City's outdoor rinks open, service counters closed
Ontario's stay-at-home order will affect access to many of the City of Ottawa facilities, as well as temporarily suspending in-person counter services, the city has announced.
Among the measures:
There will be no public access to the city's administrative buildings, including 100 Constellation and Ben Franklin Place. Public access to city hall will be restricted to the Service Ontario counter and the municipal daycare service. Municipal counters, such as ServiceOttawa, will be closed as of the end of the business day Friday and will be moving to online delivery.
All indoor recreation and cultural facilities will remain closed, not including respite centres, COVID-19 assessment centres, municipal childcare centres, inclusive recreation programs and before-and-after school programs when elementary schools reopen.
All Ottawa Public Library facilities will remain closed, including the bookmobile. OPL will continue to provide contactless curbside services at some branches.
Community and refrigerated outdoor rinks and sledding hills will remain open with a 25-person capacity restriction and masking requirements in place. Outdoor refrigerated rinks will continue to operate with the online reservation system on ottawa.ca/skating.
Users must maintain a two-metre distance from others and masks must be worn in public accessibility areas within 15 metres of the edge of the ice surface. While masks are not mandatory when skating, Ottawa Public Health recommends wearing one for added protection.
Under provincial regulations, no team sports are permitted. Sticks, pucks, balls and other sports equipment are not allowed on the ice.
Some in-person service has been suspended. This includes:
The city hall and Ben Franklin Place Client Service Centres and Building Code Services counters. Services will move to online delivery. Building Code Services will move to an alternate format such as mail, electronic submission or phone.
The Provincial Offences Act courthouse at 100 Constellation Dr., Nepean, will remain closed.
The EarlyON Child and Family Centre remains closed.
The Business Licensing Centre at 735 Industrial Ave. is open for dropping off documents only. Clients can call 613-580-2424 ext. 12735, or email businesslicensing@ottawa.ca
Residents can make payments online, by phone or cheque. Please confirm with your municipal contact before mailing a cheque, the city advises.
Visit myservice.ottawa.ca to pay water bills and interim property taxes. If you do not have an account, sign up with your email address. Once registered, you will need your account or property roll number to pay your bill.
City bills have other payment options including paying by credit or debit card online at ottawa.ca, paying through a financial institution by creating a payee number on your institution's mobile app, or through an ATM machine, or paying by phone through a financial institution.
Residents can access other services online, including registering or renewing a pet registration; applying or renewing a permit for an open-air fire permit, paying a parking or traffic ticket; looking up extension or reopening applications; applying for a food premise business license, signing up for future recreation programs and loading and managing a Presto card.
Some services have been altered. This includes:
Complaints for unauthorized parking on private property will continue to require new electronic procedures for proof of authority.
Residents needing financial assistance are asked to call 3-1-1 and select option #4 for Social Services for information on programs and services.
People can't visit the Employment and Social Services offices, but staff are available to help residents by phone, email and mail from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.
Ontario Works clients do not need to drop off any documents, including income reporting statements. Those documents can be given to the case worker at a later date.
Virtual arts and recreation programs for people of all ages will be offered through live-streamed, interactive classes hosted on Zoom. Registration starts Thursday at 9 p.m.
Bylaw and Regulatory Services will not be enforcing overtime parking on streets that do not have posted time limits. All other parking restrictions remain in effect, including no-parking zones.