Those two houses were located at 93 and 95 Sherwood Street in Lebreton Flats. Sherwood Street was running North-South between Booth Street and Broad Street. It was obviated in 1962 when the National Capital Commission (NCC) expropriated the Flats for its grandiose but yet-to-be-defined-fifty-years-later plan.

The problem is not that 93 and 95 Sherwood Street were one-of-kind residences, but rather by what they have been replaced. Wellington Street and Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway (on the 2015 photo) is problematic for the renewal they keep promising. With their 8 lanes (12-foot wide) and road medians, this main road does everything to ease commuters’ trips and nothing for pedestrians’ security and friendliness of the area.

Don’t fool yourself, the City of Ottawa and the NCC gives full freedom to traffic engineers to design their “dreamed” thoroughfare and then, it is up to the urban planners to work around these oversized roads and make it “friendly”, which is a moot point. With such way of doing, Lebreton Flats is condemned to be another area where car is king and overruling other aspects which could have consolidated the area into a distinct, thriving and “world class” neighbourhood (as they like to call it).

Unfortunately, the City of Ottawa continues to invest disproportionate amount of money into road when a miniscule transfer of that money into active transportation infrastructures like pedestrian bridges, plazas and bike path would create a real benefit for the community. They are stuck in the 1970s.

This lot was lot R-2-P-26.