Sunday, 7 June 2026

Better than nothing... a sign of the times

The city has a small portable toilet stipend.

Here is one at the end of North River Road.

It is not well maintained....but it is better than nothing when...you gotta go.

As councillor I will advocate for a Public Washroom Strategy befitting the Nation's Capital.

FOIA to access Open Data?

You Can't Manage What You Won't Measure — And You Won't Share

There's something fundamentally broken when a resident gets told to file a Freedom of Information request just to find out who to talk to.

That's not access. That's a filing system pretending to be a door.

I ran into this recently when trying to get basic information about city data — who manages it, who's responsible for it, how it's structured. Reasonable questions. The kind any councillor should be able to answer for any constituent on the spot. Instead, the answer was: fill out a form.

And that's when it hit me. The FOIA runaround isn't just a bureaucratic inconvenience. It's a symptom of something deeper: a city that isn't serious about measuring its own performance, because a city that measured itself honestly would have no reason to hide the results.

Peter Drucker's line has never been more relevant — if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. But there's a corollary nobody in city hall wants to say out loud: if you won't share it, you aren't managing it for us. You're managing it for yourself.

The city collects mountains of data about our roads, our parks, our infrastructure, our service delivery timelines, our asset conditions. That data was gathered using public money, about public assets, in service of the public interest. The moment a resident has to file a formal request to see it, the chain of accountability is already broken. We're not asking for secrets. We're asking for the scorecard.

So here's my short list ( there are more). If city hall can't publish the numbers below on a regular basis, in a format any resident can read without a law degree, then they aren't managing these things. They're hoping.

What I want measured, published, and held to account — for Rideau-Rockcliffe:

Infrastructure & Assets

Road condition ratings by street segment, percentage rated "poor" or "critical"
Sidewalk gap inventory — kilometres missing, with locations
Bridge and culvert inspection dates and condition scores
Parks asset condition ratings: playgrounds, washrooms, field surfaces
Average age of water and sewer mains, with replacement backlog in years

Safety & Community

Reported crime by type and neighbourhood, tracked year-over-year
Response times for bylaw, fire, and EMS calls within the ward
Youth program participation — how many kids are actually in programs like North-South Development's "It's A Trap"
Gang intervention referrals and outcomes

Housing & Growth

Rental vacancy rate and average rent by dwelling type
Development applications, approvals, and appeals — with timelines for each
Affordable unit count versus ward target, updated annually
Affordable housing waitlist residents with a ward postal code

Transit & Mobility

OC Transpo on-time performance for routes serving the ward
Cycling infrastructure completion against the ward's active transportation plan
Pedestrian injury incidents at key intersections
LRT ridership at Tremblay Station, month by month

Environment

Urban tree canopy coverage, with year-over-year change
Stormwater flooding complaints per year, mapped by location
Green space per capita versus the city average

And for the City of Ottawa as a whole:

Financial Health

Infrastructure deficit in dollars, broken down by asset class
Development charge revenue collected versus projected
Percentage of capital projects on time and on budget
Cost per resident for each major service category

Service Delivery

311 ( calls for service) resolution times by category and by ward — so you can see if your neighbourhood is being served equitably
Permit processing times: building, renovation, food truck, event — all of it
Social services caseload per worker and average wait time for intake

Housing & Affordability

Affordable units built versus official plan targets
Average time from application to occupancy for city-funded projects
Shelter capacity utilization, nightly

Equity

Capital investment per ward, per capita — the single most revealing number in municipal politics
Service access rates by language, income, and neighbourhood
Proportion of city contracts going to local and minority-owned businesses

Environment & Climate

City fleet electrification percentage
Municipal greenhouse gas emissions versus 2030 targets
Kilometres of combined sewer overflow events per year
Tree planting targets versus actual trees planted, by ward

None of these are exotic asks. Most well-run cities track all of them and publish them without being asked. What I'm calling for isn't new data collection — it's publishing what the city already has, in a format residents can actually use, on a regular schedule, without a form in the way.

