Small Business task force relegated to shelved report syndrome
Yep, another report shelved. Now, although I suspected this when it was created, I don’t think its that big of a loss. I figured the group had a predetermined conclusion with its desire to eliminate red tape. Which, while, a very noble cause only addresses symptoms and not root cause of the problem
Nothing in that task forces conclusions did anything to protect main streets and inner city businesses from a declining population in the core (all BIA’s) as well as protecting it from poor land use policies that created the Costco Badlands. (The Jail gives that description a whole new relevance)
Unless you do something to protect main streets, local independent businesses are not sustainable
The planning report called for this even though the planner denied it, read the report if you don’t believe me. At 12% commercial vacancy rate in the core, new sprawling big box development is the last thing we need.
(Again as a disclaimer, this would not ban big box as they can still use abandoned infill commercial sites such as the Home Depot by the Mall and Wallmart on Tecumseh and Lauzon. They can also redevelop existing commercial sites by either demolishing or renovating existing commercial sites within the city
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Mark, your last paragraph says it all. however do you really think that this city has the backbone to implement such ideas?
For years Windsor has had this complex that if we don’t allow someone to do whatever it is they want they will do it elsewhere. That is just not the case. In fact it seems quite the opposite.
The Mikhail brothers (rightly or wrongly) tried to bring new business and lure others to downtown but would not even be given the time of day. Yet any developer that wants to build on the fringes of the city (are you hearing me Mr. Hatfield) can do so without impedence. Mr. Hatfield talks a good game but I would rather see action instead of mere words.
Without even looking into what some people want to bring downtown the city seems to know “what is best” for downtown. If that was the case our downtown would be booming. Instead, we find ourselves stuck due to a hodge-podge of failed policies at the city level. Why not listen to the BIA’s and the residents that surround them andomve forward? What harm could it do? It certainly couldn’t make these areas any worse than they have become.
So what is new for this city! Stduy, plan, study, plan, study, plan and then shelve it! This city is the greatest make work program for bureaucrats in Canada, were they measure themselves in time wasted and reports generated that they don’t implement or believe in. Planning, is just that and nothing else in this city!
Tomorrow! Tomorrow! The plan will come out tomorrow …
“Take this plan and shove it!
Don’t ya just hate a musical memory!
Maybe if there were more persons of the opposite gender that wore panties rather than big boxers on council and in the city administration, we would have a totally different city. The cities we have now were are all designed by men for men.
Would a city be different if women designed it?
Did we read the same report? The purpose of the report was to evaluate how we serve our small businesses in Windsor:
“That the City of Windsor Small Business Task Force BE ESTABLISHED to address issues related to Small Business in the City of Windsor and ensure our community is considering the needs of the Small Business environment; ”
As well:
“The creation of the Small Business Task Force was an acknowledgement by Council that small businesses are important to Windsor’s economy and that it was willing to reflect on the services demanded and used by small business owners, and consider what service improvement are necessary to make Windsor more business-friendly.”
Mark writes:
Nothing in that task forces conclusions did anything to protect main streets and inner city businesses from a declining population in the core (all BIA’s) as well as protecting it from poor land use policies that created the Costco Badlands.
That was not the scope of the study.
The issues you raise have more to do with economic development and city planning than the scope of this report.
Chris
“That the City of Windsor Small Business Task Force BE ESTABLISHED to address issues related to Small Business in the City of Windsor and ensure our community is considering the needs of the Small Business environment; ”
So are you sayg ing that a declining customer base caused by a declining population is not an issue related to small business. That New unfair competition from Big Box is also not an issue related to small business
P.S. By unfair competition I mean taxpayer subsidized landuse creating all but free parking in addition to poor if any design guidelines placed on big box preventing it from being pedestrian friendly, integrated into our community which is basically a taxpayer subsidy as Mainstreet businesses meet all those criteria
I guess if you limit the parameters of a study to say that the amount of customers doesn’t affect business you can tailor anything to anything
Customer base is of course related to our discussion here Chris!!, we are talking about residents who are the direct link to the problem of
a blighted retail. Well that and the fact that a healthy mixed uses of retail need retailers to be popular and pleasant businesses. In order for good tenants overall, positive retail is needed to make it work which we all
know are hindered by Windsors love of bars and massage parlours.
