New power structure urged in bid for ByWard turnaround
City hall would lose oversight role
Council’s finance and economic development committee on Tuesday approved a new governance structure for the ByWard and Parkdale markets, with hopes that severing oversight from city hall will produce fresh ideas.
Vendors are closing. Revenues are in the pits. Customers are going to other markets.
The city has been reacting to change, but struggling to draw up plans for the future. The answer? A not-for-profit municipal services corporation to run the markets, starting in 2018. That’s the city’s expectation, anyway, since U.S. consultant Project for Public Spaces first recommended the governance structure after a 2013 study. By pulling the bureaucracy out of the markets business, the city believes there will be a new perspective to running the operations.
The 190-year-old ByWard Market is the city’s chief concern. It’s a major tourism magnet and it’s facing more competition from other districts, like Lansdowne Park, which has its own farmers market.
“It breaks my heart to see the ByWard going where it is,” vendor Gerard Rochon said, calling for a new emphasis on the sale of local food.
“It’s fundamental. It goes to the root of the problem. It goes to what do you have on that street as vendors,” Rochon said.
Andy Terauds of the Ottawa Farmers’ Market Association said only producers should be selling at the markets, not resellers.
“After all, they’re called farmers’ markets by most people,” Terauds said. “It should be the farmers they’re supporting.”
Claude Bonnet of Moulin De Provence called for changes in the central ByWard Market building, which he says is charging unsustainable rents. It’s hard to pay rent and utilities when businesses are only selling pastries, vegetables and meat, Bonnet said.
The city says market rates are being charged at the central building.
Today, the economic and development branch is in charge of vending at both markets and the real estate management at the Clarence Street parking garage. The city-owned central building in the ByWard Market has been run by a property manager, and that contract is done at the end of this year.
The city has $476,000 available this year to get the new municipal services corporation off the ground. The money would pay for legal costs and recruitment activities for a board and executive director.
The first two years under new oversight are expected to result in deficits, but a surplus is projected for 2020. Coun. Allan Hubley, chair of council’s audit committee, wants to make sure the municipal services corporation can be scrutinized by the city’s auditor general.
Council will be asked to approve the governance plan on April 12.
After that, councillors Mathieu Fleury, Jeff Leiper and Mayor Jim Watson would be tasked to find the chair, vice-chair and treasurer of the new nine-member board of the municipal services corporation. The other six members would be approved by council.