Open during construction
Open for business / construction
Open during construction.
Roads need fixing. Pipes need replacing. Transit needs building. Nobody argues with that.
But when the City closes your street for a season, your customers go somewhere else.
Today, when Ottawa starts work on your street, you get a notice, a project contact and a lane kept open where possible. Nothing in the plan is built around keeping your doors open.
Other cities do more. Quebec City pays affected businesses up to $30,000 a year during tram construction. Montreal pays up to $40,000 a year. Toronto has funded business groups on streets torn up by transit work. When CFIB graded 66 Canadian cities this year, Toronto outscored Ottawa on construction support.
Do what the City controls.
Ontario cities can’t write cheques to businesses for lost sales. The Municipal Act forbids it. Hamilton says so on its own website. That is why Montreal and Quebec City can do things Ottawa can’t.
So Alex Lawson’s plan does what the City controls: how it plans, signs, schedules and finishes its own projects. And it asks the Province for the one tool the City doesn’t have.
The plan: seven commitments
One named person is assigned at the design stage, with the authority to fix access, deliveries, signage and scheduling problems on the spot.
Every major project’s budget includes signs that say the businesses are open during construction, wayfinding to entrances, and detour signs that tell customers the businesses on the block are still open, like the detour signs the City already pays for.
Every project goes on one site, with start and end dates, detours, temporary parking and loading zones. It is updated weekly.
The businesses on the block get a meeting before work starts. There are no avoidable lane closures in a street’s busiest season without notice.
Every major project gets a business impact check before it starts: how long, how many businesses, how much access is lost. Bigger impact gets more help, including extended signage, temporary loading and short-term parking, and promotion of affected businesses on City channels. Every project is reviewed when it ends, and the results are published.
Businesses on a street under City construction for three months or more could defer their property tax and skip the penalties, then repay interest-free when the work ends. CFIB has called for this kind of relief. A Lawson council will ask the Province in year one to confirm the City’s authority to do it, and have the program ready the day the Province says yes.
Cones go up no more than 24 hours before work starts. Utilities and developers that close a lane pay by the day, not a flat fee. City contracts carry end dates with penalties. The fastest relief is a finished road.
No grant fund. No cheques.
There is no new grant fund and no cheques. There is no new department: liaisons come from existing project staff. And there are no promises the law doesn’t allow.
Part of building the road.
Signs and access work are part of building the road, and they belong in the project budget. Liaisons come from staff already working on the project. A tax deferral is repaid, so it costs the City time, not money.
Pricing lane closures by the day gives everyone a reason to hurry. Today a utility or developer pays a flat fee to close a road and pays again only to change the dates. One who pays by the day has a reason to finish. On City projects, completion penalties in the contract do the same job.
Fix the road. Keep the shop.
Open During Construction works alongside Get Ottawa Moving (smart signals and lane-closure pricing), Free Up Parking, Report Red Tape and the Small Business Tax Cut.
Read the full plank, with every source (PDF)
Ottawa deserves better.