Featured Guest
You’ll find this guest among our growing roll of Urban Champions.
Rino Bortolin
Windsor City Councilor
Jess Zimbabwe
Director of Urban Development, National League of Cities
Graham Singh
Executive Director, Trinity Centres Foundation
Carol Bebelle
Co-founder, Ashé Cultural Arts Center
5 Key
Takeaways
A roundup of the most compelling ideas, themes and quotes from this candid conversation
1. 3 Cs: Community, Culture and Commerce
According to Carol Bebelle, Executive Director of Ashé Cultural Arts Center, a good community cannot exist without the 3 Cs. Of the three, people (community) are the foundation for culture and commerce. Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard is a vibrant main street in New Orleans steeped in African-American civil rights history. But the celebration of this particular history was never meant to be exclusive to a particular group. Negotiating the differences between diverse groups is key to enabling people to band together and revitalize local commerce. The community development model in Oretha Castle Haley has been recognized nationally for best practice in the United States.
2. Rethinking community ownership over civic and communal spaces
Graham Singh, Executive Director of Trinity Centres Foundation, suggests churches and other faith properties should be at the disposition of main street communities. Churches play vital roles in communities that reach far beyond hosting congregations, such as providing a venue for youth sports and basement gatherings. This history of flexible use can be leveraged to revitalize main streets. Singh, as the pastor of St. Jax in Montréal, has opened up his church to a range of non-traditional users, including circus cabaret group Le Monastère, to reactivate and revive the surrounding neighbourhood. The ownership and use of these communal spaces will be important going forward to preserve civic uses and keep non-profits in the centres of Canadian cities.
3. “The pandemic is the ultimate pilot project”
According to Rino Bortolin, city councillor for the City of Windsor, in a matter of one week the City erased 40 years of policies to allow for patios and sidewalk animation. These ordinances were built up over the last few decades for the sake of managing risk, but he says they have ultimately held Canadian cities back. Bortolin calls for municipal governments to shift from risk management to allow for risk taking that better supports brave, innovative entrepreneurs. Singh identifies the loss of all local businesses as the real risk cities should be managing.
4. Tending to the local garden
Jess Zimbabwe, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for Main Street America, calls for the need to develop a better entrepreneurial ecosystem. Previously, communities pursued economic development by attracting businesses from other places. According to Zimbabwe, we should be “looking inward and doing that real gardening of the businesses you already have.” This approach leverages existing assets and strengthens community capacity. Bebelle further emphasizes that it is critical to invest in the voice of the community, enabling representative organizations to effectively bring their concerns to elected officials and developers.
5. Municipalities must go beyond just regulating
Councillor Bortolin calls on local governments to evolve into active partners as opposed to passive regulators. He suggests the municipality take a proactive approach to development based on the design and build model. Community capacity building and publicly guided development must be baked into policy for long term consistency between election cycles. This will ensure that the present community benefits from growth and investment. By working with private developers, in close collaboration with community organizations, municipalities can incentivize developers and secure the necessary community benefits. It is important to plan with people, not for them.
Additional Resources
- Oretha Castle Haley Blvd: A community for all – video
- My Main Street is a 23.25 million investment to help drive business and restore vibrancy to local communities across southern Ontario in the aftermath of COVID-19.
- The SPACE Coalition (Saving Public Access to Community space Everywhere) is working to improve access to schools for nonprofit groups in Ontario.
- The National Main Street Center’s research on the impacts of COVID on small businesses across the U.S.
- The Nehemiah Initiative
- Updating the social contract around historic places of faith, by Graham Singh
- Hand over Canada’s white churches to the charities who need them, by Graham Singh
Full Panel
Transcript
Note to readers: This video session was transcribed using auto-transcribing software. Manual editing was undertaken in an effort to improve readability and clarity. Questions or concerns with the transcription can be directed to events@canurb.org with “transcription” in the subject line.
