Meech Lake reckless development

What can I say about this man, we're lucky to have this dedicated conservationist around. I have always looked up to Ian's activism and doing the right thing at the right time, not for personal glory and certainly not for money, but because someone has to do it. Hats off to you my friend. By Ian Huggett We bring nothing into this world. It is also certain we carry away nothing with us. Nevertheless, we have no shortage of enthusiasm to recklessly transform, modify and disfigure the earth before our departure. No more evident is this than along Meech Lake Road in Gatineau Park. The latest monolith under construction at 777 Ch. Meech Lake could dwarf the O’Brien House once completed. Massive concrete pilings have been cemented into vertical rock up a slope only a ski-hill gondola could scale. Old homes come down. New homes go up. While the National Capital Commission (NCC) has abandoned its role as a landlord for rental properties, left boarded up to culture mushrooms, the Municipality of Chelsea is issuing permits for home construction inside the park. Meech Lake in Gatineau Park almost rivals Lake Louise at Banff in reckless development. Last month, I advised Mayor Caryl Green that a specific bylaw be drafted to modify Chelsea’s existing zoning for private residential construction inside Gatineau Park. The objective would be to place constraints on building standards to better integrate new homes by reducing their visual and physical impacts on the park. Ideally, these lots should be purchased by the NCC. But the willingness of private property-owners to sell to the NCC is not always forthcoming. I suggested a meeting with the municipality’s urban planning director and the mayor to devise construction standards appropriate within a park setting. Standards would involve reducing the width of laneways, increasing setbacks, retaining visual buffers and prohibiting access up unstable slopes over a certain grade. Architectural standards would reduce size, height and specify exterior siding such as wood or log. The normal process is for a proponent to draft these revisions with the insight of urban planners. The bylaw amendment is reviewed by the urban planning committee and presented to council for consideration. At the final stage, the revision is vetted by the public for comment. But Mayor Green chose to deflect this idea. No doubt, she anticipated a slippery slope of potential lawsuits by ruffled property-owners. Having comparative constraints imposed on their rights with neighbours outside the park could spark a debate over equality. She suggested the idea be left for the public to raise during the Master Plan Review next year. As wealth continues to be funneled from the many to the few, conspicuous real-estate built in exclusive venues will continue. Meech Lake, sadly, has evolved as a target for the financially elite. Unless some authority intervenes on behalf of Gatineau Park to filter inappropriate development within the park’s private enclaves such as Meech Lake and Kingsmere, future private homes will threaten to overshadow existing historical landmarks. I believe it’s part of our culture’s bid at immortality. Better to recall the old adage: “We enter this world with clenched fists – anxious to grasp everything within our reach. We leave this world with open hands – everything we once owned has slipped away.” Leaving massive buildings in a park as a legacy against our own mortality represents the extreme in human egotism.