Source: City of Vancouver, Crime Statistics, Data accessed March 10, 2017

In 2016, a Square One Insurance report said that Vancouver had the most bikes stolen per capita of any major city in Canada. Square One found that there were 513 bike thefts per capita in Vancouver, whereas the next highest on the list, Calgary, had 250 thefts per capita.

Vancouver, a city where bikes are frequently used as smogless, traffic-friendly alternatives to cars, saw bike theft increase steadily between 2011 and 2015, according to the afore mentioned data analysis. According to the same analysis, thieves have stolen more than 13,000 bikes since 2011.

“It’s an epidemic,” says J Allard, creator of the 529 Garage, a bike registration database.

But there’s hope. For the first time in five years, bike thefts have dropped, and it may just be thanks to Allard.

In October 2015, the former Microsoft executive teamed up with the Vancouver Police Department in a public awareness campaign for bike theft prevention and recovery.

Source: Vancouver Police Department, 2015

According to Sgt. Randy Fincham of the Vancouver Police Department, the Log it, Lock it or Loose It   initiative is, “A fairly extensive public awareness

campaign encouraging owners to lock their bikes and record their serial numbers.”

Allard and the police have been holding workshops, distributing flyers, and talking to the public about how best to protect their bikes.

In the year that followed the campaign launch, there were 433 fewer bikes stolen in the city of 630,000 people, according to the City of Vancouver statistics.

HUB Cycling, a non-profit cycling advocacy group in Ottawa credits Allard’s partnership with the police for lessening thievery. “There’s wider increased awareness of bike theft being an issue across the city, I think that more people are cognisant to it now,” says Ellie Lambert, the communications director for the group.

Lambert notes the initiative’s emphasis on lock education, as the campaign has been promoting the best way to lock a bike and has introduced loaner locks at businesses for those who may have forgotten their locks at home.

Locks are important to Allard. “The harder you can make it for the thief, the more discouraged the thief will be, and move onto the next one,” says Allard, advocating for thick steel locks, “they take three minutes and sparks to remove.”

Common advice seems to be, leave the cable lock at home and invest in a more expensive, more durable variety.

The Log it, Lock it or Loose it campaign also encourages people to register their bikes with Allard’s database, Garage 529.

Allard says that Garage 529 is “a unified database for bycicles,” where users, bike shops, law enforcement and other organizations, like universities, can register bicycles.

People send in the bike’s serial numbers, a picture of the bike, make and model, date of purchase and ideally a picture of the owner with their bike. Then, if a bike goes missing, there’s a dossier for a police report, insurance claim, and for distribution on social media.

Garage 529 is also an app connected to the database, and if a bike is reported missing, any users within 15 kilometres of said disappearance get a notification on their phone.

“It’s like an amber alert system for bikes,” says Allard.

Still spinning from success in Vancouver, Allard is expanding his database in British Columbia, and is even in talks to bring the registry out east, to Toronto and Ottawa.

Source: City of Vancouver. The map above breaks down bike theft by neighbourhood, with the most bikes being stolen in and around the downtown core.

Residents of Sandy Hill are packing their bags according to recent census results.

The 2016 census shows that a large portion of Sandy Hill has experienced close to a 10 per cent decrease in population in the last five years. The decrease is mainly seen in the area stretching from Rideau Street in the North to Mann Avenue in the south and King Edward Avenue in the West to Goulburn Avenue in the East.

Map of Population Changes in Ottawa between 2011 and 2016 according to Census data.

Long-time residents, young professionals and families in the area are leaving for several reasons such as the increase in large developments, lack of housing regulation and of course—students.

Vice president of community association Action Sandy Hill, Robert Forbes, blames this decrease on poor neighbourhood planning.

“What we’ve seen is an increased amount of conversion of family homes into express-built student housing,” says Forbes. “People who live next door are losing light and are concerned about noise. There also aren’t adequate provisions for preserving garbage.”

According to Forbes, developers have been buying old homes and converting them into what are being called “bunk houses.” These bunk houses are different than rooming houses because they are unlicensed, are not regularly inspected and are typically filled to maximum capacity in order to generate more profit.

The developments are driving up real estate prices, according to Forbes, making it difficult for young professionals to buy homes in Sandy Hill. Forbes says that developers in the area are quite predatory and that the higher real estate values offer residents an incentive to sell.

Impact on Landlords

Neil Thornton is a building manager for an apartment complex in Sandy Hill. While units in his building are rented out by individual owners, he says some of the landlords have had trouble renting to a specific demographic.

“Sometimes they haven’t been able to rent to professionals,” says Thornton. “You can always rent to students because it’s so close to the university.”

Thornton says that he recognizes the economics of bunker houses but finds them to be ugly. Forbes also noted that he knows other individuals that are having trouble renting to non-students.

