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The benches around the “water plaza” were never modified to match the shrunken water feature: they’re as expansive as they were supposed to be when they surrounded a much bigger pool. By themselves, they’re pretty nifty — slats of wood arranged in wavy up-and-down patterns that turn them into playground equipment all by themselves, great for all kinds of groups to sit or climb around on. It’s just that most of them now face not water but a big expanse of sun-blasted pavers.

Photo by Darren Brown/Ottawa Citizen

This is a problem throughout the kids’ area: there’s no shade. The playground is small but its funny tubular climber isn’t like anything else in Ottawa, as far as I know, offering different challenges for kids of different ages. That’s good, and on cooler days it’s crawling with kids. It’s built on a rubber mat, which is state-of-the-art for outdoor playgrounds, but in the sun it’s like a heating pad. Other dark surfaces — purple plastic benches, a black rubber slide thing — get too hot for bare skin. The saplings the city’s planted will offer respite — in 10 or 15 years.

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Gonthier said Monday there are no plans for temporary shade at the playground. If people want shade, they can go inside the Aberdeen Pavilion, he said.

The crowds are at Sylvia Holden Park next door, with a deep wading pool, a playground on sand, and tall trees shading it all. The locals fought to keep the park carved out of the Lansdowne redevelopment; the city had promised to preserve all its elements, just rebuilt and mixed in with the rest of the urban park, but they weren’t buying it. I thought this was just obstructionism until I took kids to each place.

Hot parks with small trees are a first-world problem, of course, except that Lansdowne is supposed to be a showpiece, the best of what this first-world city can do. We know how to do this better: Toronto’s adding playgrounds to its lakefront redevelopments loaded with water features. Boston’s downtown greenway — where a now-buried highway used to be — is full of them. Even in regular suburbs, where we build most new parks, you’d get a better splash pad.

dreevely@ottawacitizen.com

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