City folds tent on some ‘urban camping’ sites

The City of Ottawa is pulling up its stakes on six “urban camping” sites because of lacklustre registration numbers for Canada Day.

The idea was novel: Let people camp at municipal properties because it might be hard to find hotel rooms for the big Canada 150 celebration.

But many of the sites being offered up were far from the big bash in Ottawa’s core.

It might have been a tough sell for campers, who are asked to shell out roughly $70 a night to pitch a tent in a field next to a recreation centre. Campers interested in setting up their RVs in the parking lots are asked to pay at least $170 a night.

The city has been offering threenight and five-night bookings between June 29 and July 4.

Parks and recreation boss Dan Chenier broke the news to council in a memo late Tuesday afternoon, saying the city had received only 79 registrations.

With registrations closing on June 15, Chenier predicts the city will only sell close to 100 sites for the 11 properties, which represents only 13.5 per cent of the total number of sites available. Registration opened March 1. Most of the booked sites are at municipal properties close to downtown.

The city doesn’t have much time to waste since it needs to organize resources and adjust its contracted services.

So it has to decide now if it’s going to roll back parts of the camping program.

Starting Wednesday, the city is trimming the number of available properties to five: Jim Durrell Centre, Tom Brown Arena, Richelieu Vanier Community Centre, St. Laurent Complex and Earl Armstrong Arena/Splash Wave Pool.

That means the city will no longer be offering camping at the Ray Friel Recreation Complex, Bob MacQuarrie Recreation Complex, Goulbourn Recreation Complex, Kanata Leisure Centre and Wave Pool, Nepean Sportsplex, and Cumberland Village Heritage Museum.

But the demand may change in the weeks ahead, said Steve Ball, president of the Ottawa Gatineau Hotel Association, and the decision to reduce the number of campgrounds may be one the city ultimately has to revisit. While hotel rooms are still available for Canada Day, he said, there’s a trend among domestic travellers to leave their travel plans until the last possible second.

Ball said while inventories for accommodations have dried up online, rooms are still available at Ottawa hotels. Some are being held for loyalty program members, others require extended stays (longer than one or two nights) and some are being held for last-minute bookings. He also said many hotels are taking wait lists, expecting that some cancellations will happen. And hotels closer to downto wn are the most likely to have the least availability, Ball said.