I've written before about the $13.43 billion sitting in Ottawa's 10-year capital plan. That number is meaningless without the underlying data — which assets are deteriorating fastest, which wards are getting investment and which are being quietly deferred. An open capital register, searchable by any resident, turns that abstract figure into something you can actually hold a councillor accountable for. That's the point. That's what democracy looks like at the municipal level.

The technology is not the barrier. Ottawa has a data portal. Smaller cities publish machine-readable asset reports and service dashboards without anyone having to fill out a form. The barrier is institutional culture — a default assumption that city data belongs to the city, rather than to the people who paid for it.

When I knocked on doors and asked about this, I wasn't told to file a form because the information is sensitive. I was told to file a form because that's what you do. That's the entire problem, right there. A city that truly measured itself — and stood behind those measurements — would want residents to see the numbers. The form is the tell. It means someone, somewhere, knows the scorecard isn't flattering.

Residents deserve a city hall that acts like it works for them. That starts with data they can actually see — not data they have to formally request, wait 30 days for, and hope arrives in a readable format.

If you're measuring it, prove it. Publish it. All of it.

— Peter Karwacki, candidate for Rideau-

Rockcliffe Wardpeterkarwacki.overbrook@gmail.com

This time around, vote differently, vote wisely, vote for Peter Karwacki for Rideau Rockcliffe.

Friday, 5 June 2026

Coventry Road Animation

A Claude AI Action Plan

From Dead Space to Living Place: An Activation Plan for the Coventry Road Site

If you've walked across the Max Keeping Pedestrian Bridge lately, or driven down Coventry Road on a non-game day, you've seen it: a vast expanse of asphalt beside RCGT Park, concrete bridge pillars casting shadows over nothing in particular, and a lot of potential doing absolutely nothing.

I wrote earlier this week about the Universe 25 experiment and what it means for Rideau-Rockcliffe — the idea that even well-resourced communities collapse when residents lose meaningful roles and purposeful space. This site is the flip side of that argument. Here is an existing city-owned asset, already serviced, already connected to LRT at Tremblay Station, already adjacent to one of Ottawa's most exciting sports venues — sitting idle 300 days a year.

That's not a tragedy. That's an opportunity. Here's what I would do with it.

Three zones, one community hub

The site naturally divides into three distinct areas, each suited to different programming.

Zone A — Under the bridge. The Tremblay bridge deck creates natural, permanent weather protection over a generous footprint. This is the anchor: colourful food trucks and local vendor kiosks, year-round. Think Ottawa vendors — tacos, coffee, market food — operating rain or shine, winter included. Youth-led murals on the pillars. String lights. A reason to be there on a Tuesday in November.

Zone B — The parking lot plaza. The big asphalt expanse doesn't have to stay asphalt. Permeable paving, green lawn panels, shaded pergolas, multi-use courts, a youth skate and BMX zone, and flexible event space for markets, clinics, and concerts. On Titans game days, this becomes a pre-game commons. On every other day, it belongs to the neighbourhood.

Zone C — The stormwater edge. Along the perimeter, rain gardens and bioswales handle runoff while creating a green edge that connects the site to the Tremblay Station pathway network. This isn't decoration — it directly addresses drainage, improves the site's asset condition rating, and ties the development into the city's stormwater management obligations. Good urban design and good infrastructure policy at the same time.

A calendar that actually works year-round

The first objection I always hear is: "What happens in February?" Fair question. Ottawa winters are real, and too many "activation" proposals quietly assume a six-month season.

Not this one.

Spring kicks off with an opening market day and a youth mural launch — North-South Development's "It's A Trap" program provides the organizing backbone and gives young people from Overbrook visible, public roles. Schools bring students for coaching clinics and planting days in Zone C.

Summer is the peak: weekly food truck nights, BMX and skate sessions, game-day activations that layer community programming onto the Titans' existing audience, and an outdoor movie series under the bridge deck.

