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ISSN 0702-7796 Vol. 50 No. 8 Issue no. 548 FREE
John Leaning, 1926–2022.
John Leaning
A tribute to a great architect and planner By Randal Marlin Comparatively few people living in the Glebe today are aware of the enormous impact on their community made by John Leaning, architect and city planner, who died September 22, following a long illness. When I arrived in the area in 1966, the Glebe was seemingly in irreversible decline. Plans were to extend four-lane Carling Avenue
through what is now Glebe Avenue to Ottawa East with a new full traffic bridge over the Canal. Housing expropriation also threatened homes north of Lansdowne Park to Fifth Avenue. Commuter traffic on O’Connor Street to Fifth Avenue connecting with Bank Street hindered pedestrian traffic across that street. Homeowners saw no future in restoring their homes and many moved to places like Alta Vista. The Glebe was not the connected community it is today.
Indeed, a politician who favoured Lansdowne expansion remarked that expropriation would become cheaper as houses became more run down. As an example, a real estate agent advised a purchaser around 1969 that the asking price of $20,000 was too high for 1 Regent Street. Into that situation came John Leaning, inspired by Jane Jacobs, to show what needed to be done if Ottawa was not to become like so many American cities. His first study, “The Revitalization of Older Residential Districts,” in 1968-69, supported by CMHC, was more visionary than what has been accomplished so far in the Glebe, but many ideas have still been implemented. He remarked that the area had “potential charm and great convenience.” His idea was essentially to “deal with the environment as we presently find it, accentuate the best, eliminate the worst, and build the new to fit the old.” The prime cause of deterioration, he wrote, was lack of a comprehensive plan for land use, traffic and urban renewal in areas such as the Glebe, legally binding on both the public and on private bodies. Among the things he considered worth preserving were the Aberdeen Pavilion and First Avenue School. Leaning’s second major contribution to the development of the Glebe we know and value today was “A Proposal for Roadway Environment in an Existing Community,” in 1969 for the National Capital Commission (NCC), where he was chief architect for a time. His idea was to slow down traffic in the residential areas, while designing arterial roads to accommodate more traffic safely with uninterrupted flow. He recommended the introduction of traffic impediments to protect residential areas. He noted that residential streets had the same width as arterial routes. He thought that road closures could free up some of the excess residential road space for recreational purposes. With the cooperation of earlier city councils, an active Glebe Community Association and community bonding through the Glebe Report, many, though not all, of Leaning’s ideas have been successfully implemented. One of the biggest successes was the redirecting of traffic headed downtown through the Glebe via O’Connor and Fifth Avenue, by means of the forced diversion at Isabella towards the Driveway. Not so successful was the total road closures of the avenues north of Fifth, preventing access on those avenues to Bronson in the west and the Driveway in the east. Traffic was supposed to be directed to collector streets, notably Fifth and Carling (the old name Continued on page 2
Index ABBOTSFORD ������������������������������� 16 BOOKS......................................22-24 BUSINESS...................................... 13 EDITORIAL �������������������������������������� 4 ELECTION......................................6, 7 FILM............................................... 33 FOOD.........................................20, 21 GLEBE HISTORY ����������������������������11 GLEBOUS & COMICUS ����������������� 35 LETTERS.......................................... 5 MEMOIR......................................... 34 MUSIC....................................... 25-27 NEIGHBOURHOOD ������������������ 14, 15 OPINION....................................17, 37 REFLECTIONS ������������������������������� 12 REFUGEES.......................................31 REMEMBERING ���������������������������1-3 REPS & ORGS.................8-10, 29, 30 SCHOOLS....................................... 36 SENIORS........................................ 32 SPORTS......................................... 19 GMSBannerAdGRFinal.pdf28 THEATRE........................................
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Mark Your Calendars
What’s Inside
Mayoral Candidates’ Debate....................................Oct. 17, 7 p.m. Horticulture Building Abbotsford House Fundraising Gala....................................Oct. 19, Horticulture Building Peter Pan screening with Seventeen Voyces................ Oct. 21, 22 Southminster United Church Municipal Election Voting...........................Oct. 24, 10 a.m.–8 p.m. GCA monthly board meeting.....................................Oct. 25, 7 p.m. location/format TBD
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GNAG Fun House/Haunted House........... Oct. 30, 2.30 p.m./6 p.m. 2019-01-24 8:43 PM GCC
Mayoral candidates.................................................Page 6, 7
John Howard Society...................................................Page 8
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