The residential customer base factor may be an obvious recommendation for a successful downtown. However, the importance of people can not be overemphasized. People provide the perception of safety and twenty four hour activity which Jane Jacobs described as ‘eyes on the street’. Economically, people provide the chance for retail to establish itself with markets to serve. Retail follows people downtown and survives off the traffic created in front of the storefronts. Without retail, mixed uses often lose the synergy and become blighted. Often, areas of downtown with no retail are perceived as dead zones due to the sparse pedestrian activity. People living downtown offer the chance for larger retailers to locate within them and act as anchors for smaller retailers. The national chain retailers can provide the critical mass needed for downtowns. Anchors traditionally have been department stores but can also be well known grocers and restaurants or even cultural and civic investments. Perceptions of a healthy downtown are characterized with lots of people. Cool downtowns are fueled by the density and diversity of people. Downtowns create a brand image based on the variety of people that walk the sidewalks. The brand image of a downtown can have a longstanding socio-economic impact on a community. If not managed properly as in Windsors case, downtowns can be susceptible to adverse conditions. Done correctly, the critical mass achieved can support any level of density a community wishes to accept. Urban transit systems, infill development and smaller scale national retail concepts, and allowing mixed uses can alleviate any negative perceptions some may have with increased density in the downtown. But without more density and the movement of national retailers back downtown, you never will reach the critical mass needed to become a healthy downtown again. We need to learn from the malls to beat the malls.
That those involved in the small business task force do not address sprawl, big box or population decline is very disheartening. I’ve written Dr. Morgan a few times but he doesn’t seem to want to have the debate.
The mayor seemed worried that any limits on Big Box development would send out a bad message to investors. What message does a 12% commercial vacancy rate send out???
Maybe a case study on Kingston is required
Jay says that these are all part of the discussion, but they are not part of the task forces discussion
But massage parlor zoning is not a recommendation of the small business task force. Completion of the CIP’s directly relating to residential is not a recommendation of the task force
National retailers according to the experts are not the future of downtown. They cannot draw beyond the geographical boundary of halfway to the next nearest location. Independent local businesses that become destinations and part of our cultural identity are the secret to drawing people from the entire region and beyond to both live and visit. Its not that we don’t want national chains, its just that the local flavor gives Windsor an unique selling position and a distinct sense of place.
To further Mark’s point take a look at Tecumseh’s Manning Rd and LaSalle’s Malden Rd. Most of the independant, small businesses were from Windsor and most came from Ouellette Ave.
Why did they leave? Many site taxes while others say the demographic shifted and that the bars made the area an unsafe place where their customers do not want to go and the vandalism too costly and city hall red tape.
Why is that? Because Windsor has yet to implement any CIP’s whether business related or neighbourhood related. Windsor doesn’t even have a demographic study of the downtown area!
The neighbourhoods are on a continual decline (though small bastions still exist within a few streets and condos) with no response from city hall. Businesses have left in droves due to high taxes and the crime factor (including vandalism from the drunk idiots). Yet the city puts on hold any CIP or compromised solution (4:00am closing) due to a greedy bar owner who themselves have done nothing to curb the violence outside of their establishment. All it takes in this city to stall anything is one lawsuit.
We state that no one wants to go downtown anymore but that is not true. There are over 6,000 residents in downtown that would love to shop there. If those businesses, the same ones that were downtown, can make a go of it in a shopping plaza with big box stores there is no reason as to why they can’t make a go of it in Windsor. If only city hall would get moving forward and implement the myriad of studies that have been done thus far.
Thank heavens we have the likes of Mark B that still believe in downtown. I would hate to think of what our downtown would be like without him fighting the good fight for all of us!
Its difficult watching council wait for a canal feasibility study to replace a downtown strategy meeting instead of having a downtown strategy meeting to prepare for any new downtown development.
Dave I think we found some more common ground on the canal plan. Without preparing for it with new policies, it will bring the same spin-off development outside the city center west boundaries as the Casino/convention/Arena has brought development outside its boundaries.
I still support it but I naively assumed that it would be done right and council’s silence on downtown strategy is a deafening wake up call
Its back-a** wards policy.
What good is a canal plan if a massage parlour can open up on the canal?
