145 replies to this topic

[AnonAnnie2]

This is what I was trying to say earlier. They shouldn't just plunk this new building on the existing parking lot. They should also try to transform that corner of the parking lot into something resembling a traditional streetscape (as much as possible).

Key for many homes that are along Burnside in the affected area.

Important to the little complex that runs along Burnside, Tillicum and below the highway... .....5 beautiful acres and more trees than many parks I've seen in Victoria.

[G-Man]

What five acres of trees are they worried about?

This is next to a massive park too.

http://maps.google.c...004764&t=h&z=18

[Bernard]

This is my neighbourhood and I generally like the idea, thoughI wish the buildings had more units. It is a very good use of what is a underused areas. I also wish that there was a significant office commercial component on the the site somewhere.

The sort of amenities I would like to see:

1) Money spent on Cuthbert Holmes to remove the invasive spieces, specifically ivy and balckberries. The mature trees are being killed by the ivy and acres of what should be a Garry Oak meadow is covered in blackberries.

2) Build a decent kids playground at Cuthert Holmes

3) Build a wide and large pedestrian overpass over Burnside, wide enough to make is a bike route and a pedestrian route. This would unify the two commercial areas along Burnside and promote more walking.

4) Have Rio Can host a farmer's market on site on a regular basis.

5) Address the issue of ingress and egress from the Tillicum site from Burnside, this formerly minor secondary entrance is now an emerging traffic problem as the site has been developed.

6) Parking on the 'back lot' of Tillicum is already becoming a problem at many times, given all the traffic coming into the site, I am concerned that parking will be hard to come by and a lot of people will be circling the lot for a spot and stopping the other traffic trying to flow through.

[Bernard]

Anyway, Tillicum will never be an urban village but it can definitely be a lot better than it is now.

I would disagree with it not being an urban village, it is closer to that sort of status than many other areas in Greater Victoria.

People speak of Cook St village as being a wonderful urban village, but it has a lot less on offer for what people need than Tillicum does. There is library, no rec centre, no movies, no shopping for majority of the things you need for your life, and generally very little for people other than urban professionals without kids.

At Tillicum, the Library and Rec Centre bring people to the area to be there for non shopping needs. It also means if your kid is in some program at the rec centre you can walk a short distance and do your shopping.

The Starbucks is located outside of the mall and is the place many people the community go to hang out. We go there because there are no funky Mocha House coffee shops - I would love something else, but in absence of it being there, Starbucks works.

The site is close enough to where a lot of us live that we do walk there and we see out neighbours there. The Tillicum Gorge area has a surprisingly strong walking culture.

Silvercity gives us the movies at hand and a place for out teenage youth to be. Tillicum is close to a large Middle School and large High School.

The location is a significant transit hub. I live in this neighbourhood and the transit from here to elsewhere in the city is remarkably good.

The park is very underused for what it could be, but it connected to a Colquitz River trail and has much higher natural values than most urban parks do.

Because it is not focused on a street but around a parking lot, there is no fast traffic. Walking around there you do not worry about being run over.

The mall itself is not like Hillside or Mayfair, the emphasis is not on chain stores selling the same generic clothes. The inside may feel quiet and underused, but it also offers us professionals like the dentist and doctor.

Everything you need for your life is available at Tillicum, it may not be pretty, but it works as a hub of the community.

[G-Man]

^ Good points. It just needs to look nicer and be less car focused.

[AnonAnnie2]

What five acres of trees are they worried about?

This is next to a massive park too.

http://maps.google.c...004764&t=h&z=18

Parkside Place - sits on 5 acres between Burnside, Tillicum and Trans Can highway.
Surrounded by major roads, two busy gas stations on two corners of the community and the mall across the street on the Burnside side. On really busy days it feels like we are about to be overrun!
The saving grace of Parkside is the mature trees - landscaping - provides light and air pollution filters and a sense of ‘peace’.
A little pocket of paradise that few people are aware of. (Many are aware of the location of the Chevron gas station - Parkside is directly below, yes, the gas spill from Chevron last year directly affected the property)
There has been no major concern expressed by the 120 Parkside Place owners (300 residents) about this potential new development. Some ideas to share with the developers around traffic/noise/light pollution etc. and how those concerns can be addressed by some unique applications that don't require major design changes or money for that matter. Some suggestions on how Parkside and the new development can work together - the comment a poster here made about the pedestrian overpass including enough room for bikes was certainly one that had come up and I hope to explore with the developer. I do see a fair bit of concession asked for by the local Community association and the municipality, which is great.