Fall brings a harvest market, a North-South youth fair, cultural celebration days reflecting the ward's genuine diversity, and playoff events if the Titans keep doing what they've been doing.

Winter is where this design earns its keep. The under-bridge warming hub operates through the coldest months — heated, lit, occupied. A holiday light installation turns the pillars into a landmark. Indoor pop-up events continue in the kiosk structures.

The goal is 52 market days a year. Not a summer pop-up. A community institution.

How we get there: three phases, realistic costs

I'm not going to promise you a finished plaza by next spring. What I will commit to is a realistic, phased approach that starts with what we can do immediately and builds toward something lasting.

Phase 1 (2027) — Quick wins, ~$250,000–$400,000. Lighting, safety improvements, first murals, food-truck pad permits, temporary seating and planters. This phase is fundable through the agile capital budgeting pilot already under staff discussion and existing Parks & Recreation activation budgets. No new levy. No multi-year wait. This is the "prove it works" phase, and it can begin within months of taking office.

Phase 2 (2028) — Plaza build-out, ~$1.2M–$2M. Permeable paving, rain gardens, multi-use courts, pergolas, permanent kiosk structures, and the BMX/skate zone. By this point, food truck permit revenue and event fees are already offsetting a meaningful share of maintenance costs. We build the business case as we go.

Phase 3 (2029 and beyond) — Full hub, ~$2M–$4M. A community pavilion, full transit integration with Tremblay Station, and eventually the kind of autonomous shuttle connection between the station and the stadium that makes this whole corridor genuinely car-optional. This is the long game — and it's worth playing.

Who sits at the table

None of this works without partnerships. As councillor, my first move is to convene a formal stakeholder roundtable — not a consultation exercise, an actual working group with a mandate and a timeline. The seats at that table:

The Ottawa Titans and RCGT Park management
North-South Development Roots and Culture Canada
City Parks & Recreation
OC Transpo and Tremblay Station stakeholders
The Overbrook Community Association
The Rideau-Rockcliffe Community Resource Centre
Ottawa Public Health
The local BIA

Each of these organizations brings something the others don't have. The Titans bring an existing audience and operational infrastructure. North-South brings community trust and youth programming that is already running. Parks & Rec brings the city's permitting and programming capacity. OC Transpo brings the transit connection that makes the whole site accessible without a car.

The partnership agreement isn't a courtesy — it's the mechanism that turns a city lot into something the ward actually owns.

Why this makes financial sense

Let me be direct about the money, because this is the question every taxpayer deserves an answer to.

This site requires no new land acquisition. Zero. The city already owns it.

Twelve or more food truck vendor permits per year generate revenue. Fifty-two market days generate revenue. Event space rentals generate revenue. My conservative estimate is that permit and event income can offset roughly 30% of the site's annual maintenance costs within three years of Phase 1 opening — and that number grows as the programming matures.

Every dollar invested here also improves the asset condition rating of existing city-owned infrastructure in the open capital register I've been calling for — infrastructure that currently shows up as an undifferentiated parking lot with no assigned improvement plan.

Phase 1 doesn't require a new levy or a new budget line. It requires a councillor willing to direct staff to find the activation funding that is already sitting in existing accounts, and to make this site a priority rather than an afterthought.

What I commit to doing

If elected, here is the specific ask I will make of city staff within my first 90 days:

Commission an activation feasibility study for the Coventry Stadium site, using the open data fields I outlined in my earlier post on asset management.
Convene the stakeholder roundtable with a six-month mandate to produce a Phase 1 partnership agreement.
Direct staff to identify Phase 1 funding through the agile capital budgeting pilot and Parks & Recreation activation budgets.
Establish annual public reporting on the site's asset condition, programming outcomes, and revenue — tracked in the open capital register and reported to the ward every year.

Rideau-Rockcliffe has one of the most interesting infrastructure assets in east Ottawa sitting largely unused. The Coventry Road site isn't a problem to manage — it's a community hub waiting to be built.

Let's build it.