If a panhandler can panhandle in front of the residences?
If a after hours club opens up on the water?
If (as ME has repeated many times) crime in the adjacent area is not
addressed?
If there is no plan to get the people employed in the area (or at the casino)
to live downtown?
If Development incentives at least equivalent to the ones offered in London,
ONtario are not offered in the areas surrounding City Center west?
If a marketing campaign extolling the benefits of living downtown and its
amenities doesn’t start?
If the downtown residents are not asked to be involved in any new
infrastructure that comes to Downtown?
Never have we needed downtown strategy more and this is when they choose to put it on hold.
We need to have downtown anchor tentants such as big box retailers like Walmart and Home Depots and open them up downtown on a three story-human scaled building with escalators for shoppers to easily access upper floors
We need to have home builders build single family homes, brownstones, and lofts within 6 mile trade areas in proximity to these big box retailers?
We need to have clean sidewalks, ample street garbage cans, good retail, and free parking to compete with the Devonshire Mall convenience factors?
Only then will these small retail businesses be able to survive and compete against the malls and outlet malls known as lifestyle or town centers…..
Again, you need to learn from the malls to beat the malls.
also forgot, we need to create an entertainment district near the water on the west side of ouelette to synergize the bar and restaurants…. you cant have them piece meal all over downtown…and you can create a distinct district with a little streetscape flair and guilty nostalgia.
I love your practical suggestions Jay re - conslidating the entertainment district, cleaning up the sidewalks, et al, but… do you really believe that dumping a Walmart at ground zero downtown is going to make things better, versus sucking the life out of downtown even further? Or were you being facetious? I am reminded of Peterborough, a city half our size, with a small but vibrant downtown with mixed use tenants and no “big name” anchor to speak of. Do other successful downtowns have major anchors to thank for their success?
As to the free parking, downtown is not playing by the same rules as the Mall. They don’t have access to hundreds of acres of land to provide surface parking for 5,000 SUVs. If they provided “free” parking right now with what’s available, you can say goodbye to any available spaces as every office worker and resident will snap up those spaces leaving nothing for transient parking. It is transient parkers who go in and out of the stores and spend loads of money, not the teller at the bank for example. I do believe downtown and/or Ottawa st. BIA has tried the “free” parking experiment and it failed miserably.
JCS-
I think these suggestions would only be feasible with urban design guidelines so that these big box retailers need to follow what the city wants…3 or 4 story floors can give them their required floor space needed but you not wasting needless landscape with their 30 year life term buildings currently being built…A market study of the downtown residential sector will dictate what specific retailers are needed for anchors but the important point is that the anchors at each end of a retail strip will create the passerbys for small retailers to survive. I bet you wouldnt care as much about the anchor being a WalMart if you passed a sign bylaw that prohibits free standing signs and makes the wall sign sized so that its proportionate to the street scape. As for parking, there are innovate ways to provide parking near these anchor stores for easy access. Higher story parking garages can be built specifically for office workers and shared with the entertainment district patrons for night when their shifts change.
Although downtowns have a place for big box, if you ask the merchandising experts they will tell you not to waste your time focusing efforts in that area. They will tell you to concentrate on “Chain-lets” or local businesses that operate 2 to 6 outlets within your region. After that they will tell you to focus on local independant businesses.
I fully agree that we need a variety of housing options in our downtown Whats more important is that we need to create options that have amenities that the suburbs can’t offer. Places where the community can connect such as having cafe’s where the common mailboxes are as one example
“We need to have clean sidewalks, ample street garbage cans, good retail, and free parking to compete with the Devonshire Mall convenience factors?”
We’re still arguing over whose responsibility it is to keep the sidewalks clean. We have no more of a parking problem than any other downtown.
We will never beat the malls by competing with them at their game by their rules.
We need to develop a unique selling position that the malls can’t offer. Downtown businesses are owned by experts and local celebrities while mall stores are managed by managers. We need to convert our local businesses into regional destinations
“we need to create an entertainment district near the water on the west side of ouelette to synergize the bar and restaurants…. you cant have them piece meal all over downtown…and you can create a distinct district with a little streetscape flair and guilty nostalgia.”
