Nathan vanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 13/02) - The city is moving ahead on a plan to give breaks to businesses for sprucing up the downtown, but store owners in Frame Lake are angry at what they call "discrimination."

Last Tuesday, city councillors hashed out the terms of reference for a downtown redevelopment committee. The committee will encourage movement on a number of programs, ranging from tax breaks for downtown renovation work to a Web page showcasing downtown businesses.

Part of the strategy includes taking parking meter change and funnelling it into redevelopment projects.

This year, the city began setting aside all of the extra money from an increase in parking meter rates. So far, the fund sits at just over $17,000 and the city expects it to increase by about $70,000 a year.

City councillors of all stripes defend the downtown redevelopment idea, saying a vibrant downtown is an important component of urban planning.

They argue the downtown is the city's economic heart, and needs to be treated with special care.

But to some business owners, it's a simple question of equity.

"It's not fair," said Steve Payne, owner of Essentials hair salon.

"If they're going to do it for one you do it for the other. Uptown should be offered the same deal."

Downtown favoured

"They're giving preference to one taxpayer over another, that's the bottom line," said Don Strang, owner of Krazy Eddie's, who called the policy "discrimination."

Coun. Kevin O'Reilly said the city needs to offer the deal to the downtown since it's playing zoning catch-up.

"For new developments in the outlying areas, they are supposed to conform to landscaping requirements.

The difficulty is those landscaping requirements were not in place when much of the downtown was built," he said.

"There's still quite a few people that live downtown, so we have to make it an attractive place to be," said Coun. Dave Ramsay.

There are other advantages, too. Local architect Wayne Guy said a dense downtown is a green downtown, since people can walk rather than drive between places.

An active downtown is also a self-policing downtown, as the sheer presence of people on the streets tends to dampen crime.

"Eighty per cent of the Canadian population lives in cities, and it's extremely important that we make the city as a resource as useable and as efficient as possible. This densification and multi-use of the downtown area is a good start," he said.

And, he said, improvements downtown are improvements for a city as a whole.

"People in the suburbs will also benefit from it by having more activity and action downtown," he said.

"Regardless of where you live, I think everyone loves a vibrant downtown."