open meeting last week, where member Robert Tennant got involved in the debate on the city's rail plans, helped expose that Tennant's private urban-planning firm also works for a client whose development plans are directly implicated in the rail project, Watson pointed out. More openness and accountability is always a good thing, he argued.
The mayor said he's not worried that an attack on the commission will make getting its co-operation on things like the rail project more difficult.
"Are you suggesting there's going to be retributions because we dared to offer a way to open up and make the NCC more accountable?" he shot back in response to a reporter's question. "I think that would backfire on the federal government, if they're going to all of a sudden start saying, 'These mayors are asking too much and we're going to take out on them, charging more for parking in Gatineau Park and we're going to make it more difficult for light rail.' I hope they don't go down that path because I don't think the public would be too pleased and impressed with that.'
Chairman Mills, however, fired right back, sticking to the tiresomely familiar 'we're doing it for all of Canada' line. From the CBC:
The chair and interim CEO of the National Capital Commission brushed off suggestions the organization meddles in local affairs and said they do not support the idea of having municipal representation on the commission's board.
[...]He said as the caretaker of the 10 per cent of land in the region owned by the federal government, the NCC should have that authority. While Mills said the current negotiations with the city are progressing well, in the past he said they have had to fight to keep rail lines from going up along the Ottawa River.
"The NCC needs to retain the authority to stop bad ideas for federal land like a railroad on the riverfront," he said.
Ah yes, the railway on the riverfront. Well, he's got a point - it could impede access to the freeway.
Citizen: Ottawa, Gatineau mayors demand seats on NCC board [29 January 2014]
CBC: Jim Watson, Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin call on PM to change NCC [29 January 2014]
Mayors' Joint Letter [29 January 2014]
CBC: NCC rebuffs call from mayors for more local voice [30 January 2014]
OBJ: Mayor Watson demands more local representation on the NCC board [30 January 2014]
Statement from NCC Chair Russell Mills [30 January 2014]
Sun: City of Ottawa is being hijacked by NCC without regard to cost or consequences [31 January 2014]
Friday, October 4, 2013
Dewar: NCC blindsided
NDP member for Ottawa Centre Paul Dewar feels the NCC been done wrong when the government transferred responsibility for national celebrations to Heritage. Meanwhile, the employees involved have made the move to Heritage while the NCC must now look for smaller digs. From the Citizen:
The significant shrinking of the NCC's role, revealed in a couple of lines deep in the federal budget, came without consultation or warning, Dewar says, something that speaks to the federal government's view of the agency and its relevance.
"The day the budget was announced was when people at the NCC became aware of this," Dewar said. "They can't tell you this, but I will: They blindsided the NCC."
The employees affected by that change - 81 full-time and 13 students - moved from the NCC headquarters in the Chambers Building on Confederation Square this week to begin work at the Department of Canadian Heritage offices in Gatineau. With a smaller staff and reduced responsibilities, as well as a shrinking budget, the NCC is planning to move out of the centrally-located heritage building it has occupied for nearly two decades.
When the employees - who make up about 18 per cent of the NCC's workforce - moved to Heritage, many of the NCC's responsibilities moved with them. Heritage will now take over responsibility for running Canada Day celebrations, Winterlude, the Christmas lights program, national commemorations "to be established in the capital region", public art commemorations and visitor services, among other things. A number of NCC employees working in communications, IT and finance also made the move, which leaves the NCC with responsibility for Gatineau Park, the pathways, parkways and property maintenance.
The Department of Canadian Heritage will create a Capital Experience Branch "to ensure a broad national experience is brought to all celebrations in the National Capital Region," said a department spokesman by email.
Meanwhile, a series of budget cuts have reduced the money the NCC gets from Parliament by about $9.5 million a year.
[...]Dewar said the move is hollowing out the NCC instead of reforming it and enlivening its mandate.
"What we are left with is (an organization) that is going to be a landlord taking care of mowing the lawn and washing the windows. Clearly that is not sufficient.
"They are hollowing out a resource, taking money away and putting it into Heritage without any real understanding as to what the effects will be."
A landlord taking care of mowing the lawn and washing the windows - sounds like a good match. Let the hollowing out continue!
Citizen: NCC 'blindsided' by cuts in federal budget: Dewar [4 October 2013]
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Bookstore location remains vacant
Last year, Nicholas Hoare Books closed after the NCC raised its rent. The store remains vacant. David Reevely reports in the Citizen:
Nine months after Nicholas Hoare's Sussex Drive bookstore closed because the National Capital Commission wanted to nearly double its rent, the storefront remains empty.
"The NCC is currently in negotiations with interested parties," said spokesman Cédric Pelletier. "The location itself is popular."
At the same time, he said, the commission is "not in a position to provide a timeline" for when it might be rented. The NCC intends to find a tenant who'll pay market rent, though Pelletier wouldn't specify what that might be.
A flyer from Colliers, the commercial real-estate company, invites tenants to rent the space at 419 Sussex Dr. for about $6,500 a month to start, just more than Nicholas Hoare was paying as it ended its tenancy.
"It was a little more than $6,000, all-in," said Hoare last week from his warehouse in Montreal. "They wanted to raise it 72 per cent immediately and have it rise to a 93-per-cent increase by the end of five years. ... You should never take a lease that goes up that much."
The NCC has never confirmed the terms it was offering except to say that it made a business decision to charge market rent, but a 72-per-cent increase to a $6,000 monthly rent would have had the store paying $10,320 a month by now. Pelletier again declined last week to confirm or deny Hoare's numbers.
[...]Hoare is still angry about the way his relationship with the NCC broke down. He and the commission were good for each other, he said, with the bookstore providing an anchor for a stretch of Sussex that doesn't have much retail activity. "They were extremely keen to have us," he said. "They sought us out, not the other way around." The rent hike left him feeling "betrayed," he said.
Another frustration was the commission's insistence on a lease of just a few years: the custom shelves and lights and other accoutrements the store had, so essential to its boutique atmosphere, were expensive and Hoare wanted a long lease to amortize the cost. He has a 20-year lease for his store in Toronto, he said, but the NCC wouldn't ordinarily agree to more than three years at a time in Ottawa.
