Coventry Road Animation

A Claude AI Action Plan

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From Dead Space to Living Place: An Activation Plan for the Coventry Road Site

If you've walked across the Max Keeping Pedestrian Bridge lately, or driven down Coventry Road on a non-game day, you've seen it: a vast expanse of asphalt beside RCGT Park, concrete bridge pillars casting shadows over nothing in particular, and a lot of potential doing absolutely nothing.

I wrote earlier this week about the Universe 25 experiment and what it means for Rideau-Rockcliffe — the idea that even well-resourced communities collapse when residents lose meaningful roles and purposeful space. This site is the flip side of that argument. Here is an existing city-owned asset, already serviced, already connected to LRT at Tremblay Station, already adjacent to one of Ottawa's most exciting sports venues — sitting idle 300 days a year.

That's not a tragedy. That's an opportunity. Here's what I would do with it.

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Three zones, one community hub

The site naturally divides into three distinct areas, each suited to different programming.

Zone A — Under the bridge. The Tremblay bridge deck creates natural, permanent weather protection over a generous footprint. This is the anchor: colourful food trucks and local vendor kiosks, year-round. Think Ottawa vendors — tacos, coffee, market food — operating rain or shine, winter included. Youth-led murals on the pillars. String lights. A reason to be there on a Tuesday in November.

Zone B — The parking lot plaza. The big asphalt expanse doesn't have to stay asphalt. Permeable paving, green lawn panels, shaded pergolas, multi-use courts, a youth skate and BMX zone, and flexible event space for markets, clinics, and concerts. On Titans game days, this becomes a pre-game commons. On every other day, it belongs to the neighbourhood.

Zone C — The stormwater edge. Along the perimeter, rain gardens and bioswales handle runoff while creating a green edge that connects the site to the Tremblay Station pathway network. This isn't decoration — it directly addresses drainage, improves the site's asset condition rating, and ties the development into the city's stormwater management obligations. Good urban design and good infrastructure policy at the same time.

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A calendar that actually works year-round

The first objection I always hear is: "What happens in February?" Fair question. Ottawa winters are real, and too many "activation" proposals quietly assume a six-month season.

Not this one.

Spring kicks off with an opening market day and a youth mural launch — North-South Development's "It's A Trap" program provides the organizing backbone and gives young people from Overbrook visible, public roles. Schools bring students for coaching clinics and planting days in Zone C.

Summer is the peak: weekly food truck nights, BMX and skate sessions, game-day activations that layer community programming onto the Titans' existing audience, and an outdoor movie series under the bridge deck.

Fall brings a harvest market, a North-South youth fair, cultural celebration days reflecting the ward's genuine diversity, and playoff events if the Titans keep doing what they've been doing.

Winter is where this design earns its keep. The under-bridge warming hub operates through the coldest months — heated, lit, occupied. A holiday light installation turns the pillars into a landmark. Indoor pop-up events continue in the kiosk structures.

The goal is 52 market days a year. Not a summer pop-up. A community institution.

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How we get there: three phases, realistic costs

I'm not going to promise you a finished plaza by next spring. What I will commit to is a realistic, phased approach that starts with what we can do immediately and builds toward something lasting.

Phase 1 (2027) — Quick wins, ~$250,000–$400,000. Lighting, safety improvements, first murals, food-truck pad permits, temporary seating and planters. This phase is fundable through the agile capital budgeting pilot already under staff discussion and existing Parks & Recreation activation budgets. No new levy. No multi-year wait. This is the "prove it works" phase, and it can begin within months of taking office.

Phase 2 (2028) — Plaza build-out, ~$1.2M–$2M. Permeable paving, rain gardens, multi-use courts, pergolas, permanent kiosk structures, and the BMX/skate zone. By this point, food truck permit revenue and event fees are already offsetting a meaningful share of maintenance costs. We build the business case as we go.

Phase 3 (2029 and beyond) — Full hub, ~$2M–$4M. A community pavilion, full transit integration with Tremblay Station, and eventually the kind of autonomous shuttle connection between the station and the stadium that makes this whole corridor genuinely car-optional. This is the long game — and it's worth playing.

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Who sits at the table

None of this works without partnerships. As councillor, my first move is to convene a formal stakeholder roundtable — not a consultation exercise, an actual working group with a mandate and a timeline. The seats at that table:

• The Ottawa Titans and RCGT Park management
• North-South Development Roots and Culture Canada
• City Parks & Recreation
• OC Transpo and Tremblay Station stakeholders
• The Overbrook Community Association
• The Rideau-Rockcliffe Community Resource Centre
• Ottawa Public Health
• The local BIA

Each of these organizations brings something the others don't have. The Titans bring an existing audience and operational infrastructure. North-South brings community trust and youth programming that is already running. Parks & Rec brings the city's permitting and programming capacity. OC Transpo brings the transit connection that makes the whole site accessible without a car.

The partnership agreement isn't a courtesy — it's the mechanism that turns a city lot into something the ward actually owns.

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Why this makes financial sense

Let me be direct about the money, because this is the question every taxpayer deserves an answer to.

This site requires no new land acquisition. Zero. The city already owns it.

Twelve or more food truck vendor permits per year generate revenue. Fifty-two market days generate revenue. Event space rentals generate revenue. My conservative estimate is that permit and event income can offset roughly 30% of the site's annual maintenance costs within three years of Phase 1 opening — and that number grows as the programming matures.

Every dollar invested here also improves the asset condition rating of existing city-owned infrastructure in the open capital register I've been calling for — infrastructure that currently shows up as an undifferentiated parking lot with no assigned improvement plan.

Phase 1 doesn't require a new levy or a new budget line. It requires a councillor willing to direct staff to find the activation funding that is already sitting in existing accounts, and to make this site a priority rather than an afterthought.

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What I commit to doing

If elected, here is the specific ask I will make of city staff within my first 90 days:

1. Commission an activation feasibility study for the Coventry Stadium site, using the open data fields I outlined in my earlier post on asset management.
2. Convene the stakeholder roundtable with a six-month mandate to produce a Phase 1 partnership agreement.
3. Direct staff to identify Phase 1 funding through the agile capital budgeting pilot and Parks & Recreation activation budgets.
4. Establish annual public reporting on the site's asset condition, programming outcomes, and revenue — tracked in the open capital register and reported to the ward every year.

Rideau-Rockcliffe has one of the most interesting infrastructure assets in east Ottawa sitting largely unused. The Coventry Road site isn't a problem to manage — it's a community hub waiting to be built.

Let's build it.

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If you believe Rideau-Rockcliffe deserves a councillor with the analytical skills and the vision to make things like this actually happen — vote differently. Vote wisely. Vote for Peter Karwacki.

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This time around, vote differently, vote wisely, vote for Peter Karwacki for Rideau Rockcliffe.