Ottawa has quietly fixed a decades-old paperwork mystery in Stittsville, and it involves a neighbourhood park most residents assumed the city had owned all along.
A Park With a Hidden Gap
For years, the City of Ottawa operated and maintained Amberway Park as if it were fully public land. But a closer look at property records revealed that roughly half of the park was never actually transferred to the city. Instead, it remained privately owned — technically still belonging to whoever held title to the land decades earlier, long before the park became a fixture of the Stittsville community.
It's the kind of gap that can slip through the cracks for generations. Municipal boundaries, informal handshake agreements, and incomplete land transfers from earlier development phases aren't uncommon in older or fast-growing Ottawa suburbs, and Stittsville — once its own town before amalgamating with Ottawa in 2001 — has plenty of that kind of layered history baked into its infrastructure and green spaces.
Tracking Down the Rightful Owners
Once city staff identified the discrepancy, the next challenge was figuring out who actually held the deed. That search led to the descendants of the park's original private owner, whose family connection to the property had likely gone unnoticed for years while the land sat as a de facto public park used by generations of Stittsville kids, dog walkers, and neighbours.
Rather than a costly legal battle or expropriation process, the city worked out a straightforward resolution: the family agreed to sell their share of the park to the City of Ottawa for a symbolic $1. It's a tidy ending to what could have easily become a much messier property dispute, and it means Amberway Park is now fully and officially public land for the first time.
Why It Matters for Stittsville Residents
For everyday park users, nothing about Amberway Park changes — it'll still be the same green space Stittsville families have used for years. But for the city, closing this ownership gap matters. It clears up liability questions, ensures the land is protected under the same parks and recreation rules as the rest of Ottawa's public green space, and prevents any future confusion (or complications) if the property were ever to change private hands.
It's also a reminder that even well-established, well-used spaces in Ottawa can carry surprising administrative loose ends. As the city continues to digitize and audit older land records across neighbourhoods like Stittsville, Kanata, and other formerly independent municipalities absorbed during amalgamation, more of these quiet mix-ups could still be waiting to be discovered.
For now, though, Amberway Park's ownership status is settled — and Stittsville residents can keep enjoying it exactly as they always have, just with the paperwork finally matching reality.
Source: CBC Ottawa
