2343 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

Don't forget that Victoria is now a stopping point for luxury yacht delivery firms (at least one). They wouldn't have picked Victoria if it wasn't a sensible place to drop off yachts for Canadian buyers, so I'm going to guess that a lot of out of towners will dock in Victoria instead of Vancouver (it saves around 4 our 5 hours of sailing time if they're leaving the straight).

[rjag]

I for one would love to see Victoria become a destination for boats of this calibre. The money that is spent provisioning them is phenomonal. Not to mention the tourists would flock to them. Theres no downside to something like this.

This is a typical harbour in Cap D'Antibes in the south of France

[Baro]

We're going to hear the usual crap. Specially the usual class-war bullshit embarrassing people spout all the time. Even though servicing these ridiculous floating wallets is a great way to grab money from foolish mega-wealthy people and give it to local businesses and residents we're going to hear ideological knee-jerks against "selling our harbour to the rich!"

I really doubt this will go through unless there's some actual political backbone.

-Rich People
-Building something new
-Environmental 'concerns'

that's generally 3 strikes in Victoria...

[Mike K.]

Right, because Songhees dwellers subsist of government subsidies. But I share Baro's opinion that they'll no less cry foul over richer folk wanting a piece of their paradise.

[aastra]

If I were a rich person living on the Songhees, I'd be darned offended at the thought of a really rich person picking up his new yacht at the marina down below while I'm parking my lousy sailboat out in Sidney like a sucker.

The Songhees is for rich people. It's not for really rich people.

[Ms. B. Havin]

The article has a sound-off board, which was empty all day. But I guess the editors finally let some comments through. There are 12 so far, and although I thought they were in the majority against the project, 6 are actually in favor. So it's 50-50 so far -- interesting though how the negative comments overpower the more moderate voices. I literally had to count to convince myself that it was half-and-half:

Sounds Like
Wed, May 7, 08 at 10:18 AM
A traffic jam to me.Why don,t they dock cruise ships there while there at it,or maybe the floatplanes can land on boats,thats good entertainment for the value.Fiquires its a bunch of big spenders from a land lock province (Alberta) trying to design a ocean harbour.Heres a idea,clean up downtown streets 1st,because whats the point of visting here if the city is looking like a dump.

Sara McBurnett
Wed, May 7, 08 at 10:45 AM
This is of course bad news for Royal Quays condo owners, but as a kayaker who lives in Ocean Park Towers I'm hopeful this will provide a launching site for neighborhood boaters. We have been kicked off the Harbour Ferry dock so maybe we stand a chance with these guys...

harley91
Wed, May 7, 08 at 11:06 AM
Go ahead build it, POLLUTE SOME MORE!! Ya poor people that motrgaged your $400,000 condos deserve what you got coming. Progress man progress!!!

Eric
Wed, May 7, 08 at 11:34 AM
There is a shortage of marina space for us average boaters as well !! Again Victoria is pandering to the rich and stomping all over the average citizen. What a load of crap that the super rich have no where in Victoria to moor their mega yachts . They can easily moor at wharf street . There is little economic value to the community as these yachts carry few people with their own food and alcohol and consume huge amounts of fuel that the buy elsewhere to move these few super rich around in luxury while polluting our environment. Most are not even Canadians. DON'T GIVE OUR WATERFRONT TO THE SUPER RICH !!

Michael
Wed, May 7, 08 at 11:58 AM
I would be curious to see the studies behind this. What sort of "Mega Yacht" numbers can the city expect? How many "Mega Yachts" has the city turned away in the past? With the concerns over climate change, is this something we want to encourage?