Full Audience
Chatroom Transcript
Note to reader: Chat comments have been edited for ease of readability. The text has not been edited for spelling or grammar. For questions or concerns, please contact events@canurb.org with “Chat Comments” in the subject lin
From Canadian Urban Institute: You can find transcripts and recordings of today’s and all our webinars at https://canurb.org/citytalk
00:16:49 Canadian Urban Institute: Welcome! Folks, please change your chat settings to “everyone” so everyone can see your comments. Attendees: where are you tuning in from today?
00:17:08 Laurel Davies Snyder: Hello from Stratford, ON.
00:17:11 THEA KARLAVARIS: Toronto
00:17:12 Heather Currie: North Grenville Ontario – outside Ottawa
00:17:21 Tom Pischel: Hello from Oakville, ON
00:17:26 Mary Chevreau: Kitchener
00:17:36 cathy parsons: Hello from London ON
00:17:37 Matthew Mohan: Listening in from the Junction in Toronto. Hi!
00:17:38 Dawn Hadre: LaSalle, Ontario
00:17:38 Kristen Harrison: King Township, ON
00:17:39 Kassandra Girard: Hello from West Nipissing, Ontario!
00:17:40 Larissa Yantha: West Nipissing
00:17:45 Keith Lee: Los Angeles
00:17:48 Jennifer Brown: Hello from Saint John, New Brunswick
00:17:49 Andrea Villela: Toronto, but I am from Sao Paulo, Brazil
00:17:49 Michael Cooke: Windsor!!
00:17:55 Alicia Higgison: Hi from Windsor!
00:17:55 Brett Salmon: Guelph
00:17:58 Donna Goodwin: Kawartha Lakes
00:18:06 Winki Tam: Downtown Vancouver – unceded territories of squamish, musqueam, and tsleil-waututh nations. Morning folks!
00:18:12 Stefan Fediuk: Windsor, Ontario
00:18:17 Deidre Nelson: Hello from the Marpole neighbourhood of Vancouver, traditional territory of the Musqueam People, grateful to be here!
00:18:22 Canadian Urban Institute: HOUSEKEEPING: A friendly zoom reminder, you can see and hear us but we can’t see or hear you. We have closed captioning enabled for today’s session. If you would like to turn it off, please click on the button at the bottom of your screen and disable. We are recording today’s session and will share it online at www.citytalkcanada.ca. We hope this session is as interactive as possible, so please feel free to share comments, references, links or questions in the chat.
00:19:00 Canadian Urban Institute: My Main Street is a 23.25 million investment to help drive business and restore vibrancy to local communities across southern Ontario in the aftermath of COVID-19. Learn more at www.mymainstreet.ca
00:19:52 Canadian Urban Institute: New Orleans native, Co-founder and Executive Director of Ashé Cultural Arts Center, Bebelle is a constant voice and advocate for the primal role of culture in establishing equity, justice and compassion in American society. This learning and insight was derived from her first career in human service planning that spanned two decades. Her day-to-day laboratory for this work for 21 years has been the Ashé Cultural Arts Center where the day to day was created by the intersection of culture, community and art. Her new platform is AKUA Productions NOLA where her artist self is more present in her efforts.
00:23:52 Canadian Urban Institute: Reminding attendees to please change your chat settings to “everyone” so everyone can see your comments. Thanks!
00:25:07 Deidre Nelson: Wow!!! I am so inspired already and it has only been five minutes!! We need this boulevard here.
00:27:07 Deidre Nelson: ..by here, I mean the Marpole neighbourhood of Vancouver.
00:29:32 Heather Currie: I’m not seeing it above – can you type out the name of the Boulevard please? (apologies if it’s above)
00:30:51 Canadian Urban Institute: You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAUltmzD0xI
00:31:42 Canadian Urban Institute: Graham Singh is Founder and Executive Director of the Trinity Centres Foundation, a new Canadian charity established to transform 100 historic city centre church buildings into community hubs. TCF’s team of 50+ advisors from the social innovation, property finance, urbanism and faith sectors are currently developing what may become one of Canada’s most significant social purpose real estate investment offerings. Over the past 12 years, Graham has led four historic building and community renewal projects in the United Kingdom and Canada, including in his current role as Rector of the Anglican Diocese of Montreal’ recent church plant, St Jax Montreal.
