Downtown core goes green with EcoDistrict project

Ottawa’s downtown core is ready to go green.

The Ottawa Centre EcoDistrict, a City of Ottawa-funded initiative dedicated to making eco-friendly improvements downtown, will soon be launching new projects to improve cycling routes and create more opportunities for urban gardening. 

After a community meeting in February, the EcoDistrict group collected more than 300 suggestions about how to make downtown more environmentally friendly. These suggestions were narrowed down to 10 ideas, which members of the public then prioritized through online voting. The public consultation ended March 25, and the top three ideas will be officially announced by the end of April.

But the EcoDistrict has revealed the broad issues involved. 

“We’re going to continue to work on improving cycling downtown, and promoting cycling routes, lanes, and bike paths,” says Clark Trivers, the program co-ordinator of the EcoDistrict.

“It’s really important, especially in terms of a city that identified that 95 per cent of bike trips to the downtown core are from within eight kilometres. So, we’re developing a map of routes, so that if you live within eight kilometres of the EcoDistrict, you should be able to bike.”

The EcoDistrict officially encompasses the area from Gloucester Street north to the Ottawa River and from Bronson Avenue east to the Rideau Canal.

Trivers says they’re also going to focus on creating more spots for urban gardening within the EcoDistrict, because that idea was so popular during the public consultation.

The EcoDistrict has signed up more than 30 companies as “champions” to help make the downtown area more environmentally friendly. These include major developers such as Minto and Windmill Development Group, the company behind the massive Zibi development on the Chaudière Islands. 

Officials are hoping that more companies will be encouraged to join them.

“We want to share why taking steps towards more sustainable practices is actually good for businesses,” says Trivers. “Long-term cost savings are often a benefit to making more costly up-front investments in new technologies or programs. There is also the more subtle advantage of showing corporate responsibility for supporting a healthier shared environment.”

For Minto, supporting the EcoDistrict in Ottawa is part of a larger company effort to be more eco-friendly.

“We’re working on constructing more environmentally efficient buildings, and trying to reduce our impact on our resident portfolio,” says Paul Barton, a member of Minto’s sustainability team.

“When you look at EcoDistricts, they’re going to have all kinds of needs depending on the community. In some communities, water is going to be a big issue, for others it’s transport, or waste…so it really does come down to the needs of the community and what we can do for them.”

Supporting eco-friendly initiatives such as the EcoDistrict can also be economically beneficial for companies in the long run.

“Many of these green initiatives do involve a cost, but we absolutely view it as the right thing to do,” says Rodney Wilts, a partner at Windmill Development Group.

“We do believe that being a responsible corporate citizen does help our economic performance, as it does help our reputation with community associations, the city, and our purchasers,” he adds. “Some of those returns are hard to quantify, but we couldn’t imagine doing anything different.”

As the EcoDistrict now begins to move forward with its new projects, Trivers says they’re pleased with the feedback they’ve received.

“It is easy to imagine sources of criticism for a project like an EcoDistrict, but we have seen quite the opposite,” says Trivers.

“Reactions have been very positive from within downtown and also other areas in the city, because we all share the downtown core as a hub for so much activity.”