Plan 20Twenty on track for 2015 milestones
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
A soon-to-be released report regarding the city’s downtown is set to show that the city is on track to complete many of its key goals for 2015 to improve its city centre.
Plan 20Twenty, released in September 2014, laid out a laundry list of tasks and plans the city wanted to have completed by the end of this year, and according to David Tuley, Oshawa’s downtown development officer, many of those items will be checked off.
“It’s been a good year for checking stuff off,” he says. “Right now, my impression is we’ve started to get into items that weren’t slated for this year, but were slated for the one- to three-year period.”
This means Oshawa could be ahead of the game.
Tuley would not comment for The Express on just how many of the approximately 22 goals for 2015 are set to be completed, but said a meeting of the 20Twenty group is set for this month and a report following that meeting should detail the past year’s accomplishments.
Through the city’s communication department, several items have been announced over the last year, which connect back to Plan 20Twenty.
The announcement of the new public art policy in March was one such priority under the plan.
As well, Tuley says the city’s planning and policy team has completed the review of the downtown’s community improvement plans listed in the plan.
Many of the objectives for this year dealt with developing strategies to attract new business to downtown.
A new planned initiative by the city may be able to tackle several birds with one stone, as Tuley says a new pop-up shop program is currently being finalized.
“It’s all about allowing retailers and home-based businesses a chance to come affordabley into an empty space and try it out with minimal risk,” Tuley says. “It brings life to those vacant spaces.”
Another objective that appears to be making progress is the city’s plan to reassess the tree planting program, which may be linked to the new SILVA cells being installed in the downtown to replace trees damaged by the emerald ash borer.
Also, the goal to investigate a pilot project for downtown broadband connectivity may receive a boot from federal funds received last month, which are ear marked for public wireless Internet expansion.
However, other objectives which have not received mention from the city include the development of an upper storey inventory, detailing the upper floors above commercial space in the downtown, looking into refuse collection issues or a study of the pedestrian signals in the downtown.
Tuley says however the final numbers pan out, he wants the report to be completely clear on the city’s performance.
“I want it to be a very transparent report,” he says. “If we earned an F, we earned an F, and if we earned an A, we earned an A.”