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www.oakvillebeavers.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Friday, July 23, 2010 · 26 Committee submits creative recommendations to mayor By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Redevelopment of Centennial Square suggested Ward 3 Councillor Mary Chapin, who is also the Chair of COMAG, said the group has presented Oakville Mayor Rob Burton with 10 recommendations aimed at using Oakville's creative assets to make the town a leader in today's knowledgedriven economy. The recommendations include such things as investing in a new cultural festival (e.g. digital arts festival), which is seen as exceedingly important given the demise of the Oakville Waterfront Festival this year. Getting Oakville to be a partner in hosting creative GTA activities was also listed among the recommendations. The 2015 Pan American Games was seen as such an opportunity with the Town being advised to reach out to the organizing committee of the games to explore Oakville's possible participation in the cultural festivities planned to accompany the games. "I hope we can see a lot of these things come to fruition in some way, shape or form. Some of these are specific others are very general," said Chapin. "Part of the challenge of the town, and this is straight out of our economic development report, is that we've got something like 60 per cent of our employed residents leaving town to go to work. We'd like to reverse that migration and have residents be able to work in their community." To accomplish this goal the group's recommendations include the redevelopment of Centennial Square, which they say has the potential to be a catalyst for new economic activity in a downtown that is becoming increasingly fragile. This plan would see the redevelopment of the Central Library, Oakville Galleries, the renovation and expansion of the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts, the redevelopment of Centennial Pool into a concert hall, the development of plazas/vistas looking west towards Sixteen Mile Creek and opportunities for new public areas, commercial, retail and residential space. The plan calls for this recommendation to be self-funded. Another recommendation encourages land use planning that supports a `Creative Oakville' perspective. This could include using the old hospital land, in the area of Reynolds and Allan Streets, to support the digital media industry. In the long term, the Midtown Core could also be developed into a cultural enterprise zone particularly because Oakville sits midway between Ontario's two premiere cultural zones of Toronto and Niagaraon-the-Lake. Examining the potential of creating an `academic village' was also recommended with the focus on making Oakville the definitive centre of excellence for animation, digital media and new emerging areas of digital IP (Intellectual Property) and The recommendations have been made and now the Creative Oakville Mayor's Advisory Group (COMAG) is hoping whoever occupies the mayor's office in 2011 will put them in place. "Part of the challenge of the town, and this is straight out of our economic development report, is that we've got something like 60 per cent of our employed residents leaving town to go to work. We'd like to reverse that migration and have residents be able to work in their community." Ward 3 Councillor Mary Chapin, chair of Creative Oakville Mayor's Advisory Group green IC (Intelligent Communities) Technology. It was also recommended that the mayor guide the town's economic development strategy by focusing on areas consistent with a creative strategy and to consider processes for increasing collaboration between the Town, Sheridan Institute and local business leaders to attract, train and retrain new businesses in the knowledge industries. "Something that came to the surface very quickly was that we've got Sheridan Institute in our midst and as a town we don't capitalize on that," said Chapin. "It is such a potential incubator for the kind of business that we say we want in this town." The group also asked the mayor to endorse its work and extend an invitation to reorganize a Creative Oakville Leadership Council with a renewed mandate to report directly to the mayor on a semi-annual basis. The COMAG is not a formal committee -- it defines its own parameters and reports directly to the mayor. Made up of more than 27 volunteers, the COMAG includes representatives from The Weather Network, ArtHouse, CORE Digital Pictures, Oakville Galleries, the Oakville Chamber of Commerce, Halton Region, CommUnity Arts Space and others. The recommendations were developed over a six-month period. As a municipal election is coming in October and many of the recommendations involve long-term planning, Chapin said it will not be until at least January 2011, when the new council is sworn in, that any movement on the recommendations can be expected and then only if that mayor and council choose to endorse them. The contents of the COMAG report can be seen online at www.oakville.ca/23186.htm.