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The timeline

While the NCC has characterized the board meeting this week as important, the public could be left wanting more information about the negotiations. When the NCC announced last January that it reached an agreement in principle with RendezVous on the redevelopment, the agency said it would take between 12 and 18 months to land a master development agreement. Construction can’t begin until the federal cabinet signs off on the deal. The NCC earlier this year estimated that it would hand the first chunk of land over to RendezVous to begin construction sometime between 2019 and 2020. Before that happens, city council also has to consider the official plan and rezoning applications for the site.

The consultations

When the municipal planning applications are deemed complete, the public should expect to hear from the city about when residents can start providing feedback on the RendezVous proposal. The city’s planning process calls for public consultation on development applications. Often that simply means people are invited to submit comments or speak at a planning committee meeting, but these applications will require a larger outreach effort by city hall. Meanwhile, the NCC has been consulting the Algonquin community about how the community can provide input and guidance on the redevelopment.

The money

The financial capability of RendezVous to pull off the $4-billion redevelopment will always be a question until the consortium makes it official that it has the money to bring its vision to life. NCC CEO Mark Kristmanson suggested last January that the consortium shouldn’t have problems finding investors after the two sides reached an agreement in principle on the redevelopment. The NCC has not said when RendezVous needs to start coughing up the money for the project. RendezVous will buy the federal land, but the public doesn’t know the negotiated price. In fact, no financial terms in the deal have been released so far.