I hope to very soon start working on the Municipality and the highways dept. about the roads surrounding Parkside - any ideas on that would be appreciated! We have had the door slammed in our faces by highways once...but not giving up! (we asked for one of those noise breaks - our community was built in the 60's...far less traffic in those days as compared to today! On the Tillicum side - corner at the highway and access into the complex shy of deadly.

It feels like Parkside has been the 'distant relation' in regards to much of what has been going on around it... the hope is this will change. Parkside will become much more vocal.

[G-Man]

Ohh! I thought there was a concern about losing this land to this development.

Well I guess I have two thoughts: First more residential in the area will only add allies to any fight to make the area more desirable. The key is however not that the area is "busier" but that there are more cars. Anything that can be done to make the area "less busy" or remove cars would be better.

It may be an idea to start a seperate thread about your community and some of the issues that have been going on and what the hopes are for the future.

I truly think the key is transit. It would be great to see a Douglas Street LRT that had its terminus station at Tillicum. Not sure where though.

[Bernard]

Parkside is a problematic place for a number of reasons:

1) The location was badly though out given the traffic issues - admittedly there was a lot less traffic when it was built, but it in a triangle wedge between Hwy #1, Tillicum and Burnside with the rest of the wedge taken up by cheap strip mall stuff.

2) Parkside has been the cheapest housing units available for purchase in the region for a number of years now, many owners barely managed to buy in there and are really stretched to afford it. This leads to the next problem....

3) The strata council has trouble collecting the fees needed to maintain the place, there is a lot of work that needs to be done but is not being done because special assessments are hard to collect.

I believe it is in the interests of the whole Tillicum Gorge neighbourhood to see a much better integration of Parkside into the whole neighbourhood. At the moment Parkside is isolated and is also fenced in, it is disconnected from everything around them.

If people start to default on mortgages in Parkside and units are vacated, there is a danger that the whole area could become a slum.

A strong pedestrian connection to Tillicum mall and to Cuthbert Holmes park would be a starting point. Right now the entrance to Parkside is off of Tillicum and the site is defacto cut off from the Burnside side of things.

Another direction would be for Parkside and Saanich to partner on opening the pool on the site for the summer months. Saanich would look after and run the pool, the residents of the Tillicum Gorge neighbourhood would have a pool to use, Parkside would have some money put into maintaining an asset that sits unused at the moment. Parkside would have to agree to part of the site being available for general public access for part of the year.

Another direction to go would be for Saanich to buy up the strip malls in the wedge and build a year round pool there - there is no pool in these parts. The site would allow for more housing to build there. With local government control, it becomes easier to build the linkage from the playing fields at Hampton through to Tillicum mall and Cuthbert Holmes park.

Really radical - have some developer come in and offer to buy all the owners at Parkside or offer them units in a new development and completely redo the whole triangle wedge. The whole set of land is underused and very badly laid out.

[aastra]

I would disagree with it not being an urban village, it is closer to that sort of status than many other areas in Greater Victoria.

I guess it depends on what our definition is. Does a shopping mall or a big box centre automatically become a village just because some people happen to live close enough to walk to it?

The nearest neighbours may patronize Silver City but that doesn't make Silver City a neighbourhood establishment. Silver City draws the vast majority of its patrons from far and wide (hence the parkade). Same thing for the Safeway and the London Drugs. None of those large businesses would be operating there if not for Tillicum's parking lots.

I find Tillicum to be a really impersonal complex but maybe that's just me. If other people like to linger there then I suppose that's a good thing, but wouldn't those people still like to linger there (or like it more) if the format was humanized a bit?

