Alta Vista ward isn’t downtown Ottawa, nor is it on the outskirts, but right in between, encompassing a stretch of Bank Street, along the river and bordered by the Smyth Road and the Ottawa Hospital.
It’s home to residential neighbourhoods like Billings Bridge and Heron Park, and over the last few years, the community has lost access to the Heron Park community centre as the facility transitioned into a temporary shelter for newcomers to Canada.
The community centre is one of the facilities that is slated to reopen when the new sprung structure newcomer reception centres open next year, redirecting asylum seekers and refugees.
In addition to a lack of community services for Alta Vista residents, the ward is facing disparities in transit service and aging infrastructure. It’s also in the middle of the southern Bank Street road renewal and construction projects.
It’s in the middle of the city, but far enough from downtown to sometimes be overlooked.
Reflecting on 2024 and looking ahead to the new year, Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr sat down with Ottawa Compass and chatted about what her ward is facing and what it can look forward to.
You’ve said Alta Vista has been through a lot in the last few years. What challenges is your ward currently facing?
One of the biggest challenges that we have in my ward is that I’m poorly served by transit. In many cases, what used to be a direct bus ride downtown became a bus ride, and then an LRT ride from Hurdman, for many residents. But what’s coming in April, in some cases, is going to create two bus rides to Hurdman before you go downtown. Some areas of my ward are very underserved by transit and ways to bus.
The Guildwood Estates area is an example. I have concerns about that. I think that our area is an area that could benefit from on-demand bus service, but it’s going to be some time before we have the buses. So transit makes me very anxious.
In a ward like mine, the aging infrastructure is also a massive concern. I was pleased to get a lot of resurfacing projects in the budget this year. I know other councillors get really excited about brand new community centres and play structures, that sort of thing. I’m just really happy to have the amount of road projects that I’m getting done, including major roads like Walkley Road.
Construction is going to be very challenging in my ward over the next couple years, with Bank Street being redone. And when that’s done, they’re going to tear up Alta Vista Drive. So I would say we have a decade of some very challenging construction projects coming to the ward in terms of integrated road and sewer renewals.
People will be concerned about the impacts of local traffic and safety of their children on the street. It’s not exciting stuff, but it is a concern.
And Heron Road Community Center being used as an emergency shelter for new Canadians, is obviously concerning. We need to have that facility returned to the neighborhood, and I’m hoping for a spring exit, because the city has been purchasing and leasing other buildings.
I’m also hearing from a lot of residents that they want to see an increased police presence with respect to “porch pirate” type of stuff, as well as traffic enforcement.
There’s a bigger increase in encampments in the ward, which is also concerning to some people. Oftentimes, they’re located in the lands just off of Hurdman. Hurdman is in Sean Menard’s ward, but the divider is the railway line, and so on Tremblay Road, there are big encampments in there.
I’ve had reports of them increasing in our city parks within Alta Vista, too. So I work with city staff on that all the time, but it is something that I’ve heard lots of concerns about.
I’m curious as to what is happening with the school board as well, with respect to their review of programs, because a lot of our schools are English-only schools, and looking to see what direction the school board will be taking on some of their programming, and how it will impact our schools.
There is an increase in poverty, and reliance on food banks is very concerning. There’s a concerning surge in use of food banks.
The other thing that I’m going to have to keep my eye on is the growth in the hospital area. I have a lot of concerns about traffic and transportation in there and how we better manage it, but I’m excited by the growth of the hospital sector and the opportunities for residents in terms of health care and the innovation that it will bring, and the infusion into that whole health sciences sector is exciting for the ward
Tell me about the community centre. What social issues are your residents facing, with the community centre closed? How has it been operating and impacting your community?
It’s been operating on and off for four years, but for newcomers since November of 2023. It was only open (to residents) for four months before that, because it was previously used as a women’s shelter. So it’s been offline for the better part of four years.
The biggest loss is the Heron Road Senior Centre. It was a vibrant hub of seniors. There were activities during the day, everything from bridge to theatre, movies, pickleball…There was a seniors’ lounge. It was busy. There were art programs. I will never be able to remember all the programs there. But it was very busy, seeing between 50 and 70 seniors a day.
