In 1820, Capt. John Lebreton and District Registrar Levius Sherwood purchased the land below the Chaudiere Falls, known as Richmond Landing. They split their land in 1822 and planned to establish a village called “Sherwood”. Even though Sherwood was founded four years earlier than Bytown, it eventually collapsed as Bytown flourished. During the construction of the Rideau Canal, there was a boom of settlers moving into Bytown (which was part of Nepean Township until 1850) that subsided upon the canal’s completion in 1832. The lull in real estate did not last long and by the 1840’s the population was steadily growing once again (Elliott 81-82).

In 1843, Lebreton decided to sell off his property by lottery, charging fifteen pounds per ticket. Several sawmills were established on the Chaudiere Islands, and the building of a new suspension bridge to Hull in 1844 sparked real estate interest in the Lebreton Flats. The area was inhabited largely by sawmill workers and their families (Elliott 96).

Bytown was divided into and Upper and Lower town, with most of the residential and commercial development during the 1840’s and 50’s occurring on either Wellington, Rideau or Sussex St. Bytown became the City of Ottawa in 1855. The development of western suburbs began while Ottawa “was still a walking city” (Elliott 103), with much of growth happening along the Richmond Road. Development to the South occurred along Bank Street, as it was extended to just past Billings Bridge in 1866 (Elliott 111).

Rochesterville (just south of Lebreton Flats) was the first true suburb of Ottawa, populated in large by mill workers. In 1870, there was a land boom and Rochesterville expanded with four new blocks of land. In 1872, a record of “20 suburban plans were drawn up” (Elliott 118) for establishment in Nepean. The boom did not last long, however, as North America fell into an economic collapse in 1873 that lasted over a decade (Elliott 115, 120).

The creation of the Ottawa Electric Railway in 1891 started a new era in suburban development in Nepean. The railways enabled workers to live farther from their place of employment and travel the longer distance with ease. The Bank Street, Holland Avenue and Britannia lines served as main commuter lines and suburbs were built up around these areas (Elliott 175).

In the years from 1910 to 1930, the first attempts were made to plan urban areas. Poor planning in previous years (and especially during the pre-war land boom) left “ a scattering of underpopulated, underserviced suburbs which had taken valuable agricultural land out of production but had not replaced it with well-settled communities” (Elliott 204).

Veterans' Housing Project

In 1945, Nepean Council began offering lots to W.W.II veterans who had lived in Nepean Township before enlisting at 25 per cent of their original value. One condition of the sale was that a house had to be built on the property within five years. The Veterans Land Act administration purchased land from Nepean farmers and subdivided it into half acre lots for sale to veterans. Land was also purchased from farmers by a Crown corporation called “Wartime Housing Limited”, who built houses for sale or rent to veterans. Land continued to be offered to veterans at 25 per cent of the cost up until the annexation of 1950 (Elliott 231-2).

Two new communities were planned in Nepean to help relieve the housing shortage caused by some 600 returning veterans and their families who were seeking affordable housing in the area. The first community (known as Veterans' Housing Project #1) was completed in 1946, located in the area where Carling Avenue meets Merivale Road. That same year, the area was annexed to Ottawa and another community of veterans' housing was planned (Veterans' Housing Project #2). The second community was to be built adjacent to the first. After its completion, Veterans' Housing Project #2 was also annexed to Ottawa. Today, the two housing projects combined occupy the area of Ottawa known as Carlington: south of Carling Ave., north of the Experimental Farm, west of Fisher Ave. and east of Clyde Ave. (Moses 1-3).