[Bernard]

I guess it depends on what our definition is. Does a shopping mall or a big box centre automatically become a village just because some people happen to live close enough to walk to it?

The nearest neighbours may patronize Silver City but that doesn't make Silver City a neighbourhood establishment. Silver City draws the vast majority of its patrons from far and wide (hence the parkade). Same thing for the Safeway and the London Drugs. None of those large businesses would be operating there if not for Tillicum's parking lots.

I find Tillicum to be a really impersonal complex but maybe that's just me. If other people like to linger there then I suppose that's a good thing, but wouldn't those people still like to linger there (or like it more) if the format was humanized a bit?

Shopping malls do not automatically become a village because people go there, but at the same time, just because it is a mall does not preclude it being the centre of a community. Tillcum is the only shopping mall I know of in this region that has become the focus of a community.

I never said Tillicum was a wonderful and beautiful place, but it has more the aspects of an urban village than almost any other location in the core of Victoria. The heart of the Tillicum Gorge community is at the back side of the mall.

Yes, the design is impersonal, but it works as a gathering place for people living here. If you compare it to Mayfair, Tillicum has a much more vibrant connection to the community and the people that live around it. Mayfair is not walkable and has no physical connections to anything near it.

Ultimately my point is that Tillicum is succeeding in being connected to the community in a way that very few other shopping centres or malls are. If Saanich and Rio Can were to work together, the crappy aspects of Tillicum could be modified to improve things. Working with what is already working is much easier than trying to create something out of thin air. As an example, the Tuscany Village development, it has not worked to build anything more community like in that neighbourhood.

A residential development on the site will only improve it as a centre of the community. I would also like to see the construction of some office towers on site as well.

[AnonAnnie2]

Parkside is a problematic place for a number of reasons:

1) The location was badly though out given the traffic issues - admittedly there was a lot less traffic when it was built, but it in a triangle wedge between Hwy #1, Tillicum and Burnside with the rest of the wedge taken up by cheap strip mall stuff.

2) Parkside has been the cheapest housing units available for purchase in the region for a number of years now, many owners barely managed to buy in there and are really stretched to afford it. This leads to the next problem....

3) The strata council has trouble collecting the fees needed to maintain the place, there is a lot of work that needs to be done but is not being done because special assessments are hard to collect.

I believe it is in the interests of the whole Tillicum Gorge neighbourhood to see a much better integration of Parkside into the whole neighbourhood. At the moment Parkside is isolated and is also fenced in, it is disconnected from everything around them.

If people start to default on mortgages in Parkside and units are vacated, there is a danger that the whole area could become a slum.

A strong pedestrian connection to Tillicum mall and to Cuthbert Holmes park would be a starting point. Right now the entrance to Parkside is off of Tillicum and the site is defacto cut off from the Burnside side of things.

Another direction would be for Parkside and Saanich to partner on opening the pool on the site for the summer months. Saanich would look after and run the pool, the residents of the Tillicum Gorge neighbourhood would have a pool to use, Parkside would have some money put into maintaining an asset that sits unused at the moment. Parkside would have to agree to part of the site being available for general public access for part of the year.

Another direction to go would be for Saanich to buy up the strip malls in the wedge and build a year round pool there - there is no pool in these parts. The site would allow for more housing to build there. With local government control, it becomes easier to build the linkage from the playing fields at Hampton through to Tillicum mall and Cuthbert Holmes park.

Really radical - have some developer come in and offer to buy all the owners at Parkside or offer them units in a new development and completely redo the whole triangle wedge. The whole set of land is underused and very badly laid out.

