By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, February 6, 2017
A final report on how to get more pubs and restaurants to open patios in Ottawa is due at city hall this month, but it won’t include talk of lowering permit prices that are 10 times what Toronto charges.
We’ve learned some things about patios by trying out more little narrow ones on Elgin Street the past couple of years, and now we want to put those lessons to use. We’re writing a whole new bylaw specifically for patios. The new rules are expected to preserve wider corridors for pedestrians to get past and to restrict sandwich-board advertising, while allowing patios to be away from a restaurant’s front door (if there’s enough room) and permitting umbrellas to extend over a sidewalk as long as they’re high enough.
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/reevely-ottawas-set-to-try-almost-anything-to-get-more-patios-except-cut-sky-high-permit-fees