Community Impact

Spouses Lise Labelle and Pierrick Le Monnier have been living in Sandy Hill for more than 20 years and have dubbed themselves “hard-core Sandy Hillers.” They say that there has always been a mixture of students and professionals living in the neighbourhood and that they love where they live.

However, they too have noticed the large developments popping up. They say that they think people are seeing a lack of building regulation in the area and are discouraged from living here. Labelle refers to the city, developers and the Ontario Municipal Board as “the beast.”

“There doesn’t seem to be any regulation,” says Labelle. “How come the city lets this happen? It’s a question of money…Mathieu Fleury can’t do anything against the beast.”

City Councillor for Rideau-Vanier, Mathieu Fleury, says that he is working with the city to tackle the issue of bunker houses. A moratorium on building any new developments was put in place so that the city could work out a new strategy. Fleury and the city put together new bylaws and regulations for buildings to maintain property standards such as front lawn and garbage disposal maintenance. New provisions have also been put in place restricting major changes to heritage homes.

“We want to maintain the character of the neighbourhood,” says Fleury.

Both Labelle and her husband as well as Thornton and his wife know families that have left the neighbourhood because they could not handle the combination of loud students and rapid development.

“We have nothing against students,” says Labelle. “But I’m hoping some new regulations will come in for the buildings.”

Ottawa’s Kitchissippi Ward recorded the highest number of complaints about discoloured water in 2016, according to an analysis of a database used by the city to track service requests.

The City of Ottawa received 36 requests last year to “investigate discoloured water” in the ward—a modest figure compared to the 14,102 requests made in Kitchissippi as a whole.

However, the ward received double the requests of the next closest ward, Rideau-Rockcliffe, which received 18 requests in comparison.

The results change slightly when adjusted for per capita—8.2 requests in Kitchissippi and 4.7 in Rideau-Rockcliffe.

The rise in complaints, said Kitchissippi Ward Coun. Jeff Leiper, were due to road maintenance and construction projects resulting from federal stimulus money, the Ottawa River Action Plan and the scheduled maintenance of water mains beneath some of the ward’s older streets.

“Last year there were a few more streets that were done through the program of the Ottawa River Action Plan, which provides money for making repairs for storm and sewage repair,” Leiper said. “We had federal stimulus money that was being spent on the ward—Orrin Avenue and Irving Avenue were stimulus projects.”

The Ottawa River Action Plan was introduced in 2010 to prevent sewage overflows and storm water from entering the Ottawa River, which borders the north end of Kitchissippi Ward and serves as the city’s water supply after being filtered through several processes of purification.

The typical occurrence that prompts requests to inspect water quality is a rusty, yellow, or discoloured tone to the water, according to the City of Ottawa’s water quality webpage.

Penny Wilson, water quality supervisor for the City of Ottawa, said that water discolouration arises in areas close to construction or in areas of low water usage. However, Wilson said home and business owners should not be worried.

“This is a fairly common occurrence, and is normally solved by flushing the main through a hydrant. Please note that these low levels of iron, while not pleasing to the eye, are not a health issue.”

The month that garnered the most service requests to investigate water quality was July. The nine requests that were recorded correspond to what Leiper called the “Spencer Street rebuild,” which began in June and provoked road closures throughout July.

The purpose of the rebuild was to repair the cast iron water mains beneath the street. Once underway, much of the street was closed off and residents and building owners were placed on a “temporary water supply”—a frequent precaution taken by the city when repairing water mains.

Tap water sourced from a street’s temporary water supply often appears discoloured, but this is not a reason for concern.

Tammy Rose, director of water services for the City of Ottawa, reiterated that there was no reason for alarm and that all of the requests were addressed without a complication.

“Two requests were resolved by phone and did not require an on-site response. Staff investigated seven requests related to a water main construction project in the neighbourhood,” Rose said. “This is not uncommon during construction on cast iron water mains.”

Spencer Street was not the only road that required maintenance. Mulvihill Avenue and Lyman Street were two other examples within the ward that were in need of repair.

Leiper is optimistic that less road rebuilds and maintenance will be required throughout his ward in 2017 after a busy period of construction last year.

“This year we are mainly looking at Iona Street and Loretta Avenue, and only half of Loretta is being done. I anticipate that we can see two-thirds the number that we saw in 2016.”

The number of firefighters in Ottawa earning over $100,000 more than tripled between 2014 and 2015.

The sunshine list – the annual disclosure list of public employees making more than $100,000 a year – showed 403 Ottawa firefighters on the list in 2015. Considering the number of firefighters in the Ottawa Fire Services at the time, this means that over a quarter (28 per cent) earned over $100,000.