Was built in the 60's as low income housing - by gov't. turned to a strata in 70's.
Blame layout etc. on gov't.
The only housing in the current market that is actually increasing....but yes, still the cheapest available - size etc., in Victoria. A 3 bedroom over 1,000 square feet for 300 or less. Nice. Anything that has gone on the market for sale in the past year has sold under 20 days and increased over previous sales. Owners forced to sell? sure are some and will be some..but they are getting snapped up by young first-time smart buyers or semi-retired/retired.
Current 'new' council is made up of no less than 6 University educated Owners, I am one of them and I happen to be the oldest..and I don't consider myself 'old'...although others might!
All any Strata Council has to do is enforce bylaws, all any Strata Management company has to do is help Strata Council enforce bylaws.
Pretty simple..follow a regular pattern of proceedure to collect - force sale if need be and everyone will fall into line in short order or...move on.
Take what you like from the above comments. Strata fees are not 'hard' to collect.
Partnering...working on that, funny you should mention it and not necessarily with a 'public' body.
Pedestrian connection - working on that as well.
Developer opportunities - you never know and all offers considered!
lol

FYI - just completed a total paint job, about to begin a cedar shake conversion all roofs and naturally have spoken with the Developer of the proposed development at Tillicum...the interests of Parkside will be taken care of including the Burnside side of things.

Municipality, Highways...they are going to hear from Parkside soon - the roadways, access (lack of) etc. very very soon.

Thanks for the comments, very helpful.

[Bernard]

Current 'new' council is made up of no less than 6 University educated Owners, I am one of them and I happen to be the oldest..and I don't consider myself 'old'...although others might!
All any Strata Council has to do is enforce bylaws, all any Strata Management company has to do is help Strata Council enforce bylaws.
Pretty simple..follow a regular pattern of proceedure to collect - force sale if need be and everyone will fall into line in short order or...move on.
Take what you like from the above comments. Strata fees are not 'hard' to collect.

I had some dealings with new owners at Parkside a couple of years ago when the members of the strata were not agreeing to make special assessments and not getting the money out of the people that owed.

If there is a good strata council in there that is enforcing the bylaws and there is enough money coming for all the deferred maintenance, great. Fi not, it could be a very problematic location.

[VicHockeyFan]

Was built in the 60's as low income housing - by gov't. turned to a strata in 70's.
Blame layout etc. on gov't.
The only housing in the current market that is actually increasing....but yes, still the cheapest available - size etc., in Victoria. A 3 bedroom over 1,000 square feet for 300 or less. Nice. Anything that has gone on the market for sale in the past year has sold under 20 days and increased over previous sales. Owners forced to sell? sure are some and will be some..but they are getting snapped up by young first-time smart buyers or semi-retired/retired.
Current 'new' council is made up of no less than 6 University educated Owners, I am one of them and I happen to be the oldest..and I don't consider myself 'old'...although others might!
All any Strata Council has to do is enforce bylaws, all any Strata Management company has to do is help Strata Council enforce bylaws.
Pretty simple..follow a regular pattern of proceedure to collect - force sale if need be and everyone will fall into line in short order or...move on.
Take what you like from the above comments. Strata fees are not 'hard' to collect.
Partnering...working on that, funny you should mention it and not necessarily with a 'public' body.
Pedestrian connection - working on that as well.
Developer opportunities - you never know and all offers considered!
lol

FYI - just completed a total paint job, about to begin a cedar shake conversion all roofs and naturally have spoken with the Developer of the proposed development at Tillicum...the interests of Parkside will be taken care of including the Burnside side of things.

Municipality, Highways...they are going to hear from Parkside soon - the roadways, access (lack of) etc. very very soon.

Thanks for the comments, very helpful.

I know the project well, and I really think there is a lot of upside there if they can get it together.

[AnonAnnie2]

This development has passed. Each and every single Council person voted for it.
Onward we go!
Now...Tillicum Road and that Highway...we need some help there...a sound barrier on the highway (which we were already verbally told no way) and Tillicum
turn-off into the only two entry/exits to our community...it is deadly turning that simple.
We have to get someone in HIghways and the municipality to help on this.

[martini]

100-MILLION-DOLLAR HIGH-RISE APPROVED FOR TILLICUM

May 27, 2009

A COMMITTEE OF SAANICH COUNCIL HAS VOTED UNANIMOUSLY TO ALLOW A 100 MILLION DOLLAR HIGH RISE HOUSING PROJECT ADJACENT TO TILLICUM SHOPPING CENTRE.

