Residents and business owners are divided over plans to allow businesses to move into residential areas in Centretown. A number of streets could change status from “residential” to so-called “mixed use,” if city council approves the draft of the Centretown Community Design Plan.
The plan for future development in Centretown will be presented to the city’s planning committee on Dec. 11, but Robert Dekker, vice-president of Centretown Citizens Community Association, hopes councillors will change their mind before that.
“You’re allowing residential areas to become more and more business areas,” he says. “People don’t want to live with businesses, they want to live where other people live.”
After more than two years of preparation, the draft of the plan sets out a new direction for the future on building heights and green spaces. But also included are changes to restrictions of businesses in residential areas. Streets south of Somerset Street will change from being mainly “residential” to “mixed use” and parts of Somerset Street will become what planners call a “secondary main street.”
“It (Somerset Street) is really not a main street at all,” Dekker says, adding he fears that residents will slowly start to disappear from the areas over the next five to 10 years.
“What we are afraid will happen is it will create what we call ghettos, for lack of a better word. After 5 p.m. nobody’s around, because everyone’s gone home,” he says.
“That can become a safety factor. After 5 o’clock now, it is pretty well dark. It creates an atmosphere where some people just won’t feel comfortable walking.”
Gerry LePage, executive director of the Bank Street BIA disagrees that allowing businesses to move into current residential areas will scare residents away.
“The opposite is happening,” he says. “Having a mixture of businesses and residences make a main street more viable in the regard that it encourages residents to use those services because it is close. So I think it is a very good thing.” He says businesses are striving to meet residents’ needs.
“You’re starting to see businesses open past 6 o’clock, and that’s responding to the new lifestyle needs of these residents,” LePage says.
George Dark, a partner of Urban Strategies, the consultant firm behind the design plan, says he believes both the needs of residents and businesses can be met.
Dekker says the CCCA will try to persuade city council to change its mind before the decision in December.