[UPDATE] Two days later, the Citizen has followed up with an editorial:
But Wellington Street is not the only part of the city in which federally owned buildings are shuttered. There is Sparks Street, which is perennially underutilized. And there is Sussex Drive, where the location that used to be home to Nicholas Hoare Books remains empty, as the Citizen's David Reevely reported, nine months after the popular shop closed and the owner complained that the National Capital Commission was raising rents out of reach.
The NCC says it is negotiating with interested parties to lease 419 Sussex Dr. According to a real estate listing, the price is $6,500 a month, just over what Hoare was paying when, he says, the NCC told him it was raising rent so that it would be up by 93 per cent after five years. It would have been paying more than $10,000 a month by now. Another frustration for the bookseller was the NCC's refusal to sign a long-term lease.
The NCC, for its part, says it is looking for the market rate to lease the buildings. Which is a good thing if the NCC is going to be a landlord. But why should it be a landlord on Sussex Drive or Sparks Street at all? Is there significant benefit, financial or otherwise, being derived for either the City of Ottawa or the Capital of Canada? Or for the NCC?
Last word to Citizen letter-writer Michael J. DiCola:
Regarding the article about the National Capital Commission's indoor vacant lot where one of the city's best bookstores used to stand, the more I read about the screwing over - there are no other words for it - administered to this business by the NCC, the angrier I get.
[...]The NCC's incredible short-sightedness in making it untenable for a longtime visitor magnet to continue operating in a very popular part of the city is a perfect bureaucratic example of a perfectly bureaucratic organization's reaping what it sowed. Anything for a buck. Well don't spend it all in one place, NCC.
Citizen: Nine months later, former Nicholas Hoare location on Sussex still vacant [26 January 2013]
Citizen: Problem landlord [28 January 2013]
Citizen: NCC's short-sightedness [29 January 2013]
Thursday, January 17, 2013
NCC looking for better ways to manage its rental properties
The NCC, never the most popular of landlords, is renewing its contract for property management. From the Citizen:
The National Capital Commission is tweaking the way it manages its $100-million portfolio of rental properties. And it is inviting the property management industry to offer advice about how to do it.
The NCC rents out about 600 residential, commercial, agricultural, institutional and recreational properties in the National Capital Region.
They include about 240 single-family homes in the Greenbelt and Gatineau Park, 15 apartment units in the ByWard Market, and 94 commercial properties, many of them along Sussex Drive. There's also 5,400 hectares of agricultural land, mostly in the Greenbelt.
The properties are leased to individuals, institutions, government agencies, not-for-profit organizations and commercial operators for terms ranging from one to 99 years.
Collectively, they contributed a significant share of the $19.3 million in revenues the NCC earned in 2011-12 from rental operations and easements.
The NCC privatized its leasing and property management operations in 1996. Minto managed the rental properties until 2009, when a new contractor, Dell Management Solutions, took over.
With Dell's contract set to expire in March 2014, the NCC plans to invite bids for a new multi-year property management contract this spring, with a decision by the fall.
But this time, the NCC wants to split the contract into two parts: one for its residential properties, and the other for the commercial and other properties.
Citizen: NCC looking for better way to manage its rental properties [17 January 2013]
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
City planning committee rejects Sussex demolitions
The city's planning committee has unanimously rejected the NCC's plan to demolish heritage homes along Sussex. From the Citizen:
Two old buildings on Sussex Drive can't be demolished to widen the road where it curves east along the Ottawa River, city council's planning committee decided Tuesday morning.
[...]"It's time to stop the steady erosion of our unique and modest community," said resident Donna Kearns, one of numerous local history buffs and community-association types to argue against the move. "Each and every property is important."
She blamed the National Capital Commission, which has worked steadily to turn Sussex Drive into a major ceremonial avenue with Parliament at one end and Rideau Hall at the other, for denigrating local history in pursuit of a national goal. The commission "has behaved like the worst kind of landlord," buying up properties along Sussex and letting them fall apart because it plans to tear them down someday.
[...]if city council endorses the planning committee's vote, the city's staff and the NCC will have to come up with some combination of these moves, something Daigneault said after the meeting is a challenge they'll have to deal with.
The councillors' message couldn't have been clearer, with nearly all the committee members making a point of rejecting the plan before the vote.
"We can't say this is a heritage district and then proceed to figure out how to reduce the heritage district," Rideau-Rockcliffe Councillor Peter Clark said.
"The priority seems to be cars. It's almost as if the NCC's living in a fantasy world, where protecting the national interest is the same as protecting the interests of cars," agreed Kitchissippi's Katherine Hobbs.
Citizen: NCC can't demolish houses to widen Sussex Drive, planning committee rules [23 October 2012]
CBC: City committee rejects plan to demolish historic Sussex buildings [24 October 2012]
Sun: Committee rejects NCC plan to demolish Sussex Dr. homes [23 October 2012]
EMC: Lowertown wins fight to save Sussex homes [27 October 2012]
Friday, March 16, 2012
Raise my rent - bookstore edition
Much ado about the announcement that Sussex Street bookseller Nicholas Hoare will close rather than pay the 72 per cent increase demanded by his landlord, the NCC. The NCC is one of the largest landlords in the region, with extensive property holdings and no shortage of unhappy tenants. The confusion stems from people mistaking the NCC's role - that somehow all that bumph on their website about protecting and building a capital means the NCC is something other than just another landlord. In fact, they are notably incompetent landlords. The Citizen's editorial sums it up best:
There are many reasons why bookstores are struggling these days, reasons that have nothing to do with the NCC. A Nicholas Hoare store in Montreal is, reportedly, also set to close.
But in Ottawa, it doesn't help that the NCC is raising the rent by 72 per cent, according to what an employee told the Citizen. Other stores and restaurants in the area complain that the NCC, like some other landlords, requires businesses to pay extra whenever their revenues exceed a set amount. It's an approach that penalizes businesses for doing well.
The NCC does have a responsibility to get market value for its properties, and a spokesman points out that anything else might be criticized as an unfair business practice. It's a fair point, but it illuminates the contradiction inherent in state ownership of commercial properties. If the NCC's bound to push rents to the limit the market will bear, the private sector could do that on its own.
