725 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

Of course winter is an entirely different story, but our winters are still sunny relative to the rest of the west coast. As someone who lived in Port Alberni for 21 years, our winters here are far sunnier and drier than what I'm used to.

Absolutely!

People think this is the wettest climate on the coast, then they move further up-Island and it’s a whole ‘nother level of wet. We benefit from the Olympic Mountain Range rain shadow.

[Jackerbie]

No idea about the details, but one of the agenda items on the March 9 CoV Heritage Advisory Panel is "Victoria UNESCO Nomination"

[Mike K.]

Looks like there was a UNESCO status bid for the Salish Sea in 2017 that was backed by the CoV: https://www.timescol...-sea-1.16307895

[Mike K.]

Councillor Isitt says the Big One will eventually hit, so we shouldn't remediate heritage buildings in the way we're remediating them now.

 

https://pub-victoria...b1-0154d6123d67

 

The councillort's comments start at about 8:30 in the video above.

[Nparker]

Every time he opens his mouth, something stupid comes out.

[todd]

Not wearing a mask eh

[todd]

San Francisco City Hall after earthquake

[Victoria Watcher]

Jim Lee has spent the last 47 years restoring his Victorian-style house in Vic West. The one-and-a-half storey home on ­Robert Street is a national historic site and shares the block with houses similarly built in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

 

With new owners moving into the neighbourhood during the last few years, Lee became concerned about potential development changing the character of the street and set his sights on turning a section of the block into a heritage conservation area to guide future changes.

 

“It’s keeping a neighbourly feel to the street, with houses that are in scale with each other,” he said.

 

Lee nominated a section of Robert Street for designation by the city as a heritage conservation area, which would make external changes to existing houses and new builds subject to certain criteria. Victoria councillors voted last month to hold a public hearing on the proposal.

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...on-area-4841726

[nutsinmay]

Just slogged through forty-odd pages of the defunct restaurants thread, and I really just don't have it in me to soldier (from the very beginning) all the way through this one.

Total moderne freak, and this austere beauty on Bay near Cook is right up my wheelhouse. Hope it sticks around for another 80-odd years. Recently painted, which was too bad, considering this uptight purist perferred that it would have been re-painted in the original white, which is the moderne thing. Not a bad choice for colour, nonetheless. Was always intrigued by the crazy window-to-wall ratio, especially around those big, rounded corners. I'll bet the rooms are large - I could be completely wrong, though.

 

 

[Victoria Watcher]

A large Oak Bay home is cleared to move after council waived any concern over potential heritage hallmarks.

The house at 3150 Tarn Pl., built in 1935, is identified in the 1994 book Oak Bay’s Heritage Buildings: More than just Bricks and Boards, by Stuart Stark. The book was partially funded by the district as a study of roughly 260 homes noted to have historic significance, with an emphasis on the earliest landmark buildings.

 

The Tarn Place property sold in September 2020 for $7.874 million and its assessed value for 2021 is $6.823 million.

 

 

https://www.vicnews....out-of-oak-bay/

 

 

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 December 2021 - 06:09 AM.

[todd]

Only 1935? Not over 100 years

[Victoria Watcher]

Jim Lee’s Vic West house has survived death more than once.

 

Built in 1903, the one-and-a-half storey house on a deep lot half a block from the Songhees Walkway has survived fire damage and was nearly set for demolition before Lee bought it in 1976.

 

“People thought I was crazy [for] buying something in Vic West, because it was considered ‘the other side of the bridge,’” says Lee, a Prince George-raised accountant.

 

“When I first moved in, there was a leak in the roof. It was essentially a rooming house. The owner was a development company in Vancouver, and their plan was to tear the house down.”

 

 

https://www.capitald...age-designation

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 December 2021 - 12:16 PM.

[Mike K.]

Listen up, young people who think everything was just handed over to the generations who came before you.

The proverbial dump was once where people bought homes, just to afford to buy something. Over time neighbourhoods change, and perceptions change.

In the 60s and 70s James Bay was a “dump.” In the 80s and 90s Vic West was a “dump.” In the 90s and 00s Fernwood was a “dump.”

In the 40s and 50s and 60s most of Oak Bay was just middle class, home to average workers earning average salaries.

Rockland was a cheap place to buy, relatively speaking, because the monied were going to places like Oak Bay’s Uplands, Broadmead in Saanich and coastal Gordon Head. Rockland was full of rooming houses and dilapidated mansions that were too massive for single families and required huge upkeep, so lots of purchases there were made on the cheap.

And none of this was that long ago.

But still, the real-estate was more expensive than it was in Edmonton and Calgary so people thought homebuyers in Victoria’s average neighbourhoods were off their rocker for spending the money.

