Gina MacKay, director of planning and development, likes the bump-outs that slow traffic and make pedestrians more visible when they cross the street. More are planned when the next portion of Main Street is redone. (Richard McGuire photo)
Two councillors expressed disappointment last week in the low turnout of stakeholders at a recent forum on the Town Centre Renewal Action Plan.
Councillor Jim King said it was “a little discouraging” that businesses didn’t participate in the June 13 forum.
Councillor Mike Campol gave a self-described “little rant” about his frustration that people complain about lack of public consultation, but the public itself doesn’t engage.
Meanwhile, if the public won’t engage with the town, the town is going out and trying to generate interest in the community by reaching out to groups and businesses.
Last week, Gina MacKay, director of planning and development, spoke to the Rotary Club of Osoyoos about the Town Centre Renewal Action Plan.
The plan, she said, will address physical elements, business development, promotional activities and organization building – all aimed at getting more people to use the downtown area, especially into the evening.
MacKay said that with the first public meeting behind, the town is now speaking to groups in the community that are already meeting, such as the Rotarians, instead of asking people to come and meet with the town.
Initially they planned to engage with businesses in July, but the town decided to wait until September after the busy period and the heat of summer.
“It’s about a place-centered vision for our community,” said MacKay. “The idea is to develop a complete town centre – one where people can meet and learn new things from each other.”
There will be public meetings, review and finalization in fall she said.
“We’re kind of stretching it out a little bit,” MacKay said. “I’ll be honest with you. One of the reasons is because we don’t want a plan like this to be caught up in politics.”
Municipal elections take place on Oct. 20.
Under the first theme, physical spaces, the process will look at such things as sidewalks, expanding uses of the streets, increasing the number of trees and other physical issues, she said.
This could include elements such as trees or pergolas to provide shade when the weather is hot so that people don’t all move to the shady side of the street, she added.
“If people are comfortable downtown, they spend more time there, and as a consequence they spend more money,” MacKay said.
Having events and activities downtown, especially in the off-season, such as the winter, also encourages more people to come downtown, she said. And this might encourage more business owners to stay open during the winter months, she added.
One idea being discussed, she said, is permanently closing the portion of 85th Street east of Home Hardware where the street dances used to take place.
“Wouldn’t that be great to have a little town square?” she said, noting that there would be little nodes of public space from Gyro Park up to the Town Square next to town hall.
When the museum moves into the present Home Building Centre at the beginning of 2020, there will also be an opportunity to have some outdoor space there, she said.
“So we create these nice little nodes and again it gets people downtown,” she said. “It gets them to stay longer downtown and spending money and it creates these activities.”
MacKay said that parking has been talked about in every community where she’s worked.
“I always say there’s not a parking problem, there’s a parking perception problem,” she said.
Sometimes business owners or operators park in front of their own stores. Even before stores open, it gives people the impression that parking is full so they just keep driving.
One idea that’s being discussed is extending parking downtown to three hours instead of the current two.
“That gives people more opportunity to shop, go for a quick swim, get hair done, go for lunch and go shopping again,” MacKay said.
The downtown area, she noted, refers to the greater downtown and not just Main Street.
The town is considering incentive programs, such as reducing development cost charges, to encourage more people to live downtown, she said.
This could include building residential units above commercial buildings.
“It’s just a fantastic way of creating an ambiance downtown. It also lends itself to a safer downtown, because then you’ve always got more people around,” she said.
MacKay said people really like the bump-outs that were added to the sidewalks when the lower portion of Main Street was reconstructed in the spring. The plan is to extend the bump-outs further up Main Street, which will tend to slow down traffic sooner coming down the hill.
“I love the bump-outs,” she said. “They’re great.”
They also provide an opportunity for for public art spaces, for example, she added.
Other communities have business improvement areas or downtown business associations, but Osoyoos doesn’t have this, MacKay said.
“We’re hoping that over time we can encourage the business community to work together, to possibly develop a downtown business association with the help of the town,” she said. “We’re willing to help in any way we can to get something like this going.”
Business organizations in other communities often organize downtown events, she noted.
MacKay said that by having an action plan in place, it makes it a lot easier to get money from various funding sources, such as senior levels of government.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