If there's a need for a state landlord in the area, there must be considerations other than money in play. If not, Canadians should rethink whether it really needs the federal government to act as a commercial landlord, especially at a time when government should be getting smaller.
It's true that bookstores have to adapt to a changing market, but there's no reason to make it even more difficult for them to do so. Bookstores are community spaces, not just businesses. That's the kind of thing the NCC should care about.
If the NCC treats its landlord role as a simple commercial operation, Canadians should question why it has that role at all.
Why indeed.
Citizen: Unforgiving landlord [15 March 2012]
Citizen: Closing puts focus on NCC as landlord [15 March 2012]
Post: Bookseller Nicholas Hoare addresses Ottawa store closure [15 March 2012]
Citizen: NCC rent demand angers bookseller [16 March 2012]
Citizen: Bookseller Nicholas Hoare says negotiations with NCC 'like dealing with a brick wall.' [16 March 2012]
CBC: Ottawa yacht club calls NCC expensive landlord [20 March 2012]
NCC Watch: NCC landlord archive
Friday, April 19, 2011
More NCC farming tenants get out of Dodge
Hugh Adami in the Citizen catches up with some Greenbelt farming tenants originally profiled last May, and, predictably, finds more farcical goings on:
If the National Capital Commission is going to neglect its farm properties like the one it leased to tenants Eliane Michèle Crématy and Anna Lamontagne, it should give serious thought to getting out of this agricultural venture altogether.
But that doesn't seem likely, given the NCC hype over its Greenbelt master plan review. A review update this month says a couple of strategies will be to "protect and expand farm assets and build infrastructure" and "engage passionate people (as tenants) and build partnerships" with them.
Tell that to Crématy and Lamontagne, who were featured in a Citizen story last May about the disconnect between the NCC and farm tenants. Despite a decrepit barn that was virtually unusable for their plan to board horses, they were determined to wait for repairs. But today, they are among a growing number of former farm tenants who bailed well before their leases expired.
Bungling bureaucrats appear to be one problem. But Dell Management Solutions, under contract with the NCC to oversee the 60-plus Greenbelt farms, deserves a good kick in the pants, too. Its property managers can be elusive at times and then full of false assurances. To be fair, it was a property manager from Minto, which had the contract before Dell took over in 2009, that got the whole mess rolling. She's the one who assured Crématy and Lamontagne that the barn was in good shape and ready for use.
Crématy and Lamontagne say afterward, they were promised repeatedly that their concerns with the barn at their Ramsayville Road farm would be addressed, but nothing ever happened.
Has the NCC apologized to Crématy and Lamontagne for wasting 2.5 years of their lives - which they say has led to various stress-related health problems? They lost thousands of dollars in projected revenues and cashed in about $17,000 of registered retirement savings for maintenance work, a good deal of it unexpected.
Instead of expressing its regrets, the NCC is showing the couple that bad landlords don't like to lose. It is seeking $6,000 to $7,000 in rent arrears, which the couple would have been able to pay had they not been hit with financial setbacks due to an unusable barn. The couple, now renting a private farm in Russell, was paying $1,330 a month for the 10-hectare NCC property.
The NCC says the couple should have inspected the barn thoroughly before signing the lease, as repairs to all buildings, except the farmhouse, are the tenants' responsibility.
How can that be fair? The barn's roof alone would cost $25,000 to $30,000 to replace. Adds Crématy: They would not have signed the lease had they been told the truth.
That's some partnership.
Citizen: Closing the barn door after tenants are gone [19 April 2011]
Citizen: Greenbelt grievances [23 May 2010]
NCC Watch: Greenbelt farming archive
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Homeowner in battle with NCC over blocked drains
More landlord from hell hijinks courtesy the NCC. From the Sun:
How bad is the smell? So bad that Sweet's had to install a big $16,000 air-cleansing power vacuum machine in his basement to suck in the particles from the sewage gas.
When it comes to the air we breathe, Sweet, 46, is an expert: He's the owner and CEO of Air-Medics, an indoor air quality consultants and cleaning company.
"I'm not going away. If I have to be a thorn in their side forever, I will be."
He's talking about the National Capital Commission. It owns the land on which his house stands. It's a two-bedroom bungalow on Braddish St. near Bank St. and Conroy Rd. He bought it about 20 years ago for $150,000. He owes about $90,000 on the mortgage.
The NCC says he's responsible for his septic system. He knows that. The problem for Rob Sweet is this: Why is the NCC not responsible for his screwed-up septic system that, he says, wouldn't be screwed-up, causing sewage and health problems, had the NCC not decided some seven years ago to fill in the drainage ditch along the road at the left end of his driveway?
The NCC left the drainage ditch to the right of his driveway intact, but when a garage on a property to the left of his driveway was torn down, the commission had the ditch on that side filled in.
[...]Sweet says there wouldn't be a problem had the ditch not been filled in. What he finds strange is that the NCC now claims ditches - such as the one in question - are not its responsibility, even though it's the NCC that filled it in.
Mr. Sweet has been inspecting other properties in the area and has posted more info on his blog at Air Medics.
Sun: Raising a big stink [20 March 2011]
Air Medics blog: Living in the Green Belt on NCC Managed Property [30 March 2011]
NCC Watch: Greenbelt farming archive
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Greenbelt farming gong show continues
Hugh Adami profiles another would-be Greenbelt farmer in his Public Citizen column at the Citizen:
All Steve Fournier wanted to do was raise and sell chickens and ducks, and host school field trips at the farm he rents from the National Capital Commission.
He wasn't expecting the Green Acres sitcom horrors that have been part of everyday life since he and his wife, Elizabeth, became NCC tenants in 2009.
[...]Rent for the 5.7-hectare property is about $1,000 a month. It includes a barn, a garage/shed and a farmhouse. He knew the barn was basically useless unless he carried out major repairs.
But the couple had no idea what awaited them in the farmhouse. They only discovered its many problems - the worst being a leaking foundation - after moving in.
