By Norman Moyer
Ottawa City Council has just voted to spend $129 million to renew public infrastructure in the ByWard Market. This will go a long way towards reviving Lowertown, if it is accompanied by sensible plans and regulations that favour development aimed at producing a dynamic and diversified residential, commercial and institutional community.
The City of Ottawa has also just proposed a new Official Plan to its citizens in which it boasts about the value of the “15-minute community”. Why then is the City through its actions and its neglect killing its oldest 15-minute community?
A good community has many attributes: it is safe; it offers all needed services within walking distance; and it supports its residents and its businesses to help them live and work together. In the case of a downtown community in the city’s hotel district, it also provides attractive products for tourists. When that community also sits at the centre of the public transportation networks of the city, it should be expanding as a place for a diversity of retailers, restaurateurs and public institutions to operate. Lowertown/ByWard has all of these attributes but they are slowly being eroded either by design or neglect.
Lowertown is being undermined by a number of factors: the failure to protect its built heritage; the concentration of services for the homeless; the truck route through its centre; and the proliferation of bars to name a few.
The evidence shows that the Lowertown community is not safe, clean or appealing. In spite of six decades of promises, governments have done nothing to take the interprovincial truck traffic off King Edward and Nicholas. The homeless are concentrated in a few large shelters. People dependent on illegal drugs are forced to buy their drugs from criminal organizations. In spite of its own bylaw, the City has allowed the ByWard neighbourhood to be taken over by a monoculture of bars.
Lowertown has frequently seen the demolition of heritage buildings that had been neglected and bylaw control did not enforce property standards, creating a sense that Lowertown’s heritage is not worth saving.
Three recent examples of the thinking from the City illustrate how lost we are. The draft new official plan for the City makes no commitment to dealing with the truck route through Lowertown. The proposed new official plan would create a special district for the ByWard Market focused on cultural programming, patios, nightlife and commercial activities, but it has no proposed policies to encourage the farmers’ market, to support small retailers or to respond to the needs of residents. By creating large patio zones to be rented at very low rates, the City is basically providing a subsidy to businesses like bars and restaurants that can use patio spaces, while small retailers cannot.
The concentration of services for the homeless in Lowertown is not good for the community or those experiencing homelessness. The Shepherds of Good Hope provides an essential service to the homeless in our City. They need a new kitchen and space for day programs. The Lowertown community supports their plans for those new facilities, but government-financing requirements have forced them to add 40 supportive-housing units. The City needs more supportive housing, but no one would agree that people at risk should be housed right beside the area where the city’s drug traffic is concentrated.
Here is what the city, the province and the federal government should do to save Lowertown and to make sure that its investment in new public infrastructure is not wasted:
- Establish vision and a governance model for ByWard that balances the interests of businesses, residents and institutions;
- Get the truck route out of the centre of the City;
- Commit to development that is compatible with a vibrant residential presence across Lowertown;
- Revive the ByWard Farmer’s Market. It is a strategy that supports food security, helps the farmers in the region, provides quality food for residents and is a proven tourist attraction;
- Increase the commercial diversity of Lowertown by supporting small retailers, especially those selling Canadian products;
- Take advantage of the Canada’s new cannabis laws by a careful and regulated introduction of safe retailing and use of cannabis products while establishing and enforcing reasonable distances between cannabis retail outlets.
- Expand supportive housing and affordable housing across the City and reduce the shelter population in Lowertown, Sandy Hill and Vanier. The poor and homeless come from every community; they should be provided for in every community;
- Implement fully the 2008 City bylaw establishing minimum distances between bars and nightclubs;
- Charge commercial rates when the public realm is rented to private businesses; and
- Reduce illegal drug dealing and use by expanding the availability of safe drugs to known addicts and help these people to lead lives free of crime.