1035 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

It's interesting how he said he doesn't make any money on floors up to 6 or 7.

 

That seems a bit of an odd way to frame it.

 

I'm sure the per square foot price of the lowest floors will still be relatively high.

 

Non-view unit at 50 Songhees, 2nd floor.  35-year-old building.

 

https://www.realtor....ctoria-songhees

 

$772 per sq. ft.

 

604 sq. ft at Saghalie, townhouse ground floor, over $1000 per sf.

 

https://www.realtor....ctoria-songhees

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 28 January 2024 - 07:20 AM.

[Mike K.]

What he means is if you’re building concrete, underground parking and to the quality expected, you won’t be turning much of a profit until you push above a specific height/density. But it’s likely you will if everything goes perfect, but it often doesn’t.

Lexi in Esquimalt says its nine-storey concrete tower just doesn’t add up any more. They need more units, they say.

[Victoria Watcher]

Will Lexi be required to expose their books, and prove same?

[Victoria Watcher]

I won’t be surprised if this all turns out nothing like envisioned. We shall see.

[Mike K.]

In Lexi’s case, you have to design a building that can handle 11-12 floors, even when you’re building nine, it’s just how the code works. So it makes sense to build 11-12 and why we see so few concrete towers of nine residential floors. It just doesn’t make much economic sense.

True, Roundhouse is unlikely to end up as envisioned. Harris Green is also just a massing vision. We don’t know the final designs nor the final heights, just what confines they have to work with.

Recall how Hudson District was planned, and how it turned out. Very different. Same density (more or less), but very different design and tower placement.

[Nparker]

...Recall how Hudson District was planned, and how it turned out. Very different. Same density (more or less), but very different design and tower placement.

That doesn't give me much confidence in either the Roundhouse or Harris Green projects.

[Victoria Watcher]

I don’t know. Both Lexi and their construction lender have made a grave mistake.

Unless the plan all along was to start building then ask for more floors.

[Mike K.]

That doesn't give me much confidence in either the Roundhouse or Harris Green projects.

It’s how all masterplanned long-term projects go. The timelines are so long that if you were forced to stick to exactly what you sketched out it may no longer be viable. Building code changes alone can make a formerly approved project a no-go as envisioned 10 years earlier.

[aastra]

 

“What do they care if the turntable or car shop or roundhouse are restored, they're there to make money off the condo?” And then asked the developer directly “Who is really taking responsibility for especially the heritage assets?"

 

As I've noted so many times before, in Victoria the only thing worse than an evil developer who destroys heritage is an evil developer who preserves and restores heritage.

 

Put it another way: "Yes, you're going to save the old buildings that we care so, so much about, but how can we really be sure you care as much as we do or that you care in the proper and enlightened manner?"

 

You would think the drama re: the HBC building would have put this stuff to rest forever, but nope. Lest we forget, the noble CoV seemed content to let the department store building languish indefinitely. An evil developer eventually performed a beautiful and very expensive renovation. Doing a restoration & renovation project on major building is not a trivial thing.

 

 

But what if Bayview is an Emerald City and Mariash, is a very convincing wizard? What then, Dorothy?

 

What if the CoV was the wicked witch all along but you were too blind to realize it?

[aastra]

 

^ It's quite clever how the tall buildings just sort of fade out at the higher levels.

 

I gotta say, I really like that "Esquimalt Activation/Esquimalt Road Looking East" image. It reminds me of the new Esquimalt centre project but suitably more dense. The way those podiums would create a pedestrian-only area leading from the streetcorner right through to the roundhouse looks very pleasant to me. I could see myself walking around there all the time.

[aastra]

We've been through all of this stuff before, so many times. Have we forgotten the noble city councilors who used to claim any & every highrise building was making a guaranteed $1 million profit per floor for every floor above X?

But then for several years we dropped that angle altogether, because the "housing crisis" politics were becoming so extreme we had no choice but to tentatively acknowledge the possibility that maybe it did in fact cost money to build stuff. Even a surefire slam-dunk award-winning project like "Dockside Green" slowed to nothing and then went to sleep.

So now it's the year 2024 and we're discussing a project that couldn't possibly be finished before the mid-2030s at the very earliest. Are we seriously thinking it might somehow become more inexpensive to build major projects and renovate major heritage buildings as the years continue to tick away?

The longer we stall and delay a big project, the bigger the project will necessarily become.

 

Come on, this redevelopment is the kind of thing a healthy/sane city would normally be bending over backward to get rolling. It's a large but (currently) null property in a very central location, and there's a significant heritage restoration component, and the potential to create a large number of new homes is tremendous.

If height and density and the heritage reno are such sticky issues then pin these aspects down with some hard numbers and craft something that will oblige them to start building or sell.

[Nparker]

 

...What if the CoV was the wicked witch all along but you were too blind to realize it...

Let's pour some water on the CoV administrators and see if they melt.

[aastra]

 

Mariash was hotly criticized... for holding several cocktail parties to drum up support for the project.

 

Can you imagine it? Spending money to put on a party so you can promote your initiative? It's unprecedented! It's outrageous! It's unthinkable!

 

--

 

 

Global News
September 19, 2015

Hundreds of Victoria’s homeless get paid $20 to attend meeting

The latest footnote in the ongoing story of Victoria’s homeless population – and how the city is grappling with it – came at Crystal Garden on September 16.

Hundreds of homeless people gathered there to attend an open meeting on temporary housing options.

Approximately 365 people attended, and each were paid $20. All told, it cost the city about $7,300.

Mayor Lisa Helps said... the money was well worth it.

“The city often hires consultants, to the tune of $100, $150 an hour. This is no different. These were consultants, with lived experience, and they had already done their field research by the time they got to the meeting,” she said.

Helps says the only thing she would do differently next time is have people sign up in advance, so they would know how many people were coming – and how much they would have to pay out. City staff had to go to banks multiple times in order to have enough cash on hand.

But otherwise, she has no regrets.

“The quality of input, and the kinds of ideas we got, simply would not have happened if we didn’t have so many people who were marginally housed show up. …all in all, I think it was a very good, and very modest expenditure.

But not everyone agrees.

“The number of people to whom we’ve paid the honorarium was far beyond the number required to get opinions,” said councillor Geoff Young.

Don Evans is executive director of Our Place, which runs drop-in centre downtown. He says it was his suggestion to offer a $20 honorarium.

“If there wouldn’t have been anything to attract people to go, then you may have got some of the regular people that are advocates – people that advocate hard for the homeless – but you wouldn’t have gotten the people that are actually living the experience every day and having to live with all the challenges,” he says.

Edited by aastra, 28 January 2024 - 02:44 PM.

[aastra]

 

...the money was well worth it.

 

I suppose the major difference is in the results. The CoV's homelessness strategy has been bearing truckloads of good fruit since 2015. The roundhouse development, not so much.

[Nparker]

Would local homelessness have been eradicated by now if those with "lived experience" had been paid $50 to attend Lisa's session?

[AllseeingEye]

More whining and *****ing about the Roundhouse approval:

 

https://www.timescol...-bridge-8208947

 

Yes folks because the steaming pile of post-industrial crap-doo that's been just sitting there crumbling away for the last five or six decades looks SOOOOOOO much better; the roundhouse itself will be dwarfed by the new development? Aside from locals no one even knows its there; those old rail buildings are practically falling to pieces. Is there any city anywhere where such a vocal minority not only opposes change but FEARS it above all else? Ah yes.....if only we could turn back time and it were 1969 things would be so much better. Good lord.....