This increase in earnings is also reflected in the city’s own reporting. Actual expenses reported by Ottawa Fire Services in their 2016 annual budget showed an increase of 63 per cent in overtime costs between 2014 and 2015 – an increase of $1.4 million.

On the surface, this may seem alarming, but according to Ottawa Fire Chief Gerry Pingitore, several factors have contributed to this jump in earnings including staff reductions.

“With our staffing reduction, of course our overtime is going to go up because we have less people on duty that day,” said Pingitore. “Our overtime budget will increase but our savings as a result of reducing some staff over the last number of years is still saving.”

Pingitore points out that while the staffing ratio, the ratio between the number of people on duty and off duty, has decreased, the minimum number of staff required remains unchanged. The impact of the staff reductions is that when there are multiple calls, there are fewer people to call on, leading to off duty firefighters being called in and a resulting increase in overtime costs.

The City of Ottawa has been reducing its workforce since 2012 for budgetary reasons.

Though staffing reductions can touch all departments, city reports show that there were no reductions in the staffing levels of firefighters between 2014 and 2015. In fact, there was an increase. According to Ottawa Fire Services annual reports, between 2014 and 2015, 42 career firefighters and 30 volunteer firefighters joined Ottawa Fire Services.

The other factor that can contribute to the jump in firefighters on the sunshine list in 2015 is the number of fire incidents responses. Fire incidences encompasses house fires, explosions, and outdoor fires.

Firefighters respond to several types calls, ranging from medical, rescue to hazmat situations, however the 2015 Ottawa Fire Services annual report showed a 22.3 per cent increase in “fire incident responses” from the previous year (921 fire incidents in 2014 compared to 1,126 fire incidents in 2015).

Though Pingitore admits such an increase is not typical, he says it’s too soon to call it a pattern.

“I would say that it’s not a trend yet, but certainly very concerning,” said Pingitore. “The fires have risen in the last two years, so we’d like to see another year before we start to be really concerned.”

Though he’s careful in calling the rise in fire incidences a trend, he’s not shy about discussing the type of fires that he sees as contributing it.

“Where the fires are increasing, those fires are the result [of], or suspected to be, improperly discarded cigarettes,” said Pingitore.

Pingitore says that Ottawa Fire Services is planning on developing more fire prevention campaigns about unattended fires and the damage they can cause.

The 2016 Ottawa Fire Services annual report is expected in the next few months.

2015 Ottawa Fire Services fire incidences by ward.

Hipster coffee shops and cool fusion restaurants haven’t deterred graffiti vandals in Ottawa’s Somerset district. The ward had the highest number of graffiti complaints per capita last year, according to an analysis of the city’s 311 service requests database. The trend has continued into the new year, with twelve graffiti complaints from the area recorded in January, and six in February. Although the ward was second in total number of complaints – Rideau-Vanier had the most –having the highest per capita means the complaints are occurring at a faster rate than in other wards.
Top 5 wards with the most graffiti complaints per capita

In an e-mail statement, Roger Chapman, chief of Ottawa bylaw services, says the most common type of graffiti complaints in Somerset are those related to ‘tagging’. The city’s website defines ‘tagging’ as: “the writing, painting or ‘bombing’ of an identifiable symbolic character or ‘tag’ that may or may not contain letters.” The site indicated that gang related graffiti is rare in Ottawa, even though ‘tags’ can sometimes be associated with gangs or certain groups. The city categorizes five other types of graffiti: “personalized, political, offensive and hate-related.”

Chapman also says he doesn’t think Somerset is facing a “specific issue” with graffiti, because other wards, like Rideau-Vanier, also experience a high number of complaints. But volume of complaints alone isn’t necessarily indicative of the depth of the issue. Rideau-Vanier has about 7,500 more people than Somerset and around 11,600 more people than Capital ward – yet it lags behind both of those wards in complaints per capita. This suggests Somerset may have certain factors that contribute to the high rate.

The ward encompasses much of downtown, LeBreton flats, and most of Centretown West – all home to some of the city’s busiest bars, restaurants and shopping centres. The Ottawa Real Estate Board notes that these neighbourhoods have become more popular in recent years, and are becoming gentrified by a younger demographic who are driving up home prices. Last month, the Board said the price of a single family home in Hintonburg/West Centretown, for example, has risen 27 per cent in the last five years – nearly double that of the city as a whole.

But this peak in interest hasn’t made the area immune to crime or vandalism. Take the disturbing instances of hate graffiti this past fall as an example. In mid-November, the Ottawa Muslim Association and Parkdale United Church, both situated within the ward, were vandalized with racially-driven hate graffiti.

In response to how  complaints in Somerset are dealt with, a communications representative for the city says it employs a “4E model”, meaning: education, empowerment, eradication, and enforcement. They also say the city works with the Ottawa Police to help employ the model.

