An idea to help build `15-minute neighbourhoods'
This key incentive would work, writes Chris Penton.
Much noise has been made of the race to create 15-minute neighbourhoods in Ottawa. My own neighbourhood of Beechwood Village is certainly striving to become a 15-minute neighbourhood. Spanning from the Vanier Parkway to the Beechwood Market's location, our retail sector is roughly two kilometres long. Like many neighbourhoods in the core, we have a variety of amenities. But, also like many neighbourhoods in the core, we are missing some too. Beechwood Village is more of a 21-minute neighbourhood.
Arguably, every corner of Ottawa is a 21-minute neighbourhood. The additional six minutes come from those trips to Costco for three kilograms of peanut butter, to the dentist you have been with since age seven and, ironically, to fill up the tank for the next trip to Costco to buy more peanut butter.
In a city ruled by strip malls and suburban development, the need to leave your neck of the woods has become inevitable.
To feel shame about the departure is not only wrong, but futile. Your local businesses don't need your guilt; what they need is your help. They need your business and they need you to truly get behind the “support local” movement. It is too common for Ottawans to point out what is missing, quickly groan about it, and then jump into the car to get it.
For years you have been told that there is no hardware store, chocolate shop or butcher in the neighbourhood because commercial rents are too high. Depending on where you live, this is probably true.
What if there were a way the city could step in and help change your shopping landscape? Consider this.
Just as there are incentives to build affordable housing — tax breaks for exceeding seven units, for example, or rent subsidies for up to 20 years for landlords and so on — there could easily be incentives to open up affordable
For these sorts of things to happen, residents must also buy in.
commercial space to smaller stores and services.
Mandate developers and landlords to offer one-quarter of their commercial square footage at a reduced rate. Since the concept already applies to residential units, why not commercial? In doing so, local residents would get a service for which they have been asking, small businesses would get a chance to prove themselves, and landlords would fill spots that otherwise may very well have stayed empty for years to come.
The City of Ottawa talks a mean streak when it comes to supporting local enterprise and bolstering small businesses to create 15-minute neighbourhoods. However, extending patio licences into the coldest months, offering up endless food truck licences and promoting an obscure “buy local” passport are Band-Aid solutions. Bring in solid measures such as mandated affordable commercial space and you'll see ice cream shops, family-owned hardware stores and bakeries reappear.
For these sorts of things to happen, residents must also buy in.
First, continue to support your existing mainstreet businesses. Second, ask your local politicians why commercial rents are so high. Tell them which amenities you'd like to have within walking distance of where you live. If you have a Business Improvement Area (BIA), give them a call too. Charged with attracting new businesses to your main street, they want to hear from their shopping public.
There is no reason we shouldn't have 15-minute neighbourhoods in Ottawa. But it will take more than talk to allow us the short walk.
Chris Penton is the president of the Beechwood Market, Ottawa's online farmers market (beechwoodmarket.ca). A community builder, he is a past-president of the Vanier Community Association, current board member of the Vanier BIA and ran for municipal office in 2019.