The city may have lost out on the anticipated revenue of up to 4000 condos. Could be an extra 16-20M in taxation per year.
I understand your sentiments, though. It is a very divisive topic. I am not sold on public money, but was intrigued by the points he made. There isn't going to be another Lebreton Flats.
I don't agree with how this is being framed.
The demise of the Rendezvous bid does not mean the city will never realize revenue from the project. The city will still realize that revenue, just not for another few years.
If realizing that revenue quickly is your biggest concern, then shouldn't the retroactive solution have been to accept Devcore's proposal (which had the financial stability to see it through to completion), rather than to have publicly subsidized the winning bid?
The Jame Bagnall article in today's paper brings this issue up as well.
"Finally, since the LeBreton project is to benefit Ottawa as a whole, some taxpayer funding is justified — especially if it improves the likelihood this thing will actually get done. Later, it now turns out, rather than sooner."
Bagnall: What Ottawa can learn from this Senators-LeBreton mess
His core argument is actually that the NCC/City should have done a better job weighting financial stability & project management in its bid evaluation criteria (eg Trinity had never worked with Melnyk before, Melnyk is a wildcard).
He brings up public subsidies as a throwaway final remark, not as part of a well developed argument.
Actually, it kind of undermines his earlier arguments. If you apply more rigorous evaluation criteria, then you'd assess more risk to the Rendezvous bid. So then, why the f*** would you offer to throw public money behind the riskier bid? Why not just select the Devcore bid, which doesn't require any public subsidization.
Besides, taxpayers are already taking major risks to increase the likelihood that this project gets accomplished (taxpayers already funded and implemented the mass transit system that will service the area, and are going to reimburse for land remediation costs that are a bit of an unknown at this point).
Public funds for the public spaces, sure. For the private arena and Condo's? Hell no.
Edit: Just noticed the OP that the concept is of a public arena, which is fine so long as the public reaps fair benefit (profits) of it.
The concept of a publicly owned rink bothers me, for two reasons. First, in this specific case, because Melnyk has made it very obvious that he would want to operate the rink, including any revenues from naming rights. I don't see how the city would be able to reach an agreement with him that doesn't f*** over taxpayers. Second, I'm wary about shifting the long-term costs for upkeep & divestment onto taxpayers, and am skeptical about the government's ability to plan and commit to a long-term project like that, given our short electoral cycles.
