The City of Victoria’s $2-million OUR DWTN revitalization program has landed the city a brace of awards.
The city won the International Downtown Association’s award of excellence for urban place management and the Union of B.C. Municipalities community excellence award in service delivery.
The program, established last spring and funded by parking revenue, focuses on beautification and programming for downtown spaces.
Nichola Reddington, Victoria’s OUR DWTN program director, said it’s a model that can be adopted by other municipalities.
“Within a short time, we launched multiple interdepartmental OUR DWTN initiatives, often in partnership with community organizations and the arts sector, successfully revitalizing and attracting more people to come, stay and explore downtown as their own,” she said.
The program has included two “scrub-up” events in partnership with the Downtown Victoria Business Association, pop-up indoor pickleball courts at Crystal Garden, free outdoor concerts, holiday craft workshops, increased seasonal decoration, street banners and public art, and Sleigh the Day, a free, multi-day winter arts festival held over the Family Day weekend.
There have also been infrastructure upgrades and recreational and cultural programming at Ship Point.
A Feet on the Street program has allowed city bylaw officers to engage with downtown businesses to proactively enforce bylaws, and a designated downtown cleaning crew was formed to quickly respond to calls for service.
Mayor Marianne Alto said the city asked its staff to explore how to make Victoria’s downtown a destination for all to enjoy, year-round.
“Both awards recognize council’s vision of intentional transformation and the creativity and collaboration demonstrated and delivered by the OUR DWTN team,” Alto said. “Actions like these, show how cities can make positive change in our communities.”
Victoria was not the only Island community to be recognized at the UBCM meetings in Vancouver this week.
Central Saanich and Nanaimo both also won Community Excellence Awards.
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