[...]They discovered the leaky foundation problem soon after moving in. Last winter, several holes were drilled into the basement floor so water could drain. But water continued coming in every time it rained or during a thaw. Eventually, the moisture led to black mould throughout the basement and a vile smell that ruined a family get-together last Thanksgiving.
Fournier called Ottawa's health department, which inspected the basement and ordered the NCC to clean it.
The mould was chemically removed. Wet insulation that partially covered the basement walls was replaced last month, and the new insulation was covered with drywall. But work on the foundation footings was not done and water continues to seep in, even from areas under the new drywall.
The couple was forced to throw out clothes, furniture and many other belongings they had stored downstairs.
Besides the problem foundation, the couple had to put up with a faulty furnace last winter that cost them $1,100 in heating oil in one month alone. And the fireplace can't be used. It's stuffed with insulation to keep out cold air.
Some doors don't close properly, and there are cracks in the walls. Fournier says the failure by contractors to grout shower tiles in the upstairs bathroom caused water to seep down the wall. Eventually, a small section of ceiling on the main floor caved in.
There have been electrical problems - three fuses blew at the same time - and the septic system backed up last April. Just recently, a rotting support beam in the basement dropped to the floor, just as Fournier was tending to another problem a few metres away.
The couple's complaints just add to the growing pile about the commission's ineptitude as a farm landlord.
Citizen: Public Citizen: Farm tenants find Green Acres [23 February 2011]
NCC Watch: Greenbelt farming archive
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
"We do value farming in the Greenbelt"
The Citizen followed up today on the plight of valued NCC farming partner Jennifer Englert, who rented a farmhouse and some acreage from the NCC in September 2009 with the expectation that she would be able to, y'know, farm. But after more than a year, the NCC never came across with a land-access permit they required. Now she has had to move out:
The faster the National Capital Commission fairly compensates Jennifer Englert for a farming venture that never got off the ground, the faster it will do the right thing.
So far, the NCC has offered her about $3,200 - the equivalent of two months rent for the commission-owned farmhouse on Ridge Road that she vacated Tuesday. The offer is a joke because it is a fraction of what she lost in anticipated revenues and money that she wasted on farm supplies, including an $18,000 tractor.
Englert waited all last year for a land-access permit from the NCC, through its property manager, Del Management Solutions, so she could begin farming 14 hectares of Greenbelt land. The permit never came.
She moved into the farmhouse in September 2009, with her young son, Jaden. She hoped her tenancy would expedite the land assignment under a separate lease with the NCC. The land was assigned to her last spring. Then came the fruitless wait for the access permit.
Not only is the NCC offer of $3,200 grossly insufficient, but it comes with a sleazy catch. If she takes the money, she has to sign an agreement that she will not pursue any claims for the bureaucratic fiasco that killed her dream. "($3,200) doesn't come close to what I've lost," says Englert, who is still calculating how much money she is out.
[...]But after acknowledging the "unfortunate situation" in early December, the NCC told The Public Citizen that it would "work hard at making sure her farming season (in 2011) can start as soon as she wishes."
NCC spokesman Jean Wolff said at the time that Englert was the type of tenant the commission wants farming its lands because of the products she was planning to grow and sell.
Obviously, that mea culpa was then. This is the NCC now: "As anybody else who wants to farm on NCC land, she can apply," said Gadbois-St-Cyr. "And the NCC will consider (her application based on its merits)."
[...]She says she cannot believe the countless miscommunications from the NCC. Even on Christmas Eve, after being initially told she could move out of the house at the end of February, as requested, she was shocked to hear that she would be responsible for the rent through next August.
She was told the NCC automatically renewed her lease for another year when it raised her rent last September.
[...]Rent for the farmhouse was $1,582 a month, and she spent hundreds more on heating and electricity. When she signed her lease, the NCC had told her propane expenses would run around $200 to $250 a month. Her propane bill this month was about $825.
Organic vegetables were going to make up a large part of Englert's farm. She was also going to cultivate seeds from a variety of organic squash plants. She was also going to grow 1.5 hectares of "cut" flowers to sell at local farmers' markets.
She was able to plant the flowers late last spring after Del Management contract manager Stephan Groleau gave Englert the go-ahead in a signed email.
She had already purchased the tractor following Groleau's assurances the permit would come at any time. But she was ordered to get off the farmland twice - once when Groleau was away and days later, after he quit the job. She was told by his replacement that Groleau didn't have the authority to allow her to farm without the permit. Englert couldn't even tend to the flowers she had planted. An acre of cut flowers, she says, could have yielded her as much as $20,000 in revenues. "I didn't get to touch them," she says.
At this point, it is worth quoting NCC CEO Marie Lemay's interview in the Citizen last May, when they ran a series on the challenges farmers in the Greenbelt face:
"Farmers can't just be tenants," she said.
"The first thing will be to sit down with them, not just talk through other people, and identify clearly what are the impediments."
The NCC leases more than 60 farms on the Greenbelt, most commonly for periods of five years at a time.
Many farmers say urban encroachment, crumbling barns and farm infrastructure, impractical leasing options and dealing with a third-party property management company hired by the NCC often leave them feeling disconnected from the NCC.
Lemay said she's heard many of the complaints before.
She used the example of new leasing arrangements as one way of building better partnerships between the NCC and its tenant farmers in the future.
"If you want people to be invested in their farming operation, then you probably want them to be living there and have an ownership of the property. Even if we're the landlords, they have to feel that they're a true partner in this," she said.
Farmers should be happy the NCC is currently reviewing its master plan for the Greenbelt, Lemay said, reiterating their importance.
"We do value farming in the Greenbelt, that's not something they should question," she said.
Looks like we have a candidate for impediment number one: issuing permits. But no doubt Jennifer Englert is thrilled the NCC is reviewing their Greenbelt master plan. Another horror story courtesy the absentee landlords at the NCC.
