3483 replies to this topic

[tjv]

^what I am getting out of that is they rent in the area and have for years, still paying cheap rent because the landlord can't double the rents because other rents have.  They don't make a lot of money, but want to stay in the area because they feel entitled.  Well guess what you don't get a starter house in a wealthy area, try Langford, Mill Bay or Sooke!

 

That's like me saying.  Affordable houses in the Uplands now!  I should be able to buy a starter house on the water, no less than 1 acre, blah blah blah and it shouldn't cost more than 30% of my city landscaping job.   (cue the baby crying sounds).  Me want mansion!  Me want mansion!  Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

[Nparker]

...Affordable houses in the Uplands now!

Yeah, why isn't Oak Bay offering up some of the park space in this area to shelter the homeless?

[rjag]

 

 

That's like me saying.  Affordable houses in the Uplands now!  I should be able to buy a starter house on the water, no less than 1 acre, blah blah blah and it shouldn't cost more than 30% of my city landscaping job.   (cue the baby crying sounds).  Me want mansion!  Me want mansion!  Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

 

Now you sound like a certain CoV politician 

[tjv]

^sssssshhhhhhhh keep it down, otherwise people will figure out my secret

[Casual Kev]

If they're condos or new rentals then it's not "affordable", if they're actually affordable housing then it doesn't fit the "character" of the neighborhood. These "concerned citizens" simply switch hats whenever convenient to stonewall development.

[LJ]

Again, they have to be affordable - people are living in them. There are not hundreds of vacant housing units languishing on the rental market, they are being rented so they must be affordable.

 

OTOH if you want cheap housing go somewhere where it exists.

 

Or build a couple of more View Tower type very basic small apartments, or as they are known in other cities "The Projects".

[Casual Kev]

We could actually use more utilitarian high-rises but if you're a developer facing current prices, inventory, vacancy rates and regulatory hurdles you build higher-end every time. Which is a shame more wasn't built in the past; you go to a city like Ottawa and there are tons of well-maintained high rises from the 60's and 70's that are easy on the wallet without being crapholes and they're surviving the onslaught of Torontonians so far.

[aastra]

CMA numbers for dwelling types, 2016:
As I read it:

Victoria has slightly less than half as many midrise/highrise apartment units per capita compared to Ottawa (10,000 units or 6.4% in Vic CMA versus 75,000 units or 14% in Ottawa CMA)
Victoria has slightly less than twice as many lowrise apartment units per capita compared to Ottawa (44,000 units or 27% in Vic CMA versus 75,000 units or 14% in Ottawa CMA).

 

In Victoria CMA there are ~55,000 apartments (34% of the the dwellings)

In Ottawa CMA there are  ~150,000 apartments (28% of the dwellings)

 

In other words, Victoria did build a lot of affordable/accessible apartments, even though the lowrise format was the dominant one. Methinks the larger issue is how the allocation of apartments is so heavily weighted within the very small confines of the city proper (about 70%, last time I checked). Victoria city comprises less than 3% of the CMA's land area, but if you want or need to live in an apartment then there's a 70% chance that you'll be setting your sights on it.

 

The other municipalities need to build more apartments ASAP.

Uptown area, I'm looking at you.

 

And UVic, too.

Edited by aastra, 23 July 2018 - 10:17 AM.

[tjv]

The other municipalities need to build more apartments ASAP.

Uptown area, I'm looking at you.

 

And UVic, too.

Sure and they will be new apartments starting at 1500+ per month for a tiny 1 bedroom because of land and construction costs today

[Mattjvd]

Sure and they will be new apartments starting at 1500+ per month for a tiny 1 bedroom because of land and construction costs today

Today's new expensive buildings are 2040's old cheap buildings. Affordable rentals are almost always aging or dated. Still needs to be built at some point though.

[aastra]

Yep. Reality check #1: you can't build brand new crappy old buildings. And the thing is, nobody would want them even if you could. So why muse about it?

 

 

...and they will be new apartments starting at 1500+ per month for a tiny 1 bedroom because of land and construction costs today

 

But that's precisely why we need to shift at least some of the pressure ASAP out of the densest & most expensive areas and over to less dense/less expensive areas that are still reasonably accessible and convenient. Uptown, Tillicum, etc. North downtown and the Douglas Street strip