A Park With a Hidden Past
Amberway Park sits on two suburban lots near Hazeldean Road, wedged between Savage Drive and Denham Way, with a playground on one end, an open green space on the other and a modest basketball court holding down the middle. Stittsville Coun. Glen Gower was looking into upgrades for the park back in 2021 when he noticed something odd: the eastern half of the property, listed as 14 Savage Dr., wasn’t registered as city land at all.
City staff confirmed the surprising truth. The land had quietly remained the private property of William Albert Savage, the original owner, even though the city had been mowing the grass and maintaining the park for decades.
How a Subdivision Plan Got It Wrong
Gower’s theory is that the gap dates back to 1958, when the surrounding subdivision was first registered, and a simple administrative slip left that eastern block out of the paperwork. Both the City of Ottawa and its predecessor municipality carried on maintaining the whole park regardless, assuming it was public land the entire time.
Once the ownership question surfaced, any major improvements to the park were put on pause until the city could sort out who actually held the title.
Knocking on Doors for Clues
Solving the mystery took some genuine legwork. Gower went door to door on the street and turned up an old, yellowed subdivision map that helped crack the case: on that map, the park in question was labelled Block A, while every neighbouring residential lot had a number instead.
A second clue backed it up. No one had been paying property taxes on the address in question, a strong sign the land had simply been overlooked rather than formally handed over.
Tracking Down the Savage Family
With the puzzle pieces lining up, city staff dug into William Albert Savage’s will to figure out who might still have a claim to the property. That search eventually led them to a grandson living in Sackville, Nova Scotia, and from there the two sides negotiated a formal transfer.
The final price tag: $1 for the land itself, plus $4,352 to cover legal fees and the transfer tax, a small cost to finally close a 68 year gap in the city’s records.
What Comes Next for the Park
With the city now holding clear title to the entire park, roughly $150,000 in long-awaited upgrades can finally move forward. Gower says the plan is to work directly with neighbours to shape what those improvements will look like.
For a park that quietly served the neighbourhood for nearly seven decades without anyone questioning who owned it, Amberway is about to get the attention it’s been due all along.