Heron Gate

Heron Gate[1] is a neighbourhood in Alta Vista Ward in the south end of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The neighbourhood is triangular in shape. It is bounded on the north by Heron Road on the west by Heron-Walkley Park, and by Walkley Road on the south..

Heron Gate
Neighbourhood
Heron Gate
Location within Ottawa
Coordinates: 45°22′40″N 75°39′00″W
CountryCanada
ProvinceOntario
CityOttawa
Government
 • MPsDavid McGuinty
 • MPPsJohn Fraser
 • CouncillorsJean Cloutier
Area
 • Total0.422 km2 (0.163 sq mi)
Elevation
90 m (300 ft)
Population
 (2016)
 • Total4,681
 • Density11,100.308/km2 (28,749.67/sq mi)
 Canada 2016 Census
Time zoneUTC-5 (Eastern (EST))

There are several parks in the neighbourhood, and served by Ridgemont High School), St. Patrick's High School, St. Patrick Intermediate and Charles Hulse Elementary School for education. The area has train tracks to the south. It is one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods in the city. A number of new developments were completed on the west of the neighbourhood between 2006 and 2008.

Demographics

The neighbourhood corresponds to Census Tract 5050007.02. It is extremely diverse with 30% of the population being Anglophone and 10% being Francophone. Other major languages include Arabic (19%), Somali (11%), Persian (3%) Creoles (2%), Nepali (2%), Spanish (2%), Urdu (2%), Amharic (1%) and Chinese (1%).[2]

Retailers

The main shopping area in the Herongate region is the Herongate Mall. There are also stores nearby which are separate from the mall.

Timbercreek Evictions

Most properties in the Heron Gate community are managed by Timbercreek Asset Management[3] who took possession in 2012. In 2016, Timbercreek evicted residents from 80 townhomes in Heron Gate, to make room for new developments in the area.[3] In May 2018, it announced that it would evict residents of a further 150 townhomes, due to structural problems with the buildings.[4] The decision to redevelop the area received criticism from residents and interested parties such as the UN special rapporteur on Adequate Housing,[5] and was described as the "'largest forced displacement in Canada' in recent history."[6]


These evictions were criticized as being part of a broader pattern of racist “reno-victions” or “demo-victions”, [7] as “90% of more than 500 tenants evicted in 2018 after rental properties were allowed to deteriorate were racial minorities”.[8] Nonetheless, Heron Gate has been noted by scholars such as Emily Power, Bjarke Skærlund Risager,[9] and Marina Gomá as an important site of working class, anti-racist activism by its residents. As Gomá notes, “The Herongate Tenant Coalition articulates a different reality to the narrative of Canadian benevolence, embodying class solidarity, denouncing structural racism, and recruiting allies to donate to their legal case against Timbercreek Management.”[10]

Following an extended grassroots activist campaign and a human rights challenge,[11] Timbercreek agreed to provide CAD$2,000 in moving compensation, relocation assistance and negotiated discounts with Ottawa moving companies.[12]

See also
  • List of Ottawa neighbourhoods

References
  1. http://www4.rncan.gc.ca/search-place-names/unique/FBNHO
  2. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CT&Code1=2525&Geo2=CMA&Code2=505&Data=Count&SearchText=&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=All&Custom=
  3. "Heron Gate residents, developer sketch out community's future". CBC News. Retrieved 2018-03-10.
  4. "Builder accelerates evictions in Ottawa's Heron Gate neighbourhood as rebuild gathers pace". The Globe and Mail. 2018-05-10. Retrieved 2018-08-17.
  5. "Heron Gate eviction violates human rights law, United Nations advocate says". CBC News. 2018-07-03.
  6. Kestler-D'Amours, Jillian (21 August 2018). "Heron Gate mass eviction: 'We never expected this in Canada'". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  7. Crosby, Andrew (January 2020). "Financialized gentrification, demoviction, and landlord tactics to demobilize tenant organizing". Geoforum. 108: 184–193. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.09.011. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  8. Whitzman, Carolyn (February 2020). "Women‟s Housing: balancing „scaling-up‟ and „caring‟ in Montreal, Gatineau and Ottawa" (PDF). Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies: 1–66.
  9. Power, Emily; Risager, Bjarke Skærlund (September 2019). "Rent-striking the REIT: Reflections on tenant organizing against financialized rental housing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada". Radical Housing Journal. 1 (2): 81–101.
  10. Gomá, Marina (31 Jan 2020). "Challenging the Narrative of Canadian Multicultural Benevolence: A Feminist Anti-Racist Critique". OMNES: The Journal of Multicultural Society. 10 (1): 102. doi:10.14431/omnes.2020.01.10.1.81. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  11. Trinh, Judy (August 2, 2018). "Heron Gate tenants prepare to launch human rights challenge to mass evictions Social Sharing". CBC News.
  12. "Battle lines drawn in Heron Gate, where an evicted community doesn't plan on leaving". Ottawa Citizen. August 14, 2018. Retrieved 2018-08-17.



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