Bob
Wed, May 7, 08 at 12:08 PM
Sure, lets continue to block off all access and views to our waterfronts so that greedy out of province developers can continue to get richer, before they move on to destroy other places. Let the "Alberta based" corporations develop in their own province. Why not build the marina on the other side of the Blue Bridge so that the "Mega Yachts" can have a nice view of the junkies, meth heads and homeless and see what this city is really about. I'm sure that area could use "a major, major economic advantage."

jc
Wed, May 7, 08 at 03:03 PM
Breathtaking private developer arrogance! Victoria is to make some of its most precious harbour shorline and viewscape available as a glorified "parking lot" for mega-luxury-ships belonging to priveleged globe-trotting billionaires. (Anyone care to calculate a wet "Carbon Footprint" for each one of these fuel-guzzling, steak-devouring, booze-sucking, sewage pumping, floating "MTV Cribs!") Oh, and yes, by the way--parenthetically-- any local residents who enjoy canoeing, kayaking, small-boating in our beloved harbour-- "So very sorry, but your traditional shoreline access route will no longer available to you, due to your lowly social status and your pathetic human-powered modes of ocean transportating. So very very sorry...Really..." Brilliant ....Generous.... Progressive....Forward-thinking... This greedy deveolopment plan deserves to be stopped immediately by a unanimous public outcry--by young and old alike. . Songstress Joni Mitchelli sounds prophetic here. (Just think mega marina stalls/oily waters vs. car parking stalls/asphalt): "They paved over paradise...and put up a parking lot."

Jimmy
Wed, May 7, 08 at 03:29 PM
The residents at Songhess must remember that they chose to live next to a busy harbour. The Inner Harbour must be used to its potential as a harbour first and a residential area second. If they don't like the traffic and noise from ships and float planes there are plenty of other waterfront condo's to live in. Victoria cannot afford to deny developing its economy due to a few NIMBY's.

Rick
Wed, May 7, 08 at 03:58 PM
No doubt Victoria's (in)famous NIMBY brigade will come crawling out of the woodwork in spades on this one, but I for one support this idea. I had to laugh however at the comment of the woman opposed to this in the story. Let me get this straight - you knowingly buy a condo on a waterfront development SPECIFICALLY designed to have a marina component included from the very beginning, and yet now you cry foul? Riiight. And a waterfront restaurant isn't needed? Fine if you live there, but what about the tourists - you may recall those people, the ones who actually support a huge component of the local economy - won't they perhaps need and expect ready access to such a service? Or are you planning on having an open house at your condo and inviting everyone in for a snack? Now if you want to discuss truly monumentally dumb, utterly bush league ideas, lets talk about the ludicrous sight of 40-foot plastic plants gracing the entrance to the Victoria airport....

Tom Bridgewater
Wed, May 7, 08 at 06:09 PM
great idea so long as we can still catch the taxi boats

David McWalter
Wed, May 7, 08 at 06:34 PM
I own a townhouse in the Songhees, and I completely support the proposed Marina.

Sheyne
Wed, May 7, 08 at 07:50 PM
The area used to be a fuel dump and trash land before the condo's. Now that you have your little boxes to live in no one else can enjoy the area. does no one remember the fight to develop the land in the first place? Suck it up and enjoy the ships and the money they bring into the town for the working people who make your little box lives go around.

Also, I'd say Baro called it: all the anti-comments go on endlessly about "the rich" or some variant thereof.

[aastra]

...whats the point of visting here if the city is looking like a dump.

Why not build the marina on the other side of the Blue Bridge so that the "Mega Yachts" can have a nice view of the junkies, meth heads and homeless and see what this city is really about.

You can't discuss anything in Victoria without somebody making some arbitrary comment about how much the city sucks.

This is of course bad news for Royal Quays condo owners...

Of course it is. But why??

Sure, lets continue to block off all access and views to our waterfronts.

Does the marina at Fisherman's Wharf = blocked off waterfront access and views?

Now if you want to discuss truly monumentally dumb, utterly bush league ideas, lets talk about the ludicrous sight of 40-foot plastic plants gracing the entrance to the Victoria airport....

I mean, that's just silly. What a bozo comment.

[gumgum]

It's only people that have never lived anywhere else in Canada that would dare to suggest Victoria looks like a dump.