THE COMMITTEE LISTENED TO OBJECTIONS FROM NEIGHBORS FOR WELL OVER AN HOUR, ABOUT INCREASED TRAFFIC, AND THE SHEER HEIGHT OF THE BUILDINGS...NINE AND THIRTEEN STORIES.

BUT TILLICUM HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED AS AN URBAN CENTRE WITHIN SAANICH, AND IN THE END, COUNCILORS WERE WILLING TO RELAX THE COMMUNITY PLAN LIMIT OF AN EIGHT STOREY MAXIMUM.

THE MALL OWNERS, RIO-CAN, ARE PLANNING A 296-SUITE COMPLEX WITH ALMOST A MILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF COMMUNITY INCENTIVES IN EXCHANGE FOR PARKING AND HEIGHT RELAXATIONS.

AMONG THE COMPANY'S COMMITMENTS IS A PLEDGE TO CONTINUE WORKING WITH THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND THE MUNICIPALITY ON PLANNING FUTURE DEVELOPMENT IN THE GORGE-TILLICUM AREA.

- FMS

[Nparker]

THE COMMITTEE LISTENED TO OBJECTIONS FROM NEIGHBORS FOR WELL OVER AN HOUR, ABOUT INCREASED TRAFFIC, AND THE SHEER HEIGHT OF THE BUILDINGS...NINE AND THIRTEEN STORIES.

Statements such as these just make me shake my head at the unbelievable backwards attitude many locals have in regards to building height. Taller buildings than these were being erected in Chicago before the turn of the last century, yet in Victoria such "skyscrapers" are still perceived as some sort of threat to life as we know it. Did any of the neighbours show concern for the design of said "towers", especially in regards to their street level interraction? My guess would be no. Building height is an obsession through out our region and for the life of me I cannot understand why.

[Bernard]

I should have gone to the council meeting to talk in favour of the development, though I would have complained they were not tall enough and that Rio Can's vision was still too small for the whole site

[AnonAnnie2]

There were maybe four of us that stood up and stated our favor, your voice would have been welcomed.
Next time. :D

The person that I was sitting beside, a young lady, she contacted me today to say she regretted not getting up and voicing her favor as well and was glad that it moved forward.

It can be very intimidating with a large group of people rising one after another for an hour articulating their displeasure.

The group gave a rousing round of applause after each speaker.

When I was finished (I took all of 30 seconds because I wanted my comments to echo..which they did) I went to sit down and not one person clapped.

I spoke up to the group and said "what no applause for me"?

It was unfortunate, however the folks that had the vote to make did an excellent job of spelling it out for everyone.
The developer and his support group were fantastic.

I believe we are very fortunate to live 400 yards away and I hope even more exciting things will come of this in the near future.


What was very sad for me to hear several times - 'sad state of adjacent buildings' or 'tired old adjancent buildings', or 'nothing impacted on Burnside Side' etc. Our little community was invisible sans the tired old bones that the property buildings are showing and was pointed out. Thats ok...everyone will know we are 'hear' in a very big way in the very near future. Stay tuned.

[VicHockeyFan]

Statements such as these just make me shake my head at the unbelievable backwards attitude many locals have in regards to building height. Taller buildings than these were being erected in Chicago before the turn of the last century, yet in Victoria such "skyscrapers" are still perceived as some sort of threat to life as we know it. Did any of the neighbours show concern for the design of said "towers", especially in regards to their street level interraction? My guess would be no. Building height is an obsession through out our region and for the life of me I cannot understand why.

I forgive most people for using the height/density/traffic thing. What else can they use if they just want everything to stay the same? They can't say "we don't want this because we want evertying to just stay the same, you know, what we are used to".

So invariably, they will use "we are not opposed to this project/development in general, we just think it's not appropriate for this location/area". But even that is now becoming politically incorrect, because people know about "nimbyism" more so now than ever. So, what can they use? Height, density, traffic. Especially something about an elementary school nearby, that's great for the traffic one.

[aastra]

we need some help there...a sound barrier on the highway (which we were already verbally told no way)

Did they say why not?