(Photo: From May 2023, Councillor Glen holds the plan of subdivision for the Savage Drive development, dated 1957.)
An administrative error dating back nearly seven decades has now been corrected, and Amberway Park on Savage Drive is now officially owned by the City of Ottawa.
Back in 2021, I started looking into upgrades for the east side of the park. The west side of the park, on Denham Way, got a new play structure in 2019. But on the east side, the old basketball court and grass field along Savage Drive needed attention.
My plan was to consult with residents and use “Cash in Lieu of Parkland” money collected from the Hazeldean Crossing development towards new features at the park.
But we discovered a problem: The City didn’t actually own the east side of the park!
Map of 14 Savage Drive from GeoOttawa. The west part of the park on Denham Way (shaded in blue) was owned by the City, but the eastern side of the park (outlined in yellow) was not officially owned by the municipality.
According to the land registry, the land at 14 Savage Drive was still owned by William Albert Savage, the owner when the Plan of Subdivision for the original development was registered with the Township of Goulbourn in 1958.
There were no taxes being paid on the property (it wasn’t even on the tax roll), and the park had been maintained by Goulbourn Township (and later the City of Ottawa) for as long as anyone can remember. I canvassed residents on the street, and one of the neighbours gave us an old subdivision map dated November 1957. The yellowed paper showed the park listed as “Block A” – clearly differentiated from the numbered lots where homes were built.
A black and white scan of a plan of subdivision for Savage Drive, dated November 12, 1957. The park is shown as Block “A”. (Click for larger size.)
Still, the City would likely have to pursue an application to the court for a vesting order, to transfer the legal title to the land.
That would involve establishing that none of Savage’s heirs had any claim to the property. Savage died in 1970, and his wife Iva May Blackman died in 2013. The City’s legal department obtained their will and identified three children and several grandchildren. Eventually, one of William and Iva’s grandchildren living in Nova Scotia was identified as an heir.
Last month, I received an email from a City lawyer: “I’m happy to report that the transaction for 14 Savage Drive was completed this morning and the City is now the registered owner.”
In the end, the City of Ottawa acquired the land from George Albert Savage, the heir living in Nova Scotia, for a nominal fee of $1, avoiding a long and expensive court process. The City also had to pay a land transfer tax to the province in the amount of $4,353.
Now that Ottawa legally owns the park, we can get on with the upgrades. We’ll be reaching out to the Amberway community in the coming weeks to get that conversation started.
I want to thank Tim Marc and his legal team at the City for their diligence and persistence in resolving this issue.