By Patricia Lonergan and Katherine Harding
Ottawa’s street war will soon move into council chambers.
A proposed bylaw to rename the new city’s 159 duplicate street names is scheduled to reach council by March, says Don Brousseau, leader of the former transition board’s street naming and numbering team. His team has been working on the project since May.
Five streets in Centretown – Derby, Duke, Mill, Hill and Elizabeth – will change. Others, such as Albert, won out over streets in other municipalities.
Street renaming has become an important but controversial amalgamation issue because duplicate names could cause confusion for emergency services, such as police and ambulances.
Brousseau is happy the bylaw will also include strict guidelines intended to reform and regulate the practice of street naming and numbering in the future.
“Emergency service workers have been complaining for years that this needed to be done. They either couldn’t see street numbers, or were confused by similar sounding street names,” he said. “Rules like this have never existed. Before it was wide open when someone wanted to name or number a street.”
The proposed bylaw would include these measures:
• Street numbers will have to be clearly visible and a certain distance from the road.
• Buildings will have to be numbered in a sequential order.
• Future street names have to be simple sounding and unique.
Representatives from all emergency services, as well as Bell Canada and Canada Post were consulted for suggestions on reforming and joining all the municipalities’ street naming and numbering systems.
Currently, the transition board’s recommendations are being reviewed at the committee level. If the bylaw reaches council, it could receive a rough ride. Mayor Bob Chiarelli has already publicly declared he doesn’t support renaming duplicate street names.
“People don’t want to change their street names, and they don’t have to. I find it strange that we have a conservative board doing social engineering.”
Brousseau hopes council reconsiders. “This is a safety issue and not just an administrative issue.”
If council approves the bylaw, affected residents will be given six months to adjust to their new street names before it officially changes.
“We want to give them half a year to get used to this. We don’t want there to be any confusion,” said Brousseau.
Several public meetings were held by the former region in December to discuss the proposed street name changes.
Carl Martin, communications officer for the transition board, said if the public “didn’t like any of the options they had, they could propose their own (names).”
The board also accepted petitions and suggestions from affected residents up to Jan. 19.
Brousseau said that 15 to 20 petitions were submitted. He said he hopes the petitions will be resolved quickly.
“We want everyone to get the name they want.”
The project team made its decisions on renaming streets based on precise criteria. Brousseau said the team looked at the number of homes and businesses affected, whether a hospital or landmark is on the street, the date the street was named and whether the name contributes to a community theme.
He said the team worked with more than a dozen people on the renaming project.