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The City of Ottawa finally owns all of a small park in Stittsville after purchasing the rest of the property from its original owner for $1.
Amberway Park occupies two suburban lots near Hazeldean Road, tucked between Savage Drive and Denham Way. There’s a playground at one end and an open green space at the other, with a modest basketball court in the middle.
Stittsville Coun. Glen Gower was looking into doing some upgrades to the park in 2021 when he noticed that the eastern portion wasn’t listed as public property. When he checked with city staff, they confirmed that 14 Savage Dr. was still privately owned.
“Although the city had been using it as a park for decades, it wasn’t actually owned by the city,” Gower told CBC’s Ottawa Morning. “It was still owned by the original landowner, a gentleman named William Albert Savage.”
LISTEN | How Ottawa bought a park for $1:
Ottawa Morning5:36How Ottawa bought a park for $1
The City of Ottawa has been managing the upkeep of Amberway Park for 68 years. But as Stittsville councillor Glen Gower tells us, a deep dive into city records came with a surprise: the city didn’t actually own the park.
Gower suspects an administrative error was to blame for the park’s eastern portion being left out when plans for the surrounding subdivision were registered in 1958.
The City of Ottawa and the previous municipality had been maintaining the entire park ever since, believing it to be public land. Gower’s discovery five years ago halted any significant upgrades until the park’s ownership could be established.
The city recently purchased this portion of Amberway Park in Stittsville for $1 after tracking down the descendants of the original owner. (Sannah Choi/CBC)Tracking down descendants
First, the city needed to confirm its claim to 14 Savage Dr., and that required some legwork.
“I actually went knocking on doors on the street, and we found an old yellowed map of the subdivision plan,” said Gower. “This particular park was labelled as Block A, whereas all the other blocks where there were homes were labelled with numbers, so that was a good indicator.”
Another indicator: No one had been paying property taxes for the address.
Next, city staff had to track down Savage’s will and locate his descendants to ensure that no one else had a claim to the property. Eventually, they found a grandson in Sackville, N.S., and negotiated a formal property transfer.
The city confirmed the purchase price was $1, plus another $4,352 for legal fees and the transfer tax.
Now that the city officially owns the whole park, Gower says the long-awaited improvements — about $150,000 worth — can finally proceed.
“We’ll work with the neighbors in the community and figure out a plan,” he said.