City needs real plan to help downtown

Each time I visit Regina I notice the further decline of the central core of the city. There are an ever-increasing number of parking lots as buildings continue to come down. The number of obviously homeless, mentally ill or drug addicted people wandering the streets has grown. The level of general activity supporting businesses appears to have fallen. There are no attractions and no reason to be downtown unless you are one of the 9-5 work crowd.

Against this backdrop we have a provincial government handing out $500 cheques to every Saskatchewan resident (except strangely, to those who haven't filed a tax return — i.e. the desperately poor and homeless residents who really need a break). Then we have Regina city council striking a “catalyst committee” to investigate building additional infrastructure projects — a possible new aquatic centre, baseball stadium and arena somewhere in the core area. The belief I suppose is that one or more of these facilities will reverse the tide and help revitalize Regina's core.

We know from the experience of many other cities that spending mega-dollars on big projects does not reinvigorate downtowns in decline for other reasons. People from the suburbs visit the area for a game and then escape back to their lives in the suburbs — Mosaic Stadium demonstrates this fact. What invigorates central areas is more people — many more people — living downtown, and attractions that people want to or need to visit regularly. I believe this was what Regina's 2013 Official Community Plan — an excellent plan by many accounts — intended to achieve with a promise of 10,000 new downtown residents. By recent count there are only a grand total of 74 new downtown residents nine years later.

This committee, formed just recently, is tasked with reporting out before the end of the year to build a case for more large sports and recreational facilities. These projects will benefit landowners, the construction industry and insiders, but will residents get a return for their many millions of tax dollars? Developing a strategy with real solutions to the core's deep-seated problems requires much more work, a radically different approach and a genuine desire to address the social ills as well as the recreational needs — by city council, the provincial government and all Regina residents.

Do city council, the provincial government and, especially, Regina residents care enough to do the work and provide the dollars required to build on the 2013 Official Community Plan and implement real solutions to reverse years of decline? In 30 years, will Regina residents once again have a downtown to be proud of or one that showcases its parking lots, deserted streets and megaprojects?

Harv Weidner, Vancouver, B.C. Weidner is a former Regina resident.