Hintonburg residents may want to start checking if their doors are locked before hitting the pubs and restaurants in their up-and-coming neighbourhood, since they live in a ward with the highest rate per capita of break-and-enters in Ottawa.
Kitchissippi ward, which includes Hintonburg, has Ottawa’s highest rate of break-ins per capita according to crime data from 2012
The data shows that Kitchissippi had 248 reported break-and-enters, which works out to 60 break-ins per 10,000 residents, which is the highest rate in Ottawa. The ward with the second-highest rate was Rideau-Vanier, which saw 55 break-ins per capita.
Break-and-enters per capita (by city ward) in 2012:
Overall, the number of break-and-enters throughout the city has not changed much from 2011 to 2012. In Kitchissippi ward, however the number of break-and-enters is up from 152 in 2011, or an increase of about 63 per cent.
“Break and enters happen in every community… we try to make sure our community police constable is aware of what’s going on and we try to follow up with them on any issues that can make our community safer,” said Matt Whitehead, president of the Hintonburg Community Association.
Where the break-ins are happening: Map of wards, with darker wards having a higher rate of break-ins per capita in 2012
Hintonburg is seeing a resurgence in recent years. The neighbourhood had a reputation for prostitution and drugs in 1990s, when the community association began to target drug houses along with law enforcement agencies and start to clean up the neighbourhood.
Today, the community association is facing instead an invasion of condominium developers. New restaurants and galleries open on a regular basis in this neighbourhood. In 2007, Air Canada’s inflight magazine enRoute included Hintonburg in its list of the top 10 emerging neighbourhoods in Canada.
“Security issues with the community have largely decreased over the past 20 years dramatically and over the past five years even more so,” Whitehead said, adding the association’s zoning committee was busier than the security committee nowadays.
Kitchissippi saw a string of break-ins around the Civic Hospital area in January 2012, and then again in September that year.
The average rate for break-ins in Ottawa was about 29 per 10,000 residents.