A plan in action, or planned inaction?

In the coming months, Oshawa citizens will see just how well the city’s plan to revitalize the downtown is panning out.

While this report is set to be more than just a sharing of details on projects in and around the city’s core, the work done on this blueprint is a microcosm of just how serious Oshawa is taking the task of changing its ways into the future.

Plan 20Twenty was approved a year ago this month, and with it came a long list of mostly generalized goals the city wanted to accomplish throughout 2015, many of which involved attracting new business, entrepreneurs and residents to the downtown.

It doesn’t need to be put in a plan for people to know that Oshawa’s downtown is lacking in certain amenities.

But what the downtown is lacking in quirky businesses, kitschy eateries, or tech start ups, it’s trying to make up for in preparedness to someday have all these things. Or that’s how it appears on the surface.

Overall, Plan 20Twenty is a lofty set of goals that sees Oshawa’s downtown transformed into something akin to Kitchener or Guelph.

It would be nice to see, but if that is to happen, this plan needs to move forward on schedule and without compromise.

Having free wireless Internet in the downtown would be great, but writing it in a plan and actually getting it are different things. The same thing goes for developing attraction strategies for businesses.

It’s easy to say a strategy is in the works, or is actually in place, but it won’t mean anything if the sun-bleached “For Sale” signs still hang in the deserted shop windows and many of the upper floors in the downtown remain vacant.

When the update drops in the coming months, be sure to keep a close eye on just how well the city has accomplished its 2015 goals.

If Oshawa wants to improve their downtown, then the city must take action.