By Kayla Hounsell
Residents of Ottawa’s Chinatown are taking action to revitalize their neighbourhood to make it more attractive to tourists and the Asian culture more visible.
“I think in every major city, Chinatown was not something you wanted to strive for because it was associated with slums,” says Ken Kwan, chair of the Somerset-Chinatown BIA.
“But what we’ve found in most North American cities is that Chinatown is now a major tourist attraction,” he says, adding that tourism officials in Beijing have listed Ottawa as a tourist destination.
Residents attended a meeting organized by Carleton University architecture and heritage planning students in conjunction with the Somerset-Chinatown BIA. The students asked groups of residents to draw a map of what they would like to see changed in their community.
One of the biggest issues was the construction of a gateway at the corner of Cambridge and Somerset. Camille Girard-Ruel, the Carleton student leading the meeting, said the gateway will clearly mark the area.
“When a tourist comes in and they want to go for Asian food, they don’t know where to go,” says Kwan.
But Girard-Ruel did say the gateway could make the area too isolated. One area business man said he’s concerned more tourists will give the area more market value and increase his rent.
Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes says the gateway is one of the things she would like to see implemented. “I think that every small step that goes on will strengthen the branding of the street.”
Kwan says the gateway has already been approved by the city and the BIA expects it to be built in two years.
However, Girard-Ruel says the project needs to be funded by the community. She says they don’t yet know how much it will cost.
At the meeting, some residents suggested having a graffiti contest, or a mural mapping out what the gateway will look like and asking for donations.
During the meeting, the Carleton team asked locals to draw what their community means to them.
Ha Nguyen, who came to Canada from Vietnam, says Chinatown reminds her of home.
“Sometimes I’m going to Chinatown, not because I need to buy a particular thing,” she says. “But just because I want to be around it, the smells of the food, the sounds of the language, the sight of the signs, the things that bring me a sense of familiarity.”
Gordon Walker, a member of the BIA, wrote only a list of words to discuss his impression of the community. “Chaotic, busy, flamboyant, sloppy, poorly maintained, fabulous food, unique smells, no landscape accents, lack of identity.”
Other suggestions were to add more colour on streets in order to add more of the Chinese culture; others suggested improving parking; expanding the boundaries to Dundonald Park, building a museum, and adding more graffiti with a cultural theme.
One woman said she thinks the area should be called “Asian town.”
But Kwan says the BIA recently conducted a survey which showed that 85 per cent of residents thought the area should be officially called Chinatown.
“If you go to a big city and ask a taxi driver, ’Where’s Chinatown?’ they know, ask them, ‘Where is Asian town?’ they don’t know,” says Peter So, owner of So Good restaurant on Somerset Street.
Last year, the group worked with experts from across the country to determine what worked and what didn’t.
Kwan says the BIA really appreciates the feedback from the Carleton students. He says they repainted all of the green lampposts to red in order to reflect more of the Asian colour in the streets, a suggestion from last year’s Carleton team.
About 30 people attended the meeting, most of whom were either Carleton students or members of the BIA.
Girard-Ruel said she was happy with the way the meeting progressed. “We’ve gotten a sense of certain things we hadn’t thought of,” she says, in relation to holding graffiti contests or a mural to fund the gateway project.
The Carleton team is currently photographing all the architecture in Chinatown, and compiling a book of historical data. Their findings will be presented to the BIA and the public in January to show how they can help improve Ottawa’s Chinatown.