Citizen: Farmer's dream goes to seed [25 January 2011]
NCC Watch: NCC farm tenant high and dry [8 December 2010]
NCC Watch: Greenbelt grievances [24 May 2010]
Citizen: Bountiful opportunities for produce in Greenbelt: NCC [24 May 2010]
Friday, December 31, 2010
City appeals NCC property assessments
One of the problems running a city where all the land is owned by the federal government is those guys get to set their own taxes:
The National Capital Commission has paid about $24 million to the City of Ottawa over the past three years in payments in lieu of municipal taxes for its properties, but the city believes it is owed more money and will likely appeal to a federal panel for redress.
Higher levels of government aren't required to pay property taxes to the city, but long ago agreed to these "payments-in-lieu" so as to be fair to municipal governments' need for revenue. The catch, though, is that the federal government isn't bound by the assessments of its properties' value, which are determined by the Municipal Property Assessment Corp., a provincial government agency.
[...]Federal law allows the government to do its own property valuation and pay taxes based on that assessment. If the valuation conflicts with that of MPAC, it is often ignored.
"They don't have to pay what we invoice. They pay what they believe they should pay, and then we appeal to the panel," [deputy city treasurer Ken] Hughes said.
[...]Among the several disputed properties are:
550 Albert St., a piece of land MPAC values at $1.4 million, but the NCC says is worth only $530,000 because it's contaminated.
A piece of land on Cassels Street, near the Britannia Yacht Club, which is valued by MPAC at $2.4 million but zero by the NCC.
2010 Moodie Dr., a piece of land MPAC says is worth $132,000 but NCC says has no value because it is a bike path.
The NCC owns more than 1,400 properties in the capital, including office buildings, rental homes and land. The book value of its land holdings, buildings and infrastructure is $522.3 million.
The agency pays "PILTs" on properties it occupies or uses itself. But on those it leases or rents out, where it's acting like a regular commercial landlord, the commission pays full municipal taxes like everybody else, and collects the money from the tenants.
Citizen: NCC and city at loggerheads [31 December 2010]
Citizen: How much is this building worth? [31 December 2010]
Monday, November 15, 2010
NCC landholdings revealed
The Citizen has obtained detailed information on the NCC's large landholdings in the capital. From the Citizen:
The National Capital Commission made $19 million last year from rents on its massive property portfolio to help defray the cost of operations and keep the agency in the black, documents obtained by the Citizen show.
The NCC owns about 10 per cent of land in the capital region, more than 1,400 properties, and the very idea of a Crown corporation owning such a big slice of the city is not sitting well with critics, many of whom believe that dabbling in real estate undermines the NCC's ability to do its job as capital-builder.
"They should not have a mandate to hold, lease or develop property in order to generate revenue," says Ottawa architecture and urban planning critic Rhys Phillips.
[...]The NCC is the guardian of federal land and buildings, including such landmarks as the prime minister's residence at 24 Sussex Drive and Rideau Hall, the Governor General's home. Beyond that however, it is the single largest property owner in the capital, with holdings ranging from buildings to land, parks, fields and rental homes. All told, it owns about 470 square kilometres of land, including the Greenbelt and Gatineau Park. The land owned by the agency is valued at $277 million, while the value of its buildings and infrastructure sits at $251 million.
[...]Owning so much commercial property has long been controversial. Some argue the only reason the NCC is constantly in need of money is that it spends vast amounts managing its properties. Records show the NCC does, indeed, spend the bulk of its budget on real-estate management. Of last year's $138-million annual budget, $79.8 million, or 73 per cent of the budget, went into "real asset management and stewardship." Only a little more than $4 million went into capital planning, design and land use.
Phillips argues the NCC can only become a real capital building authority if it gets out of the commercial property business and hands landlording over to the federal Public Works Department. It would keep only those properties that have a significant national importance, such as the Greenbelt, Gatineau Park and other valuable greenspace intrinsic to the capital's identity.
A slimmed-down NCC would then be able to focus on the design and beautification of the capital.
"The NCC operates like a real-estate agency, not a capital builder. What drives their development is a real estate interest. Look at the NCC record. The decisions made are not about the quality of the capital. They are about what's commercially viable," says Phillips. "If they own a corner lot in Barrhaven, or a warehouse that they are making 250 grand a year off of, how does that serve the mandate? Unless it (property) is going to become a major gateway to the national capital or it has some other significance, they should get rid of it."
Citizen: NCC took in $19M in rent, listings show [15 November 2010]
Friday, May 24, 2010
Greenbelt grievances
The Citizen has a three-part series on farming in the greenbelt, highlighting typical problems experienced by anyone who is a tenant of the NCC:
Behind one of the barns on Eliane Michèle Crematy's farm on Ramsayville Road is the rusted carcass of a Ford truck.
The windows are smashed, the vinyl seats are slashed and the white paint has turned grey with time. A Manitoba maple tree and other weeds threaten to swallow the truck whole with their foliage.
This isn't Crematy's truck, but it's been there since the day she moved onto the farm almost two years ago.
She has asked the National Capital Commission - her landlord - to remove the truck, yet here it remains.
"It's just so hard to get somebody here to say, 'Yes, you're right, we're going to fix this,' and take action," Crematy says, letting out a long sigh.
Farmers on the Greenbelt have many gripes: urban encroachment, crumbling barns and farm infrastructure, impractical leasing options and a landlord-tenant relationship that leaves many feeling disconnected from the NCC.
But "Canada's Capital Greenbelt" - the 20,000-hectare crescent of farms, forests and wetlands that hugs the city - is supposed to be a place where Canadians can experience their rural roots and natural heritage; a place where sustainable farming and forestry are key features.
[...]Today, the NCC owns more than 60 farms, leased to tenants like Crematy through a third-party property management company.
[...]Crematy's dream for her 10-hectare farm was to board horses, do some market gardening and ease into retirement with her partner, Anna.
Crematy hoped to get certified to teach riding horses.
But the 50-year-old barn badly needs repair. Its leaky roof creates deep puddles in the stalls she wanted to use for boarding and there is no running water. One section of the ceiling is caving.
Although the lease stipulates the NCC is responsible for structural repairs, Crematy said the couple has put more than $10,000 into the farm since 2008.
Those added costs, combined with some bad luck, forced them to miss two months' rent - something Crematy says would not have happened if they were boarding horses.
"We were told the barn was great and that was the biggest disappointment."
