We’re so good at planning, but less so at doing

If there is one thing we’re good at it in Ottawa, it’s making plans and this year will be a big one for the people who scope out the future of the city. Major, long-term strategies for development and pretty much every type of city service will be presented for city councillors’ approval.

With that in mind, and it being 2020, it’s timely to look back at an award-winning plan for the city’s downtown called Ottawa 20/20. Released nearly 16 years ago, it set a detailed course for dramatic improvements to our disjointed central area. The 20/20 name likely refers to the hoped-for clarity of its vision, but it’s fair to assume the future the 20-year plan imagined would have arrived by now, if it was coming.

The “beautiful, inspiring and gracious” downtown envisioned is difficult to find. One would look in vain for a central park on the canal, the arts and theatre district, Bank Street as a regional shopping district or Metcalfe Street transformed into “a major civic boulevard.”

The planners of the day also expected a revitalized Sparks Street and described the LeBreton Flats area as “emerging,” perhaps too dynamic an adjective. Instead, those two projects are passed from one generation of planners to the next like a legacy.

Despite its boundless enthusiasm for imagining a better future, the report didn’t have much good to say about Ottawa’s dismal downtown office district. “Buildings setbacks and architectural detailing tend to be minimal. This lack of building articulation is very unusual for a large city’s main office district,” the report said.

In other words, the office towers are crammed in and dog ugly. It also noted the lack of open space and the abundance of surface parking lots. The planners implied that the best hope is that the buildings would eventually be torn down. That’s still a good idea.

Our downtown has made some progress in

Ottawa’s downtown is not bad, it’s just not good. Certainly, it’s not the gracious people magnet that planners imagined.

the last 16 years. The Rideau Centre has been redone, the shabby convention centre torn down and replaced with one much better, a civic art gallery has been built, there is a footbridge across the Rideau Canal, Albert and Slater streets are no longer transit corridors, Elgin Street has been revamped and more people are living in condos in the core.

And yet, the fundamental problem of downtown remains. Other than work and a handful of special events, what is the real reason to go there? The ByWard Market is just one of many farmers markets now, although the restaurant scene is good. There is the less-ugly National Arts Centre, but that single building falls far short of the arts and theatre district that was envisioned. The Hill remains a draw (though the Centre Block is closed), but Ottawans can’t take credit for that.

Despite the detailed plan, it’s a little difficult to discern the city’s current strategy to make the downtown more attractive. Its big downtown investment is the new library, but it will be located at the edge of LeBreton Flats. Although the core is generously defined in Ottawa, that’s certainly not the centre of it. Condo mega-towers that should be downtown, if anywhere, are being built in Little Italy or on the western edge of LeBreton.

As pristine as the core is in the future world of planning, in reality the downtown has a generally shabby, unkempt look that Canadians wouldn’t expect to see in their capital. How did we reach the point where worn-out concrete sidewalks are repaired with a dump of asphalt rather than being replaced?

Ottawa’s downtown is not bad, it’s just not good. Certainly, it’s not the gracious people magnet that planners imagined, and it’s difficult to see how it will ever be.

While big plans can be the precursor of big actions, there is little to suggest that’s Ottawa’s style. We’re slow-moving incrementalists here. Planning is our forte; doing things, not so much.

Maybe that will change ... just don’t plan on it. Randall Denley is an Ottawa political commentator and author. Reach him at randalldenley1@gmail.com.