If you believe Rideau-Rockcliffe deserves a councillor with the analytical skills and the vision to make things like this actually happen — vote differently. Vote wisely. Vote for Peter Karwacki.

This time around, vote differently, vote wisely, vote for Peter Karwacki for Rideau Rockcliffe.

Ball Diamond in the Rough

If you’ve driven down Coventry Road lately or walked across the Max Keeping Pedestrian Bridge to Tremblay Station, you know the spot I’m talking about.

It’s right behind me in the photo I took this week: the big empty asphalt lot beside the Ottawa Titans’ stadium (RCGT Park at 300 Coventry Road), with the concrete bridge ramps and pillars creating classic “dead space” underneath.

This is classic underutilized city infrastructure — a major public asset sitting in the heart of Overbrook, part of that $13.43 billion 10-year capital ask I wrote about last week. Right now it’s mostly empty outside of game or concert days. But it doesn’t have to be.
What if we turned this space into a year-round community hub?

I asked Grok Imagine to create two concept sketches based on the exact photo and site layout. Here they are:

Look at the “AFTER” side. The big parking lot becomes a permeable-paving community plaza with green lawns, picnic tables, shaded pergolas, and string lights. Under the bridge itself — using the natural shelter of those thick concrete pillars and deck — we add 3–4 colourful food trucks and small local kiosks (tacos, coffee, Ottawa vendors). Rain gardens and bioswales handle stormwater. Multi-use courts, a youth skate/BMX zone, and flexible event space round it out.
Labels on the sketches show exactly how it works:

Food Trucks & Kiosks (Local Vendors)
Youth Role Hub (It’s A Trap / North-South Development)
Community Plaza & Markets
Green Stormwater Gardens
Under-Bridge Safe Gathering Space
Flexible Event Zone
15-Minute Neighbourhood Node

This isn’t just pretty renderings. It’s practical space-making that directly applies the lessons from Calhoun’s Universe 25 experiment I wrote about yesterday.
In the mouse utopia, even unlimited resources led to behavioural sink — aggression, withdrawal, family breakdown — because social roles and meaningful space disappeared.
Here in Rideau-Rockcliffe we can do the opposite: create a “Creative Universe” where youth and families have real purpose, visibility, and belonging.

Overbrook already faces density pressures and the north-south challenges we all know. North-South Development Roots and Culture Canada’s “It’s A Trap” program is already fighting gang recruitment and giving kids alternatives.
This activated space would be their natural home — youth-led murals on the pillars, event staffing, coaching clinics, market days. The Ottawa Titans already draw families; layering community programming turns passive spectators into active participants.
Why this fits our asset-management and budgeting conversation

It’s low-cost, high-impact activation of an existing city-owned site (no new land required).
It uses the agile capital budgeting pilot staff are testing for growth-related infrastructure.
Every dollar spent here improves the condition rating of this asset in the open capital register I’ve been calling for.
Revenue from food-truck permits and events could help offset maintenance — a win for taxpayers.

This is exactly the kind of thoughtful, creative urban design Calhoun later advocated after seeing his mice collapse. We don’t have to accept underused space or behavioural sink. We can design better.

How it's done in Japan.(see above)
Next steps I would push as councillor

Direct staff to complete a quick “activation feasibility study” for the Coventry Stadium site (using the data fields I outlined in my open-data post).
Bring North-South, the Titans, Parks & Rec, and Tremblay Station stakeholders to the table for a partnership plan.
Fund the first phase (lighting, murals, food-truck pads, basic seating) through the agile budgeting tools already under discussion.

Rideau-Rockcliffe deserves more than just fixing potholes (though we’ll do that too). We deserve purposeful public space that builds resilience, gives our youth real roles, and makes better use of the assets we already own.

A full self driving shuttle from the train station

If you can accept that you need a different representative for Rideau Rockcliffe, somebody who wants to make a difference and has the skill, ability and know how to do so, vote differently, vote wisely, vote for Peter Karwacki

Campaign Video