19 January 2008
Canada Lands Company (CLC) has stopped working on this project. Several newspaper articles were written in 2007 explaining why the Rockcliffe Development has been put in abeyance. You may recall the initial week long series describing the development three years ago beginning November 26, 2005.
Basically, the old Rockcliffe Airbase is part of a native land claim that is still unresolved. The Canada Lands vice-president for real estate in the eastern region indicated that negotiations would take some time to complete. Therefore, since CLC does not have title to the land they cannot continue to dedicate funds and resources to the project. Dates mentioned to resolve the land claims are tenuous. In one Ottawa Citizen article, the aboriginal claims negotiator leading the Algonquin bargaining team indicated 2010 as a target for a draft proposal. A spokesman for CLC said their agency hoped that Rockcliffe could be negotiated separately from the overall native land claim and settled sooner.
As of this posting, there have been no further meetings of the Public Advisory Committee which last met on 19 April 2007. All public activity has ceased.