Park(ade) This!

Currently the City is running a Nelson Downtown Urban Design Strategy: largely focusing on basic benches and bunting on Baker. 
Connecting the superficially quite separate need to repair bits of the Parkade with that strategy is an opportunity of possible major impact on downtown.

Repairs planned to Nelson parkade
"The parkade was identified on our list of facilities as needing repairs," facilities maintenance manager Petert Sinstadt said. "The extent of these repairs, including cost and timeline, is yet to be fully determined."
                                                                Nelson Star, May 25, 2016


Clearer is that during repairs over a quarter of the now available parking-slots won't be, and reason would dictate that the work is done during off-season. What with Kevin Cormack, CAO, admitting in the same article that downtown parking is limited. Compounded by evidence that - although car sales as such are down somewhat - in a year-by-year comparison sales of SUVs and bruiser pick-ups are up 18%.

The photo here of the Parkade - with a general faded-grey actually poor-exposure overlay - doesn't anywhere near convey the depressingly gloomy-dingey neglect of the real thing.

While it clearly is here to stay for years to come - this write-up does not mention a general face-lift for the structure, which - while imposing in its naked bulk - is a visual deadzone, particularly in close proximity with the leafy Court House across the green-on-green boulevard, the Hume Hotel of 1898 next door and Touchstones - formerly City Hall and in the same grand manner as the Court House - directly across the street from the Hume.

Few people walk by here. Turning their eyes on the Parkade they will look into the dark at-your-own-risk hole of a frequently unguarded entrance and to its left deep space of more dark.
What with drivers in both directions having to focus into and out of a tricky intersection and the Parkade not demanding visual attention: probably few - definitely not City Hall ever - look at it, are even conscious of it as a unit in context.

While the City owns it - a contractual operator runs it. Meaning - until this current routine assessment of structural viability: It's not my job!

 


For many who drive downtown to work this is a guaranteed place to park for the work-day, week, month, year. This is the place where they begin their day downtown and end it.
In depressingly gloomy-dingey neglect.
Way to go, day!
For unaccustomed tourists this assault on their sensibilities must be even more disconcerting. First and last impression: Welcome to dinge! Come back soon to dinge!
Worse yet after dark! Can we talk about safe?

BUT!

What with cars clearly not going away and street-parking becoming more and more difficult: international city-planning - for some time now - has been looking at the unavoidable fact of parking-garages needing to be embraced, thus making them creative statements. Always stunning at night. Sometimes turning them into multi-purpose structures where not only to park one's car but spend time shopping, be entertained.

Our Parkade's bland face lends itself easily to a make-over with imaginative physical facade-additions (day) and dramatic lighting (night). As in examples throughout here.
Perfectly located to become the catalyst for substantiating a new district: a grander downtown developing around Vernon/Ward.

A less shop local center - all buildings interconnected with stunning lighting: Parkade > Hume > Touchstones > City Hall > Court House > Parkade. The 2 possibly most substantial buildings in Nelson - across from each other - are visually dead after dark. One the local hub for arts and history - the other the local hub for justice (I know, I know!). The heart of the city - City Hall - doesn't beat after hours: a part-time heart. The plaza in front - supposed to become a meeting-place when? - currently also shuts down after dark. The bear sculpture..... what bear sculpture? The Hume - heritage for days! - has a glimmer of very intense - edgy in contrast - light running around its top in a narrow band. And this works! More would work more!

One wonders how many people - particularly when alone - are scared of entering the Parkade thus don't - even less inclined after dark. A clean, bright even engaging interior would take care of that: make being there welcoming, inviting. As in a fun-option for parking!
The rooftop is used once a year for the Nelson Road Kings' party after the Sep. car show. Why only then?
Special official/private events? Live rooftop music for all of downtown?

With this Design Strategy City Staff once again is running an out-of-town consultant: once again to organize a vision. What we need on Baker is to vigorously hose-down all heritage buildings. Vision that!
More exciting could be the prospect of creating a dramatic Vernon/Ward district.
A place to ooh-and aah!

Bringing locals and tourists downtown after dark!

 

With plans for Parkade repairs seemingly nowhere near locked-in: while they're at it - this is the time to turn the whole structure into a creative statement. Possibly get the current consultant involved. A confluence of possibilities. To eventually follow with building by above-mentioned building. In lights!

A bold vision!

  

Will Johnson

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Not Here You Don't!

