Ottawa's Central Experimental Farm

[Richard Eade]

Exactly who would be expected to pay the hundreds of millions (or, more likely, Billions) of dollars to design and develop a ‘Central Park’?

Leave the farm alone. It serves a purpose – even if some don’t agree. Remember, there are also those who think that professional sports are a total waste and would gladly give up sport facilities for residential towers. ‘Live and let live.’ Even if this particular facility means little to you, personally. There are lots of sites that could be developed for towers that do not impact the farm’s work.

That said; I do not believe that this particular site, at Carling and Parkdale, would significantly, detrimentally, affect the farm. Yes, it will cast some shadow onto some areas of the farm, but I would need to see actual scientific evidence that that would significantly impact the work. Greenhouses can be heated and lit – although I think that it will cost much more than a few hundred dollars to do so. And one of the goals of the Central Experimental Farm is to study urban-farm interactions, so this might actually be a positive.

Of course, the idea that the farm should simply be moved out of the city, to be among other (commercial) farms is laughable. This is an EXPERIMENTAL farm. Being isolated by an encompassing city is a good thing. If test crops were introduced out of a (semi-) controlled environment, there is a very real probability that there could be contamination of surrounding farms. This farm is a laboratory. It must remain isolated.

[J.OT13]

Parts of the farm could be repurposed as a park/destination, but not the entire thing. It would be quite an out of the way spot for a central park. If people think the park plan at LeBreton is a waste, this would be far worse.

[Harley613]

crosspost

Originally Posted by Harley613

I just ran my own comprehensive shadow study using http://shadowcalculator.eu . An 89 Metre building here would come closest to throwing shade on the greenhouse next to the ornamental gardens just before sunset on days right around August 19th, but it doesn't quite make it. There is no time of day on any day of the year where these buildings would cast any shadow on any of the three greenhouse areas of the experimental farm.