153 replies to this topic

[Caramia]

The Downtown Plan should imho divide up the city into small (a few blocks maybe) districts, each with it's own desired character, identified center, height target, and design guidelines. Although, nothing should be set in stone, and quality should always trump any other details.

I would vehemently oppose height in character districts where it would dwarf heritage buildings. I actually like the scale of Chinatown, lower Johnson Street, etc. But I would also oppose shortness in areas... I think we NEED high rise areas where there should be height restrictions in that you aren't allowed to build below a certain height. You should be able to wander through downtown teased and tempted to go a few blocks further by appealing skylines. You should be able to turn a corner and be surprised and delighted by an oasis of distinct character. You should be able to walk through downtown and have a varied sensory experience every few blocks, or find your favorite district and become one of its people, with visible boundaries, small enough that you can know everyone, and feel at home in your haunt. And it should be easy to find housing within a few blocks of your urban "home."

If the Downtown plan met my ideal dreams, it would expand downtown's boundaries to include some of the shoulder areas like Humbolt valley, and Harris Green so that we can plan in a cohesive way for what is unarguably a functional whole, and then it would identify our goals for each few blocks, based around natural centers or landmarks. And then take what is there, and enhance it. Victoria has great "bones" it just needs to find a way to encourage development that complements those bones while adding residential population, and vitality to the core.

[gumgum]

Exellent points. ^ I agree.

[G-Man]

I think that some of these ideas are being considered by the City. Personally I like the idea of a more organic city with some barriers. I think that the character and scale of old town should be maintained. but out side that area we should allow a more organic growth of the city. I am not sure that you can make an area turn into a neighbourhood it has to be seen that way by those that live and work there.

Still interesting ideas. I hope you put them forward at the Downtown workshop.

[jaylow]

and why only quote councillor madoff, how many city councillors are there? and why not ask anyone from the planning department, if the director is not available?

[G-Man]

I agree that Madoff's diatribes are becoming tiresome. We know what she thinks but that does not make it true or even widely accepted.

Also I am, a little tired of her obsession with planning the city 100 hundred years into the future. That is not what made Victoria great 100 years ago and it will not work now.

She is right we don't know what the city will look like in five years, that is what's exciting about it. I do know what she would like to see though. Nothing different!

[aastra]

We know what she thinks...

But we still have no idea why she thinks it. "Height is terrible." "We need to obsess about height."

WHY????

[G-Man]

I honestly think that she is still dealing with the last "boom" in the 60s - 70s which brought in a large amount ugly buildings that many people continue to complain about. Her reaction is that the problem with these buildings was the height. Of course we all know that the real issue with these buildings was not height but design.

[gumgum]

It's politics man. She's pandering to the voters out there that are afraid of the highrises of the 60s and 70s. And there are enough of them out there that will keep her career buoyant - at least she thinks that there are.
Can't blame a politicial for thinking like a politician. I guess.

[Galvanized]

I honestly think that she is still dealing with the last "boom" in the 60s - 70s which brought in a large amount ugly buildings that many people continue to complain about. Her reaction is that the problem with these buildings was the height. Of course we all know that the real issue with these buildings was not height but design.

You've hit the nail on the head. Also, keep in mind that when these highrises were constructed quite a few heritage structures were lost with no regard to their value and that's also where people like Pam got riled up.

At least now the new developments are not taking over heritage structures but empty parking lots instead and with better design so the same old argument is now lost.

As for poor/piecemeal planning I disagree. The Humboldt valley is turning into a nice residental district along with Harris Green. Now we are seeing office space planned on several sites near the old Bay building and north downtown. And the latest proposal in the heart of downtown (next to the Sussex) has both office and residental space planned. I can't see how any of these planned projects are in the wrong area of downtown, can you?

[G-Man]

Times Colonist has a Comment article today but it is locked here is the teaser:

Will Victoria become a city of canyons?


The capital region needs tools for the management of growth

The capital region is experiencing an outburst of high-rise proposals. If these are not masterfully managed we risk a canyon city and high-rises scattered in the region, without much regard to views, air access, or transportation efficiency.

[m0nkyman]

Gerald Walter, Times Colonist
Published: Thursday, November 02, 2006


The capital region is experiencing an outburst of high-rise proposals. If these are not masterfully managed we risk a canyon city and high-rises scattered in the region, without much regard to views, air access, or transportation efficiency.

Technology will play a key role in any outcome. After all, highrise buildings are an industrial technology. Many citizens think of technology as hybrid cars, fuel cells, energy-efficient appliances, drip water systems, insulation, and other elements that they can personally implement.

Broader technologies, particularly those of city-building, such as transportation, building density and planning, require joint action and personal adaptation. They are much harder for citizens to understand, agree on, and implement within their political system. But these technologies are critical for the success of more technical ones.

For this as well as other reasons, urban structure is the greatest technology available to the citizens of Greater Victoria in gaining a sustainable future. Urban structure includes a city's pattern of density, including the nature of its buildings, the pattern and interplay of roads, paths, greenways, plazas, woods, water bodies, its recreational facilities, agricultural areas, light- and heavy-industrial zones, financial and commercial areas, and its cultural complexity.

Among the forms for urban structure that have been advanced two stand out. The first, New Urbanism, has received much attention and been incorporated into smart growth policies. It features networked and walkable urban villages, a variety of dwelling types, and people-friendly public spaces.

The second, Modernism, is rooted in industrial advances in construction. It has been advocated by many famous architects, notably Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.