Seeing that this is Local Government Awareness Week: all attentively following the gestation-process of the proposed local panhandling-bylaw would seem appropriate.
As in general would be attending Council Meetings; personally expressing opinions in Committees of the Whole (COW) and connecting through messages with Mayor Kozak, CAO Kevin Cormack and City Council. With copies to all!

Pro-active in all matters civic!

Following is a presentation made to the COW, 16 May, 2015 - here with added depth(-charges). Its premise: This bylaw is tailor-made for/by a special-interests group. It has nothing to do with panhandling as such but everything with cleansing Nelson of untouchables - the whole unsightly lot of them!
While it would be impossible to push through a bylaw forbidding all untouchables on "our" streets - democracy, human rights, etc. - it is doable to fashion a punitive panhandling-bylaw for a few and demonize all in/by the process.

This follows post
Loitering Over Coffee
6 May, 2016
directly.

   



NPD
Although this bylaw supposedly is requested by the Nelson Police Department (NPD) and Bylaw Officers - but not the Bylaw Enforcement Department as such under then Deputy Chief Burkart - at its introduction to Council no documentation whatsoever is provided to substantiate the need for such bylaw. A letter concerning it is not submitted by Chief Holland until about 6 weeks after the requested (by whom, really?) introduction - this without the Nelson Police Board's input.

Information on 24 incidents in 2015 under the Safe Streets Act - while broken down into levels of severity - does not mention any cases of panhandling or aggressive panhandling. Making talk about a needed aggressive-panhandling bylaw spurious - in view of the small number of actual panhandlers we do have to begin with.

  


NDCC
The Nelson & District Chamber of Commerce's (NDCC) Board of Directors last summer adopts a resolution in favor of an "aggressive panhandling bylaw that would regulate behavior and also where the panhandling could take place, but not make it illegal."
The NDCC laying down the law of the streets!

A survey run by the Chamber - targeting its downtown-business members for support of such bylaw - curiously results in a "not large sample size" of 22 respondents of whom about 16 are in favor. 

BUT!

This survey is indirectly contradicted in the
LETTER: Address panhandling through creative means
Nelson Star, 25 Nov, 2015

Here Mari Plamondon - owner of Wait's News, corner of Baker/Ward - writes about a meeting of the Downtown Business Association, Oct. 2015: "The topic of discussion was the proposed panhandling bylaw...... I was hesitant to attend for I was concerned that my ideas may not be shared by others. I was pleasantly surprised that in a room of close to 40 people, only 3 spoke in favor of the bylaw."
Presumably (many/most) members of this association are members of the NDCC as well. So what's with this survey!?

BCCLA
A BC Civil Liberties Association letter to the Mayor's Office reads:
"The BC Civil Liberties Association has a number of concerns about the contents of the bylaw, its necessity and its legality. We urge you not to pass this bylaw and to invest instead in measures that will address the root causes of poverty and homelessness, including mental-health support and affordable housing."
The BCCLA clearly broadens the focus, with panhandling one symptom only. As does our Street Culture Collaborative and those members of City Council opposed to this bylaw.

   














My informal survey of panhandling on Baker - Mon, May 9 to Sun, May 15, all around mid-day - finds: Mon-1; Tue-2: Wed-3: Thu-2: Fri-1; Sat-1; Sun-2.
The total is 12, but as one individual is there on 6 days: the number of different panhandlers actually is only 7 in one week. None aggressive; none obstructing anyone/anything.

Neither City Staff, nor the NPD or the NDCC have ever run a formal, detailed on-the-ground survey on the actual number of active panhandlers specifically at any given time. 

   


It is hypocritical to - on one hand - say: they have no income, so panhandling is the only option some have, while - on the other hand - prepare to cut down drastically on place/time where/when they may be allowed to panhandle. Also - bemoaning homelessness while deliberately designing the new Cottonwood Market in a way to make sleeping there impossible for those without a bed to go to!  And announcing that publicly!

This proposed bylaw is not about panhandlers in attack-mode but shop-till-you-drop without visual irritants.

It is self-serving and inhumane!




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Loitering Over Coffee

Council - this week and for the 3. time over 7 months - is dealing with a panhandling bylaw-or-not - and while ordinarily one might say get on with it already: still not having arrived at a definitive conclusion is a good thing!
A good thing what with never before these Councillors - or any before them in my experience - having been as well-prepared and thoughtful while openly expressing themselves. As all did with respectful acceptance of each other's opinions within a functioning unit and those possibly effected by their decision.