Today the city has a mayor who believes the neighbourhoods where few wanted to live for much of the 20th century and a good portion of the city’s existence as a city were in fact constructs of racism to keep minorities out, because she’s a historian and wants to view history through a lense from a faraway place in another country that happens to share a coastline with Canada's west. And of course she’d think that, because when she arrived the city centre was in transition and people were working hard to make urban neighbourhoods desirable once more, but that had -nothing- to do with racism and more to do with a can-do desire to turn under-appreciated neighbourhoods into highly desirable places. Now that that has succeeded, the residents of these neighbourhoods are being told they’re not racist, but if they’re really not racists, they won’t mind doing away with SFD zoning, will they?

[On the Level]

Today the city has a mayor who believes the neighbourhoods where few wanted to live for much of the 20th century and a good portion of the city’s existence as a city were in fact constructs of racism to keep minorities out

 

There are some good examples of racist actions associated with zoning, such as the creation of Stanley Park or Central Park in New York where minorities did have their homes stripped away, but somehow using this to announce that all family homes are racist and therefore there should be no new ones created is quite frankly silly. 

 

Making up **** to fit a political narrative, declaring vast segments of the population racists, tearing down anything linked to white skin is more likely to prove you are the village idiot rather than a historian.  

[Nparker]

...Making up **** to fit a political narrative, declaring vast segments of the population racists, tearing down anything linked to white skin is more likely to prove you are the village idiot rather than a historian.  

And yet a sizeable number of Victorians would still probably vote for Ms Helps if she ran for public office again. A lot of people just aren't all that bright.

[Moderation]

Listen up, young people who think everything was just handed over to the generations who came before you.

The proverbial dump was once where people bought homes, just to afford to buy something. Over time neighbourhoods change, and perceptions change.

In the 60s and 70s James Bay was a “dump.” In the 80s and 90s Vic West was a “dump.” In the 90s and 00s Fernwood was a “dump.”

In the 40s and 50s and 60s most of Oak Bay was just middle class, home to average workers earning average salaries.

Rockland was a cheap place to buy, relatively speaking, because the monied were going to places like Oak Bay’s Uplands, Broadmead in Saanich and coastal Gordon Head. Rockland was full of rooming houses and dilapidated mansions that were too massive for single families and required huge upkeep, so lots of purchases there were made on the cheap.

And none of this was that long ago.

But still, the real-estate was more expensive than it was in Edmonton and Calgary so people thought homebuyers in Victoria’s average neighbourhoods were off their rocker for spending the money.

 

A good overview. I agree they mayor has made some leaps too far in equating the US history to the Canada context obviously to her detriment. However. Canada and many other countries have historical issues related to housing that are being discussed..

 

Here is a 2002 report as an example. You can agree or disagree with the view but that alone does not make it valid or invalid.

 

http://citiescentre....ulletins/11.pdf

[Mike K.]

What about that report backs the assertion that SFD housing in Victoria (not Berkley, not New York, not somewhere else in Canada, but in Victoria) is a racist construct?

[Moderation]

I believe with respect to possible easing rezoning of SFD my main focus was on the need to provide more housing for the so called missing middle population.

 

The reference was to provide information on the wide range of housing discrimination situations that are applicable to the Canadian context rather than US focused.. Victoria is not unique and the most if not all of the general comments on housing discrimination would apply to all cities in Canada.

 

Since you brought up the issue of racism and SFH I  found this example. 

 

In 2014, the National Post unearthed a collection of documents that illustrate how land titles were used to exclude minorities from specific properties and areas of the city.

“No Asiatic, Negro or Indian shall have the right or be allowed to own, become tenant of or occupy any part of [the property],” reads the title for a piece of residential land in South Vancouver.

A property title for a parcel of land in Victoria that’s dated 1952 similarly forbids transfer of the property to “anyone other than members of the Caucasian race”.

Such covenants are still included in property titles today, though an amendment to the B.C. Land Title Act renders them void. As they make clear, other visible minorities have been discriminated against alongside Chinese Canadians.

 

SFH was not created with a racist focus however there were elements of racism or discrimination in some aspects of SFD. development (Large lot size minimums.)

 

I made it clear that in my opinion the mayors article was a step too far especially with the focus on US data.

.

[Mike K.]

That still doesn’t address the issue at hand.

[On the Level]

SFH was not created with a racist focus however there were elements of racism or discrimination in some aspects of SFD. development (Large lot size minimums.)

 

I made it clear that in my opinion the mayors article was a step too far especially with the focus on US data.

.

 

We are close in agreement.  Was zoning used to segregate races?  Yes, there are examples.  Was the purpose of zoning and more particular the construct of a single family home to enforce racism?  No.  Zoning is used to create a livable community.  It was abused with ill intent by a few individuals from previous generations that are now most likely deceased from old age.

 

Many years ago I built a single family home on acreage.  Did I do so because of racism?  No.  I did it because I wanted the space and I was out in the boonies so I had to build a septic field.

 

I agree that even for her supporters, Lisa jumped the shark on this one.