00:32:02 Canadian Urban Institute: Graham also acts as a consultant in the area of social impact investing, in the private wealth management sector. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics, Cambridge University (Ridley Hall / St Mellitus College), the University of Western Ontario and Asbury Theological Seminary. He is currently enrolled in Oxford University’s Saïd Business School Impact Innovations Programme.
00:33:35 Mary W Rowe, she/her, CUI: Oretha Castle Haley
00:33:54 Heather Currie: Thank you. 🙂
00:37:45 Mary Chevreau: We all do what Mary says 🙂
00:37:59 Laurel Davies Snyder: 🙂
00:38:24 Ralph Cipolla: hello from Orillia Ontario
00:38:41 Deidre Nelson: This is wonderful, what an amazing way of thinking about possible solutions.
00:40:48 Ted Emond: St. Paul”s Centre in Orillia is an example. check it out
00:42:45 Susan Fletcher: Sadly, too many schools are still empty evenings and weekends. The SPACE Coalition (Saving Public Access to Community space Everywhere) is working to improve access to schools for nonprofit groups in Ontario. https://www.spacecoalition.ca/
00:42:54 Canadian Urban Institute: Born in Windsor, Rino Bortolin is a city councillor for Ward 3 and a culinary talent. Rino is the co-owner/operator, with his wife Anastasia Adams, of Rino’s Kitchen & Ale House. As a participant and supporter of the Downtown Windsor Farmers’ market, Rino understands the importance of attracting local businesses and tourism to our area. Rino feels his experience in business and the community makes him the right fit for the Council seat. He is a strong advocate of small business and believes that taxpayer money should be spent with respect to the taxpayer. He believes stronger regional ties with the county only serve to benefit Windsor businesses. He is committed to greater emphasis on creating neighbourhood identities that foster pride and engagement. He also lists as priorities items that affect our neighbourhoods such as increased cleanliness in streets, parks and urban blight, and continued rejuvenation of the Downtown core.
00:43:05 Arlene Gould: \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
00:45:04 Deidre Nelson: “Culture, community and commerce”, yes!!
00:47:46 Mary Chevreau: Has policy changed, or exceptions made during COVID?
00:47:51 Winki Tam: Such a great way to summarize the underlying problem (risk management), thank you.
00:48:05 Carrie Stalder: All cities are food cities!
00:49:15 Canadian Urban Institute: Jess Zimbabwe (she/her) became Environmental Works’s Executive Director in 2021. Previously, she founded a consulting practice, Plot Strategies, and served for ten years as the founding Director of the Daniel Rose Center for Public Leadership—a partnership of the National League of Cities and the Urban Land Institute. The Center’s flagship programs were the Daniel Rose Fellowship in Land Use and the Equitable Economic Development Fellowship. Before that, Jess was the Director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and Vice President for Programs at the American Architectural Foundation. She has also served as the Community Design Director at Urban Ecology, providing pro bono community planning and design assistance to low-income neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area.
00:49:31 Canadian Urban Institute: Jess is a member of the urban design and planning faculty at the University of Washington, and previously taught at Georgetown University and the University of Texas, Austin. Jess was an Urban and Regional Policy Fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a Fellow of the Women’s Policy Institute. She serves on the boards of Next City, the National Main Street Center, and Colloqate. She has held a mayoral appointment to the DC Green Building Advisory Council.
00:57:01 Jess Zimbabwe: Here is a link to the National Main Street Center’s research on the impacts of COVID on small businesses across the U.S.: https://www.mainstreet.org/howwecanhelp/resourcecenter/mainstreetforward/research
00:57:09 Canadian Urban Institute: We love your comments and questions in the chat! Share them with everyone by changing your chat settings to “everyone”. Thanks!