Markers of Modernism are steel and concrete highrises, minimal built-in decoration, and efficient single family homes constructed of mass-produced elements. In any community there is room for the best features of both, either co-existing or blended. To achieve a good future, attention must be paid to the interplay of these forms, and particularly, to their role in the functioning of the region.

Does Greater Victoria have the tools to achieve an outcome that respects its heritage, sustainability, and quality of life? One indicator is that Victoria's development proposals are ahead of its community plan, yet some councillors seem inclined to approve developments because, in their view, development cannot wait for a rational, careful, and publicly debated plan.

Another is that there has been little effective co-ordination of regional development, as indicated by the highway re-congestion following an attempt to eliminate the Colwood Crawl. For the Western Communities the main effect has been a wave of development utterly dependent on yet more use of fossil fuels.

Outstanding results require that highrise development be carefully set within an overall urban/regional plan. Such developments need to incorporate, and be intermixed, with elements of the new urbanism.

At the street level, services providing daily needs need to be present. The spacing and height of buildings should provide plazas, walkways, adequate access to pleasant vistas, and to light and to air. No regional development should be authorized that cannot be efficiently serviced by public transit.

Le Corbusier and others almost always illustrated highrise buildings as spaced out, with ample green and people spaces. These features are mostly lost in actual development for three reasons: lack of vision, lack of political will and the pressure arising from developers.

Developers are quite aware they can make a speculative killing by getting permission to go higher or wider, especially if they acquired the land from someone foolish enough to think that the existing zoning rules would stick. But in doing so they frequently impair the very quality of the city that provides their opportunity.

Victoria has been discovered. It is being transformed before our eyes. Local governments, despite some strong efforts and some successes, have been caught unprepared.

Our transportation plan is incomplete, our regional growth strategy is vague, our zoning is frequently modified by local councils in an ad hoc way, our political structure is a hydra-head.

Sadly, unless strong action is taken to provide our city and region with greater tools for the management of growth, and the will to use them can be found, the quality of life in this region will decline.

What could have been win-win development within a well-planned community will be a lose-lose structure of disappointment at what might have been.

Gerald Walter taught urban land economics at the University of Victoria until retiring.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2006

[G-Man]

Could someone please show a city that has actually suffered from this supposed "canyon city" effect?

I have never seen any disaster shows on it and I watch the history channel often.

I have never been to a city where the people say well it used to be great until it became a "canyon city".

I think that it is time this term gets banned from newspapers unless a single example of its destructive power can be shown.

[aastra]

...we risk a canyon city and high-rises scattered in the region, without much regard to views, air access, or transportation efficiency.

Can somebody tell me what risks we incur when we have highrises scattered in the region?

And what's that nonsense about air access or transportation efficiency?

PEOPLE. The more concentrated the populations, the more efficient the transportation networks.

Where do they get this idea that a private road through the woods to their hilltop retreat is transportation efficiency?

[aastra]

Gerald Walter taught urban land economics...

Yikes.

It features networked and walkable urban villages, a variety of dwelling types, and people-friendly public spaces.

Mr. Walter, everybody subscribes to a different definition of what a "walkable urban village" is. We've heard people defend University Heights as a neighbourhood village, for crying out loud. We WANT walkable urban villages. If Vancouver is the nightmare of the naysayer crowd, how on earth do they explain the fact that it puts Victoria to shame re: walkable urban villages?

I think I'm not misrepresenting the folks on this forum when I say we desperately WANT a variety of dwelling types.

Parking lots are NOT "people-friendly public spaces". Nor are enormously wide sidewalks in front of buildings with artificially large setbacks. I recall a letter to the TC in which the writer claimed Victoria's "open spaces" (parking lots) were its most appealing aspect. People just don't get it.

[G-Man]

All those buildings taller than the mountains around here make for dangerous flying.

[gumgum]

:smt098 Put an article in front of aastra and watch the fireworks.
I love it!

[m0nkyman]

I think the root of a lot of this attitude is that these people don't like the idea of commerce getting in the way of social service agencies helping the street people. :?

And I'm only half kidding.

[aastra]

His "new urbanism" versus "modernism" angle just pisses me off. So is Vancouver's revival an example of new urbanism or not? Is it transit-oriented? Are the streets walkable? Yes and yes.

People love to bog things down in jargon. The city's proverbial wheels can spin forever in a jargon swamp.

The last thing we need are more "campus style" developments like the Songhees. We need real urban environments, the kind that make Victoria a pleasant and interesting place.

There's a problem with the basic premise of the opposition, in my opinion. They claim they love the city, but they also claim that the city is despicable and must be rolled back and suburbanized at every opportunity. It's wonderful, therefore we must destroy it where we can and contain it where we can't. It doesn't make any sense.

If you don't like the city then leave. If you like it then let it flower.

[aastra]

The spacing and height of buildings should provide plazas, walkways, adequate access to pleasant vistas, and to light and to air.

This is an argument FOR highrises!!

The last thing we need is more plazas, by the way. Victoria is not and never was about plazas and public squares. Stop trying to ruin my city. Thank you.

Pleasant vistas. Give me a break. If you want vistas, move to Montana.

[aastra]

Le Corbusier and others almost always illustrated highrise buildings as spaced out, with ample green and people spaces. These features are mostly lost in actual development for three reasons: lack of vision, lack of political will and the pressure arising from developers.

Would somebody please mail this guy a copy of Jane Jacobs' book? Holy crap.

The LAST thing we want is a suburbanized city full of isolated "highrises in a park".