By Jeremy Chenier
Local business groups are recommending the city spend $500,000 a year to attract more commercial development to Centretown.
“The fact is, if we can provide incentives rather than disincentives, that’s going to help us,” says Gerry LePage, executive director of the Bank Street Promenade Business Improvement Area.
In a letter to Mayor Jim Watson, business improvement areas from Bank Street Promenade, Somerset Village, Somerset Height and Sparks Street made recommendations aimed at lowering the cost of improving properties and erecting new structures in Centretown.
One recommendation involves the city reimbursing developers who improve properties. Currently, a property owner pays a higher tax based on the increased value of the building. The business groups want 50 per cent of the tax increase paid back to the property owner for three years after completion of the improvements.
“It’s been a long contention . . . that we have a regressive tax system that punishes doing something productive for your property . . . and rewards the individual or company for doing something counterproductive such as making a parking lot,” says LePage.
The business groups also want the city to waive or repay any development fees property owners might face; loans to help improve the interiors and exteriors of existing buildings; loans to help owners upgrade buildings to meet fire and building codes; grants to help pay for studies into adapting under-utilized buildings to more useful roles.
The recommendations come on the heels of an announcement the city is going to re-examine a 1994 plan to revitalize Centretown. The city is holding a summit in January to hear ideas from the community and hopes to develop a plan by next April.
“I want to have specific ideas coming out of the January meeting as opposed to theoretic exercise because we want to be able to come forward with an action plan, not another study or a task force,” says Watson.
Two of the five recommendations don’t involve cash, but would see the city collect less through taxes and fees. The remaining three programs come with a total suggested price tag of $500,000 each year.
The business groups recommend $250,000 for the building improvement loans, $150,000 for the re-use studies and $100,000 for the building and fire code loan program.
LePage says cost should be looked at as an investment that will pay for itself both in terms of money and improvements to Centretown.
The business groups want their recommendations included in the next budget. Although the budget will be finalized before the January summit, Watson says this isn’t a problem.
“If something comes up midway through the budget year . . . budget priorities can change,” says Watson. “So it’s not an obstacle if something comes out of the summit that requires some direct financial assistance.”
But Elisabeth Arnold, city councillor for Somerset Ward, says although the draft for next year’s budget is almost completed the new ideas can be discussed when the budget is debated.
“We’ll see what information the BIAs bring forward and depending on what it is I’m prepared to argue for it and if we have the votes then we’ll put it in place,” she says. “If not, then those are things that can go forward to the summit and will be put on the table there.”
Each of the five recommendations is based on a program that has worked in either Kitchener or London, Ont.
LePage warns this doesn’t guarantee success for Ottawa.
“Just because a program has met with marginal success in Kitchener, Waterloo, London or wherever, doesn’t necessarily mean it wouldn’t be extremely successful in our market place,” he says.