01:00:04 Mona Moreau: What about the “church community” that sells their church to a developer. That’s what happened in Toronto on St. Clair Ave West just east of Avenue Road.
01:00:43 Canadian Urban Institute: Here’s Graham’s article “Updating the social contract around historic places of faith”: https://www.cardus.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Updating-the-Social-Contract_Municipal_World_2019.pdf
01:00:57 Laurel Davies Snyder: Before we develop / tweak municipal vehicles/tools, what are the questions we should be asking to determine “measures of success” (How do we organize tools & systems so that the community/nonprofits, etc. own resources so they are part of main streets/downtowns?)
01:01:04 Heather Currie: ours chose to level the abandoned catholic school beside the church for a parking lot rather than convert to affordable housing. There was even a hunger strike around it but they did not budge
01:02:41 Jess Zimbabwe: more on The Nehemiah Initiative: https://www.nehemiahinitiativeseattle.org/
01:03:31 Canadian Urban Institute: Here is Graham’s other piece “Hand over Canada’s white churches to the charities who need them”: https://www.municipalworld.com/feature-story/canadas-white-churches/
01:03:35 Carrie Stalder: Longer term thinking is the key.
01:05:09 Mona Moreau: How do we motivate communities to get engaged? So many people feel they don’t have a voice.
01:05:12 Deidre Nelson: Absolutely, because the NIMBY’s are organized and very vocal, even if they are not representative of the whole neighbourhood.
01:06:04 Laurel Davies Snyder: Engagement processes, structures, etc. need to be critically examined in the planning process
01:06:25 Deidre Nelson: Yes Mona, good question, because people are also very busy and don’t have tons of time to think about community building.
01:06:57 Jess Zimbabwe: (That’s a photo of our historic fire station in Capitol Hill, Seattle.)
01:07:08 Shuraine Otto-Olak: This is such an important discussion. Community voices are essential in creating policies
01:07:18 Carrie Stalder: YES, Carol! Raising community voices
01:11:17 Jess Zimbabwe: Crowd funding models hold a lot of promise for small-scale development projects and also early-phase community development activities.
01:13:51 Canadian Urban Institute: Keep the conversation going #citytalk @canurb You can find transcripts and recordings of today’s and all our sessions at https://www.canurb.org/citytalk CUI extends a big thank you to TD for their support on CityTalk.
01:14:00 Mary Chevreau: great conversation — thank you all
01:14:49 Canadian Urban Institute: COMING UP: Join us on October 13 to learn more about My Main Street and how to apply. We’ll share examples of projects that are eligible, walk you through the application process and answer any questions you have. To register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6mCzykHiTASWogWVTVxIhA From October 18-20, 2021, we will be in Victoria, British Columbia, meeting with a cross-section of individuals and organizations on the challenges the city is facing, and how they’re responding to them. Visit https://canurb.org/cui-x-victoria/ for more information.
01:15:07 Charles Cooper: Planning ‘with people’, not ‘to people’.
01:15:10 Laurel Davies Snyder: Thank you everyone. Fantastic discussion!
01:15:13 Catherine Soplet: Great panel – I will share this with MIRANET Council – the Mississauga Ratepayers/Residents Assosciations Network @Soplet
01:15:36 Deidre Nelson: Amazing and inspiring!!! Thank you all so much.
01:15:52 Leandro Santos: Thanks to all the panellists for this fruitful discussion!
01:16:03 Caroline Taylor: Thank you. Very inspiring.
01:16:15 Stacy Holland: Thank you
01:16:18 Tom Pischel: Thank you everyone.
01:16:20 Robin McPherson: Fantastic. Thank you
01:16:25 Shuraine Otto-Olak: Thank you very much for this!
01:17:02 Graham Wilson: Thank you!