On the other side of the Greenbelt, near Shirleys Bay, David Burnford grows organic vegetables on about two hectares of land.
He says the line between what regular maintenance he's responsible for as a tenant and what tasks should fall to the NCC is fuzzy.
"I think that results in a lot of issues not being addressed by either party," he says.
He cites, as examples, a kilometre-long driveway that is pocked with potholes and a century-old barn needing structural work.
Burnford says the NCC should invest in the farms.
"If we're going to designate it as a special area and keep it away from development, we might as well do it properly," he says.
Burnford, who is more than halfway through a five-year lease, adds a longer lease would allow him to invest capital more confidently.
These problems have existed since the land was expropriated, and there's little reason to believe, consultant reports, 'buy local' faddism and Marie Lemay's personal enthusiasm for farming notwithstanding, things will ever change.
And while the NCC churns away on its next plan for the greenbelt, the city had its own consultant report on the greenbelt, recommending that land along major arteries be developed. However, as Randall Denley notes:
To really get anything done in Ottawa, one requires intelligent involvement by either the federal government or its agencies. That's a problem. The consultants highlight the disconnect between federal actions and good land use policies. For example, the federal government has done nothing to intensify development in its outmoded office campuses at Tunney's Pasture and Confederation Heights. These are prime revenue-generating and intensification targets, but the government has no particular motivation to act.
Citizen: Greenbelt Acres: Farm living, it's the life they seek [22 May 2010]
Citizen: Greenbelt grievances [23 May 2010]
Citizen: Bountiful opportunities for produce in Greenbelt: NCC [24 May 2010]
Citizen: Consultants tell city: tighten your Greenbelt [16 May 2010]
NCC Watch: Down on the farm with the NCC [24 Sep 2000]
Citizen: Greenbelt history left to rot [22 Oct 1999]
Friday, April 9, 2010
Seventy years, thirty days notice
Well that's what happens when your property is expropriated by a faceless bureaucracy. From the Citizen:
For almost 70 years, the family of Alan Hay has owned or rented a cedar-shingled cabin on the edge of Gatineau Park, beautifully preserving its simple, rustic spirit.
Hay, after all, was no ordinary woodsman.
Before he died in 1978, he left his mark all over the humble hideaway, set back from Meech Lake Road near Camp Fortune: hand-made bunkbeds, a slab dining room table with a sliding bench, pine panelling, and a number of exquisite maps and landscape paintings.
And a fascinating legacy. Alan K. Hay was the second chairman of the National Capital Commission, the very guardian of Gatineau Park.
This makes last week's letter to his descendants all the more poignant.
The NCC is giving the family 30 days to vacate, asking that the property be left vacant by April 30, ending four generations of occupation.
"Heartbroken," said Hay's daughter, Marion Rankin, 93, as she sat by the old Beach woodstove on Thursday, a fire chasing the April chill. "I feel like someone has died in the family."
Her father bought the cabin and several adjoining acres in 1941, the family says, and owned it until the NCC expropriated in the early 1960s.
Since then, the family has leased back the cabin, lately signing year-long leases for a fee of about $5,000. It annually pours about $4,000 into upkeep.
Being landlords of a large property empire in the Ottawa region, the NCC's first instinct on discovering radon gas was to demolish the place - they've had problems with radon at other properties in the area. Instead, they generously decided to give the family 30 days to vacate.
UPDATE: The NCC has agreed to compromise and allow the Hays to proceed with a plan to reduce the radon gas. Grandson Alan Rankin obtained the agreement after a meeting with CEO Lemay. "It helped that my grandfather's picture was on the wall."
Citizen: NCC eviction leaves family 'heartbroken' [9 Apr 2010]
Citizen: Family wins reprieve for cabin [27 Apr 2010]
Friday, January 12, 2007
NCC must pay tenant evicted from radioactive home
The Quebec rental board has ordered the National Capital Commission to pay $11,257 to a former Gatineau Park tenant who refused to pay rent on a five-bedroom house when he discovered it was contaminated with radon gas and uranium. From the Citizen:
Tests on the house determined the well water used for drinking was contaminated with uranium and E. coli bacteria and the air inside the house contained between 3.5 and five times the Canadian guideline and between seven and 10 times the U.S. guideline for radon gas, a leading cause of lung cancer.
Mr. Conacher's well water was interrupted several times, pipes leaked and the drinking water sometimes smelled of heating oil from an underground tank. The house was contaminated with mould, and the septic tank overflowed into the backyard.
Mr. Conacher asked the Régie du Logement to order the NCC to refund $58,560 in rent from June 2001 and pay $8,800 for his inconvenience. The NCC had declared the house uninhabitable and told Mr. Conacher it would be demolished because it would cost $30,000 to seal the floors and basement walls and install ventilation equipment to rid the house of radon gas.
He abandoned the house and moved out to live with friends between Dec. 1, 2005, and Sept. 30, 2006.
The Régie du logement decided the house should be demolished instead of repaired, but ordered the NCC to pay Mr. Conacher $6,348 to cover three months of rent and moving expenses and $4,909 in additional compensation.
"The NCC told me in May 2005 that if I didn't like the house, I should move out," Mr. Conacher said. "I told them I had a right to live in a house that was in habitable condition and they should clean it up.
"They said they would demolish the building and kick me out at the end of my lease in May 2006. I stopped paying rent and abandoned the house, but they went after me for $14,000 of unpaid rent."
Mr. Conacher said his former house has been demolished, but up to 10 NCC rental homes near Kingsmere and Meech lakes will have to be repaired or removed because of radon gas and uranium contamination. Hugh Batchelor, another Kingsmere Lake resident, said he stopped paying rent to the NCC in July 2006 because of radon gas and mould problems in his basement and received an eviction notice before Christmas. He lives in Perth now and spends little time in the house.
NCC spokesman Mario Tremblay said about seven of the commission's 28 rental houses in Gatineau Park exceed Canadian standards for radon gas of 800 becquerels per cubic metre of air. He said one house will be demolished because it is in poor condition and the NCC will work with the other tenants to limit their exposure to radon.