The facility moved seniors’ activity to Carleton Heights, but the seniors really want to have it open there. It’s really penalizing seniors that don’t have a car and want to be participating in their neighbourhood. I’ve heard from many seniors that the loss of those activities, which break up the isolation they sometimes feel in their own homes, has been very detrimental to the community.
There also was youth programming, like free basketball on Friday nights, for example, which really served the Heron Gate community and surrounding areas. The only things that are open in the Community Center right now are the Heron Emergency Food Center and my office.
The Dempsey Community Center reopened this year after four years of closure, and it’s been great to see it back in use. There are all kinds of free activities for use. There’s a seniors’ drop-in, so that’s been promising, but I’m really hopeful to see Heron reopen.
How does the proposed sprung structure project impact these services in your ward?
It’s going to be a very interesting discussion as we move forward because we’ve seen communities say, ‘We don’t want unsheltered individuals in our community.’ The reality is that the provincial government is increasing funding for shelter facilities. We’re seeing this surge in newcomers. We know that we cannot continue to commandeer community facilities that our residents depend on for recreational facilities.
We also know that we have another plan that was approved by the province prior to my being elected that basically allows housing of all types, including shelters, in all communities. So it will be interesting discussions as we see shifts to other neighborhoods to help absorb some of our challenges with our housing crisis.
It’s fair to say we are seeing upticks nationwide in the amount of people who are unhoused, and those discussions will be very interesting as the year progresses.
It isn’t new, but people don’t realize it. If you look on the ward map, you’ll see that (Menard) and I split land, and we tend to find a lot of encampments on federal lands; it’s not the same process that’s followed when they’re on federal land.
All that land in Hurdman that goes over into my ward, onto Terminal Avenue … It’s all federal. One of the largest encampments in the city is actually in our ward and has been in our ward for some time. Because it’s on federal land, not like a lot of people walk around there.
Then this year, I’ve had a challenge with encampments just off Heron Road. They’re cleaned up now, but it’s a growing issue. It’s not astronomical in my ward, but there’s an uptick in other people’s wards as well.
They target heavily forested areas where and often federal lands are the target, and are just sort of a little more out of sight and not quite as noticeable as it might be in other wards.
You voted to approve the 2025 City budget. What parts of it will have the most impact on your ward?
Well, the reality is, OC Transpo has a $120-million deficit. That’s really hard. I’m a person that doesn’t really want to see the price of transit increase. I worked for the federal government for over two decades, and I took the bus to my job almost every day.
I’m a big supporter of transit. It’s a very difficult topic because the service has declined in the Alta Vista community by and large since the LRT was brought online. I’m cautiously optimistic about opening lines two and four, and I hope that we see more people taking advantage.
For the most part, it doesn’t benefit the Alta Vista neighbourhood to a huge degree. But I find it really hard to vote for increasing transit fares when the service has been so poor. Given the state of the deficit, we had to make a decision to split it between upping the transit levy for everyone to pay for, and user fees for those that take the bus. So those discussions were challenging.
I’m looking forward to the fare review that needs to be undertaken this year, because many times, there hasn’t been a lot of industry analysis or rationale for why we charge a certain price.
I was happy about my road renewal projects. I was happy to get some extra money for food security on a citywide basis.
We’re looking at a 3.9 per cent tax increase. I’ve heard a lot of concerns about that, and largely this is because of the challenges we have with transit. I’m a member of the service review working group with the mayor and Coun. Cathy Curry, and so I enjoy that work where we continue to look for efficiency citywide so that we don’t have to add it to the tax bill. I support those kinds of initiatives.
We need to improve our delivery of core services. So I was glad that we didn’t have a tax increase that we’ve seen in other municipalities, but I’m really conscientious that we need to improve our service. For Alta Vista, that’s getting our community centres reopened, getting more roads resurfaced, getting updated sewer infrastructure, and that’s receiving a better level of service from OC Transpo.
Those are sort of the key things that I want to see before contemplating any future increases.
