Council approves projects to enhance the downtown and ByWard Market experience

On May 27, Council approved projects to help revitalize and enhance the downtown and ByWard. The funding to support these initiatives will be reallocated from the William Street pedestrian and streetscape project, funded by the Ontario-Ottawa Agreement. That project has been deferred beyond the timelines set out in the agreement, so the City is proposing to fund other priority initiatives that will make a positive impact in the downtown and ByWard Market.

The projects focus on two priority areas: improving safety and making the area more vibrant to attract residents and visitors.

To improve safety and security, staff have proposed funding for:

• Rideau Station and Rideau Street corridor improvements
• Rideau–Sussex underpass improvements
• Security staffing support for organizations serving complex clients through de-escalation, incident prevention and coordination with outreach and emergency response partners
• Mental health supports and substance use services in the ByWard Market
• Ottawa Public Health’s Needle and Drug Equipment Collection Program
• Unsheltered homelessness outreach and connections to safe spaces

To read more about it, visit the City of Ottawa’s website here.

Overall, I am supportive of this report. While I recognize that patios fees are not part of this report, and were waived at last Council meeting until 2027, those fees only provide a one-year relief. Eliminating patio fees permanently is fantastic, and frankly, I think Ottawa should aim to be the first major city in Canada to eliminate them altogether. If the Province wants municipalities to focus more seriously on economic development, supporting patios, restaurants and small businesses in our downtown should be an easy win.

I also appreciate that this report recognizes that the challenges facing downtown cannot be solved through small, fragmented interventions. We need to focus our investments on long-term solutions: permanent housing, mental health supports, addiction treatment, and ensuring social services are distributed more equitably across the city instead of concentrating them almost exclusively downtown. Too often, municipalities are left “nibbling around the edges” of crises that are fundamentally the responsibility of senior levels of government. If the Province is asking cities to revitalize downtowns, it also needs to be a genuine financial partner in addressing the social challenges that directly impact those same downtowns.

One area where I think staff should continue pushing the Province is around childcare and family infrastructure downtown, particularly daycare spaces with extended hours for shift workers. A healthy downtown economy cannot just cater to tourists and office workers from 9 to 5. Restaurants, hotels, health care, arts and entertainment venues all rely on workers whose schedules fall outside traditional childcare hours. Daycares are economic infrastructure. They allow parents to participate in the workforce, support local businesses struggling with labour shortages, and help create stable, year-round residential communities downtown. If we are serious about revitalization, we also need to make downtown a place where families can realistically live and work.

I am a reluctant supporter of the expansion of private security presence, but I also recognize the reality that we are increasingly relying on it not only in Ward 12, but across the city. In many cases, private security is filling gaps created by the lack of available social services, mental health outreach, and community-based crisis response. That should concern all of us. There are also broader labour and accountability concerns that deserve acknowledgment. Many workers in the private security sector are newcomers or immigrants with limited employment options, the jobs often lack benefits and pensions, and there are fewer public mechanisms for oversight or complaints compared to public policing or city services. None of this is a criticism of the workers themselves, many of whom are doing difficult work in challenging conditions. But as a city, we should be careful not to normalize private security as a substitute for properly funded public systems and social supports.

I support many of the objectives in this report, but I also think we need to think bigger about what creates long-term economic stability downtown. More supports for families, residents and workers are ultimately economic engines too. Downtown communities are not simply a tax base that subsidizes services elsewhere in the city. They are neighbourhoods where people live, work, raise families and build community, and our investments should reflect that reality.

To read my full comments, read the report here.