Dreessen: Ottawa cannot construct ’15-minute neighborhoods’ with out guaranteeing entry to wholesome, inexpensive meals
As soon as a neighborhood is occupied by a sure variety of folks, the town needs to be chargeable for seeing {that a} grocery retailer is current that meets the group’s wants.
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Ottawa’s new Official Plan emphasizes the necessity to develop 15-minute neighborhoods all through the town. However what’s a 15-minute neighborhood and why is that this vital?
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A 15-minute neighborhood is precisely what its title implies; it’s a neighborhood that enables its residents to have entry to their fundamental every day wants inside a 15-minute stroll from their properties. Think about accessing a wide range of providers, parks, faculties, public and energetic transit, and normal groceries all positioned quarter-hour away out of your residence. The advantages are just too lengthy to listing.
Sadly, the success of those neighborhoods is straight tied to what are referred to as “meals deserts.” An lack of ability to simply entry wholesome and inexpensive meals plagues many areas of Ottawa and makes 15-minute neighborhoods inconceivable to attain.
Meals deserts do not solely happen in low-income neighborhoods, the place the variety of fast-food chains usually exceeds wholesome meals choices. As federal analysis continues to evolve, we now have discovered that earnings will not be the one contributing issue. All through Canada and the USA, meals deserts are additionally a consequence of poor metropolis planning.
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As soon as a neighborhood is developed or occupied by a sure variety of folks, the town ought to have a duty to make sure that a grocery retailer is current that meets the group’s wants. Whether or not an space is occupied by low-, middle-, or high-income earners is irrelevant and mustn’t decide entry to wholesome, inexpensive meals.
Can governments eradicate meals deserts when massive grocers and mom-and-pop meals retailers are all privately owned? It could be tough, nevertheless it’s not inconceivable. The federal government can, for example, provide incentives for the event of small retailers and grocery shops to be inbuilt meals desert areas. It might probably enhance public transit to wholesome and inexpensive meals choices. The city of Baldwin, Florida, takes issues into its personal arms and constructed government-operated grocery shops.
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There are alternatives, some extra sensible and attainable than others, however all needs to be thought-about to assist finish meals deserts and efficiently create 15-minute neighborhoods.
Residents of Ottawa’s Little Italy group know all too nicely what it is like not having easy accessibility to a grocery retailer. For greater than 15 years, Little Italy has been categorized as a meals desert, with occupants counting on smaller specialty meals retailers to fulfill their every day wants. The COVID-19 pandemic, nevertheless, meant Sala San Marco could not host massive banquets; the house owners transformed the area right into a full-service grocery retailer, saving their enterprise whereas persevering with to serve their group.
On the different finish of the spectrum, residents of the Carlington space dwell inside quarter-hour of a giant grocery retailer, however strolling there poses security dangers. To get to the Meals Fundamentals on the Hampton Park Plaza, residents should cross the intersection at Carling and Freeway 417, one of many worst within the metropolis. This signifies that merely creating 15-minute neighborhoods with a grocery retailer is not sufficient; the world have to be walkable and accessible.
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Everybody deserves equal entry to wholesome, inexpensive meals. Sadly, COVID-19 has made this harder by additional widening the hole between the haves and the have-nots. That’s the reason now’s the time to behave.
A gradual phasing in of 15-minute neighborhoods over time to return could be nice, however current meals deserts in Ottawa have to be resolved now. We should begin to think about meals as greater than a commodity to be traded.
Like housing, entry to inexpensive, wholesome, fundamental groceries needs to be a human proper. We’ll by no means obtain the equitable metropolis we aspire to if we do not make it a precedence to make sure everybody has entry to wholesome and inexpensive meals inside their group.
Toon Dreessen is an architect and president of Ottawa-based Architects DCA and is previous president of the Ontario Affiliation of Architects.
