At its April 29 meeting City Council is supposed to discuss the development of a Comprehensive Housing Strategy. That will lay the groundwork for the city’s position at the Mayor’s Housing Summit that will be held on May 13-14.
While that’s going on, Regina Downtown Business Improvement District (RDBID) has embarked on a study to look at ways to champion residential growth in the downtown. In all the talk that’s been held over the last six years or so on revitalizing the downtown, one of the keys that’s been identified is building up the residential population so that the downtown has a sense of life beyond the traditional Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. office period.
I’ve lived downtown for almost seven years now. In that time there’s been a bit of progress made in boosting the quality of life for downtown residents. There’s also a couple of projects underway (Centre Square Place at Broad & 15th and Gardens on Rose on 20 block Rose St.) that will boost the residential population which currently stands at around 1200 in the downtown with 11,000 more people living in the immediate surrounding area.
But Regina still has a long way to go before the downtown can be described as a vibrant, welcoming place for people to make their homes. To gather data on steps that need to be taken to attract and retain downtown residents RDBID is doing an on-line survey of people who either live downtown now or who might be interested in living downtown at some future date: their age, housing preferences, barriers to living downtown, stuff like that.
According to RDBID the survey is supposed to be available on its website. I was just there and couldn’t find anything, but presumably the survey will be available shortly for anyone who’d like to fill it out. If you end up having questions you can call 306-359-7541.