1. Time
After the proposed bylaw's first appearance - 1. & 2. Readings without a burp, last October - this blog points out its problematic authorship, lack of substantiating documentation and inconsistencies within the text of the bylaw's Request for Decision. 
The need for it seems manufactured.
The blog also poses the never-before question: When will we start talking with instead of at/about these people the bylaw is supposed to manage? handle? contain?

  
2. Time
The following month Council - nudged into realizing their unpreparedness for the topic thus far - decides to connect with various community groups, businesses, citizens for input before giving the proposal its 3. Reading. What with very few panhandlers on Baker at this time of the year, it is decided to put the bylaw on ice until spring of 2016.

Business Input
can't make the meeting tomorrow. i as a business owner for 20 years on baker st we don't want panhandling or busking in front of my store ever, it is not what i want people to have to walk through to get into my shop . it should be contained somewhere out of everyone's way . perhaps another town ?.
                                                                            Jeff Grosch
                                                                            The Sacred Ride
                                                                            213b Baker Street

A request for public participation soon leads to forming the Street Culture Collaborative, a group to look at just that: street culture - with panhandling only one expression of a much larger pernicious problem. And the need to connect  compassionately and respectfully with the vulnerable affected by pervasive socio-economic difficulties: the lack of affordable housing and support-systems across the board.
After initial exploration - constructive goals have been set by the Collaborative.

3. Time
With a 4 to 3 vote the bylaw passes this week through its 3. Reading but will not be adopted for at least another month. Adoption is not a foregone conclusion - Councillors can still change their minds/votes, and they express that here.

For an exhaustive rundown of this Council Meeting go to
Panhandling bylaw passes third reading
                                                               Nelson Star, May 4, 2016

      


Anytime
Seeing that the untouchables all look alike - with real people avoiding even just visual contact - it is easy to lump them all together: they're all drug-addicts; they're all homeless; they're all mentals; they're all panhandlers - they're all to be feared.

Yet few of them actually are panhandlers, and they certainly are not aggressive. Clearly - panhandling is not a threat to anyone (except business-interests!).

We already have the Safe Streets Act - with its consumer-focused restrictions. Hardly applicable to Smallishtown to begin with: largely duplicating the Act for only a small segment of the untouchables with this bylaw is punitive - no matter how much real people protest of course it isn't!
While it lists where panhandling is not allowed - just about everywhere - leaving little space to actually make a bit of spare-change. Forcing those who want to stay within the imposed limits to panhandle in close proximity to each other - competing for quarters!
Even though - at the same time - Mayor Kozak acknowledges that some spots are more profitable than others (will they still be permissible?), and that panhandling is the only means some of them have to get by! So what gives here!

  
VERB: Loiter
For some reason they discourage loitering outside the store, but encourage it inside.
                                                                               Wiktionary

Which pretty much says it all. It has at last been determined that a surprisingly large number of locals have no home. Being homeless probably means they have little money. So Baker may be the outside-loiterers' social life, entertainment, news-network - their distracting buzz.
Local coffee-houses - of which we have zillions - are packed at all times with inside-loiterers for their social life, entertainment, news-network - their distracting buzz.

If the outside-loiterers had a welcoming place to go to - working on their tan in the park won't cut it - they surely would. Having the mayor approve of this bylaw - which she does - is not a welcoming gesture by City Hall. Neither is having the so-called Cottonwood Park Public Performance & Market Building designed specifically to keep the untouchable public out! Announced as such by the mayor. Although even homeless loiterers have to sleep somewhere. But some of the public are just too public!

Inviting the untouchables to hang on the grass, under the trees in front of City Hall would be a welcoming gesture, indeed! Toilet facilities and everything! How about it! No?

 
(Councillor) Purcell said she wants to put the bylaw off for a year to give the Street Culture Collaborative time to do its work. They have great ideas on how to address the issues from a comprehensive community-based non-punitive response.
They already have one of their points in place with the mental health first-aid training, and they are hiring a coordinator to be in place by September. We should give them a chance to have that out-reach and change the culture.
                                                                   Same Star write-up 

This - instead of unproductively focus on just a small segment. Also - the needlessness of this bylaw is bound to cause anger among all untouchables - thus possible confrontations with bylaw officers. While we haven't had any so far and possibly won't without the bylaw's fences.

A positive outcome of this process - regardless of the bylaw's adoption or not - is the manifesting hands-on awareness of the enormity of problems facing many among us.
And - of course - Council becoming a pro-active unit!

Although the panhandling-issue in Council this week is prominently announced in the Star - there is next to no turn-out for it in Council Chambers.

So much for inside-loiterers' concerns around panhandling!





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