District Brewing Responds to Catalyst Committee Consultation

District Brewing is excited about the outcomes of the Catalyst Committee’s goals. A revitalized city centre and Warehouse District will be beneficial to us as a business and as individual citizens. We disagree with the steps the Catalyst Committee is taking to achieve those goals. 

As the Committee explores how to justify five recreation and culture-based facilities, shoehorning them into established neighbourhood plans, we suggest focusing on initiatives that are actually proven to revitalise downtown neighbourhoods. District Brewing encourages the City of Regina to focus on better, more accessible public transport, improved infrastructure for human-powered transport, housing for all, wraparound services for all community members, and densification.

District Brewing Co would like to remind all members of the Council that designated affordable housing in the Taylor Field Neighbourhood was noted as a feature in 2011’s Regina Revitalization Initiative. We believe that it is the common sense choice to put appropriate resources towards ending homelessness in our city. The repeated proposals and plans approved by City Council for eradicating homelessness have achievable and cost-effective steps to success. The opportunity costs for not acting on this housing crisis are people’s lives. As recently reported, approximately 1 in 5 residents of Camp Hope has died since the Camp was shut down last year. 

The idea that homelessness and sustainability will be taken care of as a byproduct of one of the proposed recreation centres is preposterous. We have not seen this happen next to Mosaic Stadium at the Taylor Field location. What research has been done that allows the co-chair of the Catalyst Committee to suggest this? What evidence do we have as taxpayers that this gamble will put our community ahead this time?

There are hundreds of people without stable housing in Regina right now. We cannot wait for councillors to “go away and think about hard” how to deal with the crises our neighbours are facing tonight. 

We would be happy to participate in community discussions that focus on ending homelessness and ensuring that all citizens have reliably clean drinking water as soon as possible. This rushed and limited consultation was simply very hard to attend and why we are sharing our thoughts this way. 

District Brewing wants to see dynamic event spaces in the city. We simply do not think that City of Regina funding should go towards this at this time. Regina’s taxpayer funds should go towards initiatives that are proven to truly benefit the citizens of this city. Libraries and public swimming pools should not be considered under the same umbrella as baseball stadiums.

District Brewing encourages Council to make bold, audacious choices and make every day more liveable for Regina’s residents today and into the future.

Here’s a selection of plans District Brewing would encourage the City Council to complete:

2007’s Regina Downtown Plan and 8 Big Moves

2011’s Regina Revitalization Initiative including the Redevelopment of Taylor Field Neighbourhood

2013’s Design Regina: Official Community Plan

2013’s Comprehensive Housing Strategy

2019’s 5 year Plan to End Homelessness in Regina

2020’s 10 year Railyard Renewal Project

2021’s City Centre Core Framework

2022’s Regina Rapid Housing Initiative and Home Fire Project

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