That would probably have to be done over the residents dead bodies. Chatham street is already restaurant row while The Avenue South district (Ouellette south o Wyandotte is an entertanment district) I think its separated and defined quite distinctly. THe problem is when nightclubs try to exist outside of those natural boundaries such as on Pelissier which is not suitable.
JCS said -Do other successful downtowns have major anchors to thank for their success?
No, while there are downtowns that have attracted an anchor tenant, the current philosophy is that this is now harder to do and not a good use of limited resources needed for business recruitment. The big box usually come after the local businesses and city have made a success out of their downtowns which is what drives the big box to locate. Big box never break new ground, they only follow the demographics
There are ways to somewhat mitigate the parking “problem” downtown, but we’ll have to just agree to disagree on that one, Mark, as most of the “problem” has to do with attitudes and perceptions, not reality. Even if downtown was to bone up and improve on-street parking on Ouellette, we still have Windsor’s strange unexplainable phobia about dropping 50 cents in a parking meter. We’ll gladly get raped on the gallon or two of gasoline we burn driving out to the sprawlmall and navigating through the jungle of people and long line at the cash register to get a box of drywall screws, but god forbid we should part with a lousy quarter or two while we run into Canada Salvage for same. That is Ottawa BIA but same principle applies to downtown. I’ll use Turek as an example to be fair. Fine camera shop staffed by knowledgable individuals, easy parking on Pelissier, and absolutely no further to walk than one would for Black’s at the mall. As members of a buying group, they were even able to be price competitive with the big guns. Yet we are losing them and anecdotal information indicates the parking “problem” was the achilles heel. The Source (ex RS) is another example. At one time you could find one downtown not far from the present day DWBIA office and up until a few years ago on Ottawa street. As an urban resident I could pick up what I needed at eitiher location and be home before the car even finished warming up. All for 25 cents in a parking meter. That sounds like damn good economy to me. Especially if you consider that for some wise folks, these BIA destinations are walkable and parking doesn’t even enter the equation. The answer of course is not to take down the meters, but how do we change Windsorites attitudes toward the concept for paying for parking? Not an easy task. I think this points right back to washing one’s hands of the “free parking” loving sprawmall crowd and appealing to the urban set - improving public transit, catering to the residents, focus on your allies not those who have been hopelessly lost to the sprawl mentality. I don’t think we’ll see them return to city living until generational changes in attitudes toward urban living have transpired. And that will take time and patience.
How about you make parking meters that given one hour free. If you need more, make it $4.00 for the second hour. That way if you’re going to be an hour or less, it’s free, two hours? $4.00. If you want cheaper parking, park in a surface lot or in the garage, keeping the turnover rate high for the metered spots. How else can you make it work? Have high fines for an expired meter, something like $45.00. The meters turn over quickly allowing shoppers and short term visitors to easily find a free on street spot, the long parkers, put their cars off the street in lots or garages.
Everyone wins! However, this is an idea that would require some though on how to implement it, and it’s a bit different, so there is little chance of it seeing the light of day in a city as progressive as Windsor!
Can wait until the box boxes open out at the raceway!
Don’t get me wrong there’s dozens of ways to improve parking meter efficiency, but first you have to look at it as a tool for business development.
There are meters I’ve seen in Traverse city that have a button that gives you the first 15 minutes free. So there are many variations of what Andrew says.
One problem is that the business owners themselves aren’t educated on best practices and every individual has there own idea on how to do it. Lack of a consensus usually thwarts any progress. Just like my idea on voluntary compliance which should be a no brainer to any thinking person and should be a union demand for better working conditions
To me Chatham St. is one of the best places (barring the strip joint but Katzman is such a pain in the ass anyway,. He must have some real dirt on folks in city hall to get everything he asks for) in the city.
Chatham St. could be all over downtown but at least we have that. Pitt used to be that way until the gross Canderal building went up. No we have a whole street vacant of business with only two doors. What fun!
The only other streets I enjoy in downtown is University Ave. Chatham and University have such an eclectic amount of restuarants (with a few bars, smoe not so great but that is o.k) and businesses it is quite enjoyable to walk and see these places. Many nice upscale spots as well. Something that is sorely lacking in Windsor.
Hopefully this will continue to spread…
Mark anytime you want to meet to see if we can get the city to move forward on downtown please let me know. I believe you have my number.