"The NCC has always been a responsible owner with respect of radon and uranium in this area," Mr. Tremblay said. "It is part of the NCC's continuous plan to communicate with the tenants whose properties are affected by radon and uranium."
In fact, the NCC was informed about the problems of uranium and radon gas in late 2003 by an environmental consultant they hired to do testing, but did not inform their tenants about the problems until April 2005. The NCC is one of the largest landlords in the Ottawa region, and rents are rents, even for a house you're going to demolish.
Citizen: NCC told to compensate displaced tenant [12 Jan 2007]
CBC: NCC must pay tenant evicted from radioactive home [12 Jan 2007]
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
Raise my rent, Episode IX
Meanwhile, back on the Greenbelt, hot on the heels of the Queensway-Carleton Hospital's recent $1 rent reprieve comes news that the Ottawa Municipal Campground's own 40 year lease is coming to an end. Much like the hospital, the campground faces a massive rent hike as landlord the NCC seeks market value rents for its land, expropriated on behalf of a grateful nation all those years ago.
Citizen: A camping gem in jeopardy [2 Aug 2006]
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Queensway-Carleton to get $1 rent
Local MPs John Baird and Pierre Poilievre will announce next week that the federal government will slash the Queensway-Carleton Hospital's rent to a token $1 a year for the NCC land it sits on.
The hospital's rent has been a source of controversy since 2004, when the hospital revealed that its lease with its landlord, the NCC, stipulated that it must pay 6.5% of the value of the land, which meant the rent was due to increase from the current $23,000 to $3.4 million when the lease came up for renewal in 2013. The NCC refused to give the hospital a break, citing Treasury Board regulations. John Baird is now Treasury Board President.
The deal amounts to an absolute victory for the NCC - not only will the NCC continue to get its current rent of $23,000 (from the federal government instead of the hospital), it will also get its higher, market-based rent from the feds when the lease is renegotiated in 2013, estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands.
CBC: Queensway hospital gets break on rent [31 Jul 2006]
Radio-Canada: Une location de terrain a 1$ [30 Jul 2006]
Citizen: Hospital wins fight for $1 rent [29 Jul 2006]
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
NCC house from hell
From the Citizen, another NCC Horror Story:
When Duff Conacher moved into a rented five-bedroom bungalow on Kingsmere Lake in Gatineau Park in June 2000, he thought he had found an idyllic place to live a few minutes from downtown Ottawa.
Now, the co-ordinator of Democracy Watch, a government accountability lobby group, thinks the place he rents from the National Capital Commission for $1,500 a month is the house from hell.
Tests have determined the well water used for drinking is contaminated with uranium and E.coli bacteria and the air inside the house contains 3.5 to five times the Canadian guideline and seven to 10 times the U.S. guideline for radon gas, a leading cause of lung cancer.
His well water supply has been interrupted several times, pipes leaked and the drinking water sometimes smelled of heating oil from an underground tank. The house is contaminated with mould, and the septic tank overflowed into the backyard. Three other tenants who helped cover the rent moved out months ago.
The Regie de logement, Quebec's landlord and tenant tribunal, is this month to hear Mr. Conacher's demand that the NCC refund $58,560 in rent and pay $8,800 for his inconvenience. Mr. Conacher said the NCC has declared the house uninhabitable and wants to demolish it because it would cost $30,000 to seal the floors and basement walls and install ventilation equipment to rid the house of radon gas.
He refused a $5,000 settlement offer from the NCC because he would have to give up any future legal claim, should he become ill.
NCC spokeswoman Eva Schacherl could not comment on Mr. Conacher's case, but said the policy is to demolish houses the NCC owns within Gatineau Park that need extensive repairs and return the land to greenspace. She said the NCC has not declared the house to be uninhabitable, but has told the tenants it must be demolished.
Yep, the house is to be demolished at the end of the lease, but it's not uninhabitable. The NCC - not your ordinary slumlord.
Citizen: How pollutants turned a man's idyllic Chelsea home into the house from hell [1 Feb 2006]
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
NCC and Treasury Board defend hospital rents
The NCC, landlord of the Queensway-Carleton Hospital, and Treasury Board took some more heat from the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates for the NCC's plan to raise the rent on the Queensway-Carleton Hospital (reported in The Citizen today).
Testifying on behalf of the NCC, Chairman Beaudry insisted that rules are rules, and they must charge market rates for government land as directed by a Treasury Board policy set in 1985. As he put it so succinctly, "There are policies in existence. We need to follow them. It's that simple." Treasury Board backed him up, stating that it's in the interests of all Canadians that market rates be charged because it's consistent and less open to political pressure. They also suggested that if the hospital was given a break, it would open the door to other requests.
Fair enough. But then, no mention is made of the fact that, back when the NCC was expropriating all this land, they sold the concept to the public claiming it would conserve land for "public institutions" much like, er, hospitals. From a 1963 NCC brochure:
D'une superficie de 41,000 acres, la Ceinture de verdure encercle la Capitale de l'est à l'ouest. Elle a plusieurs objectifs : restreindre l'expansion physique de la ville, fournir pour l'avenir des emplacements d'édifices gouvernementaux, conserver le caractère pastoral et agricole des accès à proximité de la ville, procurer des terrains propres à l'aménagement de parcs et à l'établissement d'institutions publiques, collèges, hopiteaux, etc.
Hopiteaux, etc. indeed. But heck, that was decades ago, hospitals are a source of revenue now. Enjoy your greenbelt folks.
Citizen: NCC, Treasury Board defend rents [15 June 2005]
Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates
House of Commons Hansard [29 Nov 2004]
Monday, May 30, 2005
NCC hospital land controversy comes to committee
The federal Government Operations Committee will be holding hearings on the land dispute between the NCC and the Queensway-Carleton Hospital sometime in June. The hearings will be televised, and hospital officials and NCC chair Marcel Beaudry are expected to testify. The hospital is located on NCC land and its rent, currently $23,000, is due to increase substantially in 2013. Area MP Pierre Poilievre, who sits on the committee, will be presenting a motion to set the hospital's rent to $1. Poilievre first floated the idea in September 2004.
