This is why so many people hate the ByWard Market District Authority | Opinion

Bruce Deachman: According to many ByWard Market stakeholders, the group implementing changes in the area needs to consult them more.

It’s rare to find retailers, residents, property owners and a city councillor agreeing on much when it comes to the ByWard Market . Yet after speaking with people in the area in recent weeks, I keep hearing a similar complaint: they don’t have a meaningful voice in decisions shaping the Market’s future. It’s been three years since Ottawa Markets and the ByWard Market BIA were folded into the ByWard Market District Authority (BMDA).

One of the roles of the organization is to be a bridge between businesses and the city. As the Market prepares to celebrate its 200th anniversary next year, it’s worth asking whether the BMDA’s governance itself deserves another look. The latest controversy centred on the decision to eliminate through-traffic on ByWard Market Square for more than two weeks surrounding Canada Day — one of the busiest times of the year for merchants — as it prepared the area for three months of pedestrianization and street “activation.”

Some oppose the plan itself, arguing that removing parking spaces, restricting traffic and complicating deliveries will hurt business. Others support the idea of a pedestrian plaza , but question why construction had to occur during one of the busiest tourist periods of the year rather than in the spring or fall. All sides, it would appear, feel inadequately consulted by the BMDA, which they say only notified them two weeks prior to the closure.

They believe that once decisions have effectively been made, their concerns carry little weight. The BMDA is a not-for-profit municipal services corporation (MSC) created by the city to replace both Ottawa Markets — an MSC previously set up to manage the ByWard and Parkdale markets — and the old ByWard Market BIA. The goal was to have a single body capable of looking beyond the interests of any one group.

Its staff, headed by executive director Victoria Williston, is overseen by a board of directors chaired by Andrex Holdings founder and heritage developer Sandy Smallwood. The idea made sense. The ByWard Market, after all, isn’t simply another commercial strip.

It’s also a neighbourhood where people live, a tourist destination, an entertainment district, a heritage precinct and one of Ottawa’s most important economic engines. Its governance attempts to reflect that larger mandate. Merchants and property owners are deliberately excluded from serving as voting directors because the BMDA does not allow board members who have a fiduciary interest in businesses or properties within the Market.

It’s notable that that restriction isn’t required by provincial or federal legislation legislation. Instead, it appears in the corporation’s founding bylaw, adopted when the city established the organization and approved by council when the BMDA was created in 2023. That means it is ultimately a matter of municipal governance rather than provincial law.

“It is a deliberate governance safeguard designed to ensure the board’s decisions are made independently and in the interest of the district as a whole,” Williston wrote in an email. Businesses, then, are represented through a Business Advisory Committee (BAC), the members of which are selected by the board. Williston says the committee’s terms of