Lansdowne 2.0 has a problem with the unknown unknowns — probably

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If I squint and move my lips while reading it slowly, it still feels like when someone points to a cloud and shouts, “Hey, can you see the cow there?” I’m never sure I can, but I nod anyway.

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I sympathize with Barrhaven East Coun. Wilson Lo, whose motion last week to delay the vote to allow councillors more time to study the report never even made it to debate. It needed three-quarters of council’s support just to be considered, but lost 12-11.

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“This is one of this term of council’s most financially consequential decisions,” Lo said to mostly deaf ears, “so I think we need that extra time — for us and the public — to make the most informed decision.”

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Lo had earlier asked staff to provide the final report 30 days in advance of the council’s decision, but instead they’ll have 18. And it’s not like they have nothing else to do — the finance committee, for example, made up of 11 councillors and the mayor, will listen to delegates for and against the project for up to three days this week.

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Meanwhile, I hope Lo and the other councillors, regardless of how each feels about Lansdowne and how they’ve voted in the past or intend to vote next week, will make it to Page 46, for example, where their 2023 decision to preserve the Moving Surfaces artwork on the toboggan hill is recalled; past Page 71, where the new smaller berm replacing the hill is said to have been designed to accommodate the artwork; and on to Page 126, where city staff recommend the artwork be “respectfully” decommissioned and removed.

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They’ll need to stay sharp enough to reach Page 96, too, where the report’s only mention appears of three storeys of above-ground parking, which is only one-third of the more than 500 spaces required for residents of the two towers.

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It’s in moments like these — a vanished art installation here, an unexpected parking garage there — that details of the project become clearer.

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The report assures us that the net cost to the city is just $130.7 million, even though the total project cost totals $418.8 million. The difference will apparently come from “new revenues.”

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On paper, it all balances. In the real world of Muggles, though, these are guesses stretched over the next half century. It’s difficult to tell if information is missing from the report. More likely, it’s simply buried in technical jargon, transparent, but not clear enough for citizens (even those who read lots of city documents) to understand.

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If only we could de-risk civic decision-making by addressing how difficult it is to understand the unknown unknowns.

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