It could take up to a decade for nearly 200 affordable apartments to be built in a new central Ottawa riverfront development, now that the future of the city's transit is up in the air, says a city planner.

John Smit said a possible construction delay for transit planning was written into the development agreement with Claridge Homes for the Lebreton Flats project just west of downtown Ottawa — an agreement that also specified that one quarter of rental units in the project would be affordable to people earning as little as $30,000.

City council's decision last December to scrap its existing north-south light rail transit plan made that delay certain.

"I mean, we're back in sort of that wait-and-see mode," he said, adding that the cancelled transit plan "would have had the work with respect to Booth Street being commenced as we speak."

Claridge planned to put all the low-rent units in a single building at Booth and Fleet Streets, where possible transit developments such as a tunnel could have a major impact, said vice-president Neil Malhotra.

"We're sort of waiting to see what happens before we can determine exactly where Booth Street is going to end up before we can develop that particular site," he said, "so in the interim we're continuing with the rest of the development until those issues are resolved."

LeBreton Flats is former industrial land that was also home to around 2,800 people when the National Capital Commission took over in 1962. 

The commission demolished the existing buildings, and in recent decades began cleaning up contaminated soil at the site. Following discussions with the City of Ottawa and public consultations, Claridge Homes was chosen in 2004 to buy and redevelop 4.4 hectares of remediated land into a community of residential, commercial and institutional buildings.