With numerous businesses packing it in, or relocating to more profitable venues, the heart of this town continues to be cause for concern. According to district staff, "the issue is that the existing downtown streetscapes are aging." But the real problem is that while municipal officials give lip service to a rosy future, at the moment neglect and indifference blemish the area.
A block north of the recently opened, state-of-the-art O'Siyam Pavilion, the district-leased Community Police Station has been shuttered since last November, awaiting upgrades. Its windows grow grimier by the day; at least the weeds that sprouted defiantly between the cracks on the sidewalk in front of the building have now been cleared.
During the winter, this location and other walkways rarely see a snow shovel for days after a storm, keeping shoppers away from the downtown and forcing the few who are there to slip-slide their way from store to store.
On Cleveland Avenue, the municipally installed hanging flower baskets and sidewalk planters are a real asset to the street. Just a block away on Second Avenue, the lot where the Hudson House once stood remains a weed- and sapling-infested blight on the landscape, surrounded by a shaky, semi-collapsed blue security fence. Four years after one of the last affordable housing options downtown was closed and demolished, a tired sign declares that the ramshackle property has been approved for three commercial and 56 residential units, with no apparent takers.
Over on the northeast corner of Winnipeg Street and Cleveland Avenue, a neglected empty lot greets passers-by. Just down the road, on the northeast corner of Pemberton and Cleveland, the dereliction continues. How about a municipal directive requiring owners to either develop these vacant eyesores in a timely fashion, or to convert them into friendlier, neighbourhood-enhancing sites?
To get an idea of what is possible, we need not look too far afield. In many centres in the Lower Mainland, and smaller communities just south of the border, streets and sidewalks are kept clean and empty lots are developed, or transformed into well-kept pedestrian zones or community gardens.
This is not to suggest that the district is clueless about how the downtown can be improved. Recently, muni staff added another document to a growing library of downtown sustainability communiqués and council unanimously endorsed it. Our mayor has referred to the downtown streetscape standards manual in customary laudatory terms as "fantastic and exciting," with the added bonus that it was "completed in-house."
The manual proclaims that sometime in the future, mid-block "bumpouts" will grace Cleveland Avenue, more sidewalk patios will sprout from storefronts, rain gardens will dazzle us, and we will all be lured downtown by the gravitational pull of street celebration corners.
According to district staff, "having the standards sets the goal posts for what we'd like to see happen in the downtown."
Sounds great, but let's get past the smoke and mirrors. Muni hall needs to get into the game and run with the ball right now. They've been repositioning the goal posts for far too long.