[amor de cosmos]

I thought the marina would be mostly for people who live in the Songhees neighbourhood? (definitely not the "super-rich") If there's a harbour-ferry stop & space for kayakers to do their thing, and at least one restaurant, I say why not, especially if a marina was in the original plans. One word sums up the opposition: NIMBY.

[aastra]

Question: this breakwater and such wouldn't be gated, right? Full public access?

 

edit looking back in 2019: Once again, being a silly landlubber, I think I wasn't fully grasping how things work.

Edited by aastra, 22 June 2019 - 12:01 PM.

[aastra]

From their site:

Kayak Access
Appropriately named after the bronze that sits near it, the Octopus Bridge will facilitate kayakers paddling through the area.

They don't elaborate, however.

I can't say I'm thrilled with the idea of a new surface parking lot on the waterfront. It looks like it will have ~24 parking spaces.

[Ms. B. Havin]

It's only people that have never lived anywhere else in Canada that would dare to suggest Victoria looks like a dump.

I don't think there's anything wrong with people pointing out that there are areas that look like a dump, whether it's stubby stupid waste-of-space low-rise buildings like, oh, the bank on the NE corner of Blanshard and Broughton, or the sight of homeless addicts congregating around certain streets.

That said, I don't understand what some of the people in the sound-off suggest as a concrete alternative. It seems like they want "government" or "the city" to do more to fix some problems, but they don't want the market to generate economic activity in any way.

It's a really weird way of understanding the economy: as if people could just be lower middle class and/or treading water forever, or be working at union salary levels till kingdom come, or pulling in a paycheque that barely covers the rising cost of living, but that if we pull up the drawbridge against the market and against economic forces, we can just all be dumb and happy forever, ignore all market changes, and let the government find all the money we'll ever need to fix whatever problems we might encounter.

You know? It drives me nuts.

Meanwhile:

Median earnings plummet in B.C.
Wages down over 11 per cent since 1980 - the biggest drop in Canada
Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, May 01, 2008

Median income in British Columbia has plummeted in the last 25 years, plunging to $42,230 a year between 1980 and 2005, the sharpest decline in all of Canada.

Wages for full time workers in B.C. fell 11.3 per cent while median earnings grew more than 8 per cent in Ontario, 5.4 per cent in PEI and a whopping 19.4 per cent in the Northwest Territories over the same period, Statistics Canada reported today.

Over this five-year period between 2000 and 2005, B.C. and Quebec were the only two provinces to record a decline. In B.C., a province that experienced higher-than-average employment growth, median earnings for individuals fell 3.4% between 2000 and 2005. Median earnings in Quebec fell by 0.3%. (See rest of story here.)

@ aastra: I think the idea is that the restaurant and facilities would be open to the public. Good point about the surface parking, though...

[aastra]

Yeah, but that guy said the city is looking like a dump, which is a vast, ignorant generalization. The other comment (by the same guy, presumably) contains the absurd claim that Victoria is really about junkies, meth heads, and the homeless. He boils down everything that Victoria is and everything that Victorians do and he ends up with drug addiction and homelessness?

[amor de cosmos]

I forgot to say the reason the marina idea was scrapped should be considered. If it's not valid in 2008 I say go ahead with it, especially if it won't be super exclusive, with gates & manned gatehouse etc.

[jaylow]

I was just looking at this and i what the article mentions is how many of the slips will be for "mega-yachts", because if you look at the rendering, not all are the same size, they variy in size.
The ones on the right side in front of the building are alot smaller

[gumgum]

Marina would tap growing yacht market
Mega-yacht expert says new berths would be booked
Carla Wilson, Times Colonist
Published: Thursday, May 08, 2008

[Holden West]

The hard copy version of today's paper has a good rendering of the marina and the building.

[gumgum]

From the website:


More here.

[Nparker]

The website suggests this is all but a done deal. I wonder if they have some inside information? Then again, the Radius' website is all sunshine and roses too. Nothing says that information found online has to be accurate.

[UrbanRail]

I like it. The Songhees area needs more life.