Vote for Meeeeee!!!!

Still got that awful post-civic election taint on your fingers? Feeling guilty that you DIDN’T EVEN VOTE? Hate your new-but-mostly-old-because-there’s-no-point-in-voting-so-no-one-did pro-business, developer-friendly, government-hatin' city council?

Here’s your chance to exercise your franchise in a more meaningful way. The Aviva Fund has been holding votes over teh internets to determine which of hundreds of local projects it will be supporting through its community foundation. There are a few vote worthy ideas afloat around these parts – like Prairies Unplugged and Learning Through Hip Hop, which I hear is dragging down my fave idea, the revamp of the Loggies Building into a cultural mecca.

So vote already. Get your friends, kids, classmates, cat, whoever – it takes a second to sign up, and you can vote once per day from each computer. Time’s a wastin'! Just two days left. (Pssst: Vote Loggies!)

Photo: Myek O'Shea

Election Issue: The Downtown Neighbourhood Plan

In the most recent prairie dog, we ran the top six municipal election issues as we saw them: poverty, the rental crisis, urban sprawl, transportation, recycling and waste, and recreation. I turned in a blurb on the Downtown Neighbourhood Plan that was bumped and seeing as it's otherwise just sit useless in my hard drive, I thought I'd post it here...

THE DOWNTOWN PLAN AND ITS CHEERLEADERS

After many consultations, draft reports and delays, on September 21, city council passed it’s new Downtown Neighbourhood Plan entitled “Walk to Work”. It lays out a comprehensive and progressive vision for the centre of the city that will see it transformed over the next 25 years into the heart of Regina’s cultural, civic and business life.

If all goes according to plan, the moonscape of surface parking south of Victoria will become sites for new development, biking and walking will be better accommodated, transit will be improved in and out of the core, more residential development will begin to spring up downtown, and street-level business will be courted and encouraged.

All in all, we should slowly see downtown Regina become a greener, more vibrant and user-friendly place to be.

Already, plans have been unveiled to revitalize Victoria park and the streets around it, and a new condo-complex and hotel has been unveiled for downtown’s western gateway on the site of the Plains Hotel.

City hall seems pretty happy with the Downtown Neighbourhood Plan. There were figurative high-fives all round the day it passed council, and it seems to be moving full steam ahead.

So why is it an election issue?

Because as the plan unfolds, there will be room for a new council to interpret it, ignore it, circumvent it or -- dare I suggest? -- sabotage it.

Sure, it will be made into a bylaw and incorporated into the Official Community Plan, but council has shown this is no guarantee that it will be followed in the long run. Over the last year, apartments were converted to condominiums despite objections from city staff and city policy. Apartment blocks were approved in commercial zones in contravention of guidelines in the Official Community Plan.

No plan or policy, it seems, is sacrosanct forever.

And yet to be fair, when I have pressed sources within the city's administration about this, they have responded that the various elements within the plan are too interconnected for any of its parts to be ignored, rewritten or interpreted in ways contrary to their intent. Here's hoping they're right.

Despite the boons it promises for the city, the Downtown Neighbourhood Plan is not without costs. And they may be costs that future councils will be unwilling to carry.

Without cheerleaders on council -- and based on their profiles and public statements alone, it’s not always obvious who among the challengers for council are such -- the Downtown Neighbourhood Plan could conceivably wither and die.

Downtown Plan: A Date is Set

Word on the street is the highly-anticipated, much-delayed, Downtown Neighbourhood Plan will be going before the Regina Planning Commission on September 18 and then before Council on September 21. (You can look back at some Dog Blog coverage of the plan and its delays here and here.)

The plan will be going forward at the same time as the proposal to replace the Plains Hotel with a hotel/condo highrise -- presumably as a showcase for what the plan can achieve.

More details as we hear 'em.

No Finer Place to Be

We were stuck inside most of the day finishing up our indescribably awesome June 18 issue which, among other features, includes a fun-filled tour of Regina's three First Nations' owned gas bars and a review of a documentary on Canadian heavy metal veterans Anvil. But during the lunch hour we did venture outside for a bit of fresh air and stumbled across a couple of gatherings in the downtown that provided a glimpse of what life might be like if the Regina Downtown Neighbourhood Plan is given the political and socio-economic support needed to enable its progressive and eminently sustainable vision to be realized.

The first [top] involved a celebration of Regina's multi-cultural mosaic on the Scarth Street Mall while the second [bottom] saw over one thousand people gather in Victoria Park for the seventh annual I Love Regina Day. Yeah, I know were not huge fans of platitude-driven boosterism, but it was great to see so many people in the park on an outstanding summer day.