Radio-Canada: Un député propose que la CCN cède le terrain occupé par l'hôpital Queensway-Carleton [30 May 2005]
Citizen: Queensway-Carleton to state case against landlord [30 May 2005]
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
NCC raises rent on church
Don't ever expect charity from the NCC - they are landlords like any other. The Citizen reports today that the NCC plans to raise the rent of the St. John the Divine church from $300 a year to at least $42,000 a year. Ironically, the NCC is basing the new rate on the value of buildings erected and paid for by the congregation. Apparently, the congregation had a 40 year lease, during which time they built and paid for the church building. But as they do not own the land, they will lose the building now that the lease is up. The NCC does not intend, nor do they have any legal obligation, to pay the congregation anything for the rectory and the church, which have been evaluated as being worth $675,000. Of course, it was pretty foolish to build on NCC land in the first place. Whatever were they thinking?
Citizen: Church flees NCC's 14,000% rent increase [27 Feb 2002]
Sunday, September 24, 2000
Down on the farm with the NCC
This article from the Citizen provides the history of some of the lands now part of the NCC's greenbelt. Tenants are tenaciously hanging on, doing the NCC a tremendous favour by maintaining buildings and property, despite the NCC's indifference and refusal to grant long-term leases:
Jim Brennan was the first in his family to get a notice of expropriation. In August 1959 -- one year after the NCC started to claim Greenbelt land -- he received a $75,000 government cheque. Four years later, Gerald received $22,000 for his share of the land. To the Brennans, there seemed little point in fighting the valuations. The NCC was willing to pay as much as $1,000 an acre, which seemed like a gentleman's price. But others weren't so convinced. Designation of the Greenbelt was already depressing prices within its limits, while prices beyond it were skyrocketing. In townships such as March, land was already selling for $2,000 to $3,000 an acre. The building boom looked poised to leap the Greenbelt even before it was created. Among Gerald Brennan's neighbours, some argued bitterly that if the federal government wanted a restricted development zone, Nepean's landowners were sure as hell not going to subsidize it.
One of those to protest was Fred Mattatall, the comptroller and vice-president of Ottawa's Freiman's department stores chain. In 1953, Mattatall and his wife, Alice, had bought the old Archie Graham estate for $12,000. The Mattatalls set about restoring the estate lovingly. They planted five kinds of apple trees. They named their 40 acres Pinewood Orchards. Mattatall cherished his retreat. It was a reprieve from the pressures of his executive job. On summer evenings, after putting in long days at his office, he was often spotted in the fields, gas lantern in hand, nursing his young trees with fertilizer.
When the NCC moved to claim his land, Mattatall, then in his early '60s, launched a legal challenge over the assessed value of his property. But in March 1963, at the age of 64, he died of a heart attack before his appeal could be heard. Alice Mattatall abandoned the fight, and agreed to the NCC's offer of $95,000. In all, between 1958 and 1966, the NCC spent $40 million to acquire farmland for the Greenbelt.
The Mattatalls never got to see the first apples harvested from their orchard. After expropriation, the NCC rented out the estate, as well as the wood-frame house that had seen three generations of Brennans. For the most part, the new tenants did their best to carry on the area's farming tradition with mixed success. "It was a kind of transition period," said Gerald Brennan. "They didn't want people to walk away and let things go to ruin. They wanted things to be presentable."
By then, Gerald and Ruth Brennan were living in a modern brick bungalow. Because the bungalow sat on the northeast corner of Lot 1, Concession 1, an easy walk from Gerald's day job, the Brennans found themselves in the awkward position of being tenants of the NCC, in a house they had built to raise their family. During those years, Gerald watched as speculators snapped up land ever faster, and suburbia crept ever closer. The first planned community near the western tip of the Greenbelt was Lynwood Village in Nepean. It was built by Bill Teron, the developer and architect who went on to build Kanata.
[...]The Keehners, both in their 30s, are the latest occupants of Pinewood Orchards, the former Mattatall estate. Dave's parents were the first to rent the property after expropriation in 1963 and he lived on the estate until age 13, when his family moved to Britain. Years later, when Dave returned to Ottawa and met Lisette, he convinced her Pinewood Orchards was where they should make their home. That was four years ago. "I wanted to come back to my roots," Dave explained one evening as the sun set behind the apple trees.
The Keehners applied to be tenants of the orchard in 1996, the same year the NCC unveiled its future plans for the Greenbelt. Very quickly, the couple discovered the discrepancy between NCC policy and NCC practice. First, they were given a five-year lease, hardly an arrangement that would encourage farmers to invest long term. Without a longer lease, the Keehners were reluctant to pour money into upgrading the estate, particularly its crumbling barns. With a few exceptions, their landlord seemed indifferent to the couple's pleas. Their list of urgent repairs included leaky roofs, hazardous wiring and dubious foundations. The NCC blamed budget limitations for its inaction.
The Keehners found themselves in a Catch-22. To turn their orchard into a moneymaker, they had no choice but to pay for their repairs. On the other hand, the NCC gave the couple no assurances their efforts would be rewarded with a longer lease. What's more, any improvements made would not increase property values since the orchard sits on Crown land. In the end, the Keehners spent about $4,000 on renovations, recycling building materials as much as possible. With the help of friends, the couple completed most of the repairs on their own.
By day, Dave works as a contractor, reading gas meters to finance the costs of the farm. Each fall, when the apple harvest starts, the couple welcome visitors who buy fruit or cider fresh off the farm. They would like to do more than that. They talk about hosting weddings and garden tours, but their plans remain a fantasy. "When I have to worry about old buildings falling down, it takes away from developing the orchard," says Dave. "Just a little bit of money from the NCC for the maintenance of the property wouldn't hurt."
Their five-year lease expires next spring. Already, the Keehners are preparing a 40-page proposal to the NCC -- not the chores of your typical farmer. They hope a detailed plan will secure them a lease of up to 25 years. "Despite all the frustrations, we want to be here," says Lisette.
The NCC has a poor record on protecting heritage buildings and properties on the greenbelt.
Citizen: The edge of edge city [24 Sep 2000]
Citizen: Greenbelt history left to rot [22 Oct 1999]