Graffiti has always been a fixture of urban life – but it can have real consequences.

In 2015, the city published a study that evaluated the effectiveness of the graffiti prevention program. The report concluded with: “The volume of Service Requests received indicates that residents are reporting graffiti which is then being quickly removed… Due to the commitment of the community, a marked decrease in the level of graffiti has been noted. Unfortunately, the costs incurred to remove graffiti continue to soar.”

The study was conducted as part of the “Ottawa 2017” campaign – a celebration of the capital’s 150-year anniversary. The report mentions numerous times that this occasion calls for a more concerted effort to control graffiti incidents, in order to “preserve Ottawa’s reputation as a ‘Clean, Green, Graffiti and Litter Free City’.”

The Somerset ward encompasses many areas that tourists are likely to be drawn to. And if the graffiti trend there continues, the city may have its hands full trying to maintain a clean image.

Needle Kiosk at the Wabano Centre in Vanier.
Photo by Maureen McEwan.

OTTAWA – Rideau-Vanier marks another year as the city ward with the highest number of discarded needle and syringe complaints. Many needle collection services exist but the public says a safe injection site in the downtown core could be the solution to minimizing the issue.

The City of Ottawa received a total of 101 service calls for improperly disposed needles in 2016. Rideau-Vanier (Ward 12) was at the top of the list with 58 instances reported. The second highest was another downtown ward, Somerset (Ward 14), with 12 complaints over the year. The remaining calls for discarded needles were scattered, with most wards reporting a single complaint if any.

(Please click the link below for a map of the 311 calls.)

For years, the Rideau-Vanier and Somerset wards have received the majority of 311 calls concerning needles and syringes. Both wards have the highest calls per capita, with Rideau-Vanier having 11.8 calls and Somerset having 2.9 calls per 10,000 residents. The recent reports for January and February indicate that the trend continues into 2017.

Craig Calder is the Program Manager with Environment Health Protection at Ottawa Public Health (OPH). He says that OPH has always seen “a significant spike” in needle finds and needle box usage in Rideau-Vanier and areas.

“If you look at the numbers on the Open Data, you can certainly see a significant number in Ward 12 which is Rideau-Vanier,” Calder says. “But I don’t want to divert resources that would essentially take away from the suburban users of these boxes as well.”

Calder says that OPH maintains 78 needle kiosks around the city. The kiosks allow individuals to dispose of their needles safely at accessible public areas. Some are in the Rideau-Vanier area but many are distributed. Calder adds that the kiosks are not used exclusively by intravenous drug users but also by individuals with medical conditions such as diabetes.

(Please click the link below for a map of the needle box locations.)

There are varied services besides needle drop boxes. The City of Ottawa also facilitates the “Take-it-Back!” program which allows individuals to return needles to participating pharmacies. Needles are also collected at the Site Needle & Syringe Program and with OPH’s site mobile vans. And there are “proactive” services like the needle hunters and city internal staff members who pick up needles when 311 calls come in, Calder says.

“There’s a number of different, overlapping pieces to our fairly robust needle program – I think we have the gold standard, actually,” he says.

Since 2012, the services have collected over a million discarded needles annually.

As an Employment Coordinator, Hilary Leavens helps run the Needle Hunter program at Causeway Work Centre which employs 40 people.

Wearing their trademark safety vests, needle hunters embark every day to collect needles and safely discard them. No job experience is needed but they require a level of comfort for the work, Leavens says. Their routes are contained mostly in the downtown core. Leavens says that the Lowertown routes are busier due to increased foot-traffic, a concentration of social services, and “pockets of homelessness.”

Despite these services, the 311 trend has been consistent for years. While the city may have a strong response, needle collection may need review.

The latest census data indicates that Ottawa’s population is growing which may shift ward demographics. Calder says that the model’s resources expand as the city does but for the moment, it’s a “well-oiled machine.”

But the increase in opioid and intravenous drug use in Ottawa could place immediate pressure on services. The city may be required to adapt or reallocate resources if the opioid situation escalates.

Sean LeBlanc is a founder of Ottawa’s Drug User Advocacy League (DUAL) and a former opioid addict. DUAL supports users and advocates for services like the safe injection site.

LeBlanc says that the City and OPH services, like the needle hunters and black boxes, do “a great job” with their work. But there’s a gap: Leblanc says more program involvement from people with lived-experience would help. In other cities, peer-level models have proven effective with needle distribution and collection, he adds.

The Sandy Hill Community Centre put forth a proposal for a safe injection site to the federal government. The Centre is located in the Rideau-Vanier ward. In a September OPH survey, respondents indicate that the site could improve needle collection.

To support needle collection efforts in the downtown wards, further community services and engagement could be needed soon.