Local experts see a new report on Ottawa’s downtown as evidence that multiple sectors and levels of government are capable of collaborating to fix the area’s problems. But that doesn’t mean taking the next step is going to be easy.
Last Thursday, the Downtown Ottawa Revitalization Task Force released its long-anticipated report, which detailed a series of recommendations to bring the ailing area back to life.
Since the pandemic, foot traffic has dropped dramatically as companies with downtown offices adopt more permanent hybrid models and the federal government – the largest employer in the area – prepares to sell several of its buildings.
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The report suggests a mix of short- and long-term solutions to attract new residents and visitors to the area, encourage and support economic growth, and repurpose existing buildings into new residential units and community hubs.
According to Andrew Penny, president of Kingsford Consulting, the report on its own is an accomplishment.
“I’ve been involved in a number of city-wide projects in the past,” he said. “The fact that this team has come together and put great content together and has consensus around it is really incredible, and they deserve all the credit and applause for doing so.”
One of the main priorities identified in the report is to find ways to attract people back to the downtown core, including new long-term residents and especially families. Affordability, especially of housing, is one factor at play that the task force said needs solving.
While Penny agrees, he said he’d like to see more emphasis placed on the importance of attracting young people, from students to recent graduates and young professionals, as a cornerstone of revitalization.
“If you’re looking at any migration process, the first people to move into a new area are the risk-takers, typically younger people whose needs are fairly modest,” he said. “In Ottawa, we’ve got two universities near the core. The more students that live downtown, the more vibrant the area will be.”
Penny argued that many of the report’s more ambitious goals – such as to repurpose existing buildings like L’Esplanade Laurier and the Jackson Building into cultural attractions – won’t be successful without a solid residential community to frequent them.
“Getting that vibrant young population downtown serves to attract others, and eventually those people might marry or have children,” he said. “If you have 20-somethings living in the core, you’ll get the bars, you’ll get the restaurants, the attractions, the grocery stores, the sports shops. You’ll get all the things that make a city interesting and attractive.”
He added that the suggestion to put more resources into converting vacant office buildings into residential units is one of the things that could help them achieve that goal. The report suggests as many as 17 downtown buildings could be potential sites for conversion projects.
“I recognize it’s chicken-and-egg, but there are lots of people looking for places to stay right now,” he said. “They want affordable, so build low-cost, small, one-bedroom apartments and build lots of them. That will give the population a chance to get a root in the core and expand from there.”
‘People-centric’ design top of mind
Toon Dreessen, president of Architects DCA, said he was pleased with how the report came out.
“There’s a lot of good things in it,” he said. “There are certainly things that I know I’ve spoken to before, like the need for planning reform. I’ve personally had projects to revitalize parts of the downtown core that have died because of planning logjams.”
In the long-term, the report suggests reforming policies to accelerate the process for conversions, development and rehabilitation of buildings for housing and mixed use. It also suggests creating incentive structures to encourage more innovative commercial activities and family-oriented, supportive, and affordable housing, while reviewing building codes and development charges.
“There are a huge number of things we could tackle to make downtown a vibrant destination for people and I think that’s really essential,” said Dreessen.
He added that it was validating to see so much emphasis placed on “people-centric” design, and the idea of repurposing public spaces, like streets originally designed around cars, to better accommodate pedestrian residents and visitors, and alternate modes of transportation like cycling.
“There are so many tourist destinations downtown and so many people downtown who don’t have a car and rely on public transit or active transportation to get around,” he said. “(The report) really shows the need to focus on reclaiming streets for the public, and that means street trees, bike lanes, development of parking lots and reintegration of greenness and sustainability.”
Implementing suggestions an impending challenge
In terms of attracting visitors, Andrew Reeves, an architect and founder of Linebox Studios, said he was glad to see the report highlighting some of the challenges he’s been raising for years.
“The downtown area has to be a worthwhile destination point in order for someone in Kanata to say, hey, I do want to check this out,” he said. “These things have to be special to make sure that journey is worthwhile.”
He, too, said he was glad to see emphasis placed on walkability and person-first design, something he’d like to see more of as the task force takes the first steps towards implementing its ideas.
According to Reeves, the report is evidence that local stakeholders, officials and community members are ready and able to contribute to a solution to these problems.
“There is a commitment in the city, by individuals putting their time and intelligence towards tackling this,” he said. “That’s definitely what is first and foremost needed. It’s going to take a team to move along. It’s inspiring to see that people have got it to this point so we can have a good discussion.”
But turning the report’s ideas into reality won’t be easy, especially with so many pieces at play.
“The hang-ups are going to be getting to the table,” he said. “We need to get all these different players around the same table with the same vision and not be stuck in silos. If we’re stuck in silos, we’re just going to take care of our own little interest area. We need to see the bigger picture of the city itself.”
He added, “It’s a huge commitment from the federal government, and it’s going to be a big money commitment.”
For the many smaller pieces the task force wants to pursue, which will involve zoning changes and policy reform, the municipal government will also need to be an involved player, according to Penny.
“There aren’t that many votes downtown. From the city view, to spend that much money on downtown is a hard sell. Then you’ve got the provincial and federal layers of government,” said Penny.
“There’s a clear objective, to revitalize the downtown core. But I’m not sure if it’s properly defined how we know when we’ve actually done it. What are the clear deliverables on that? We need a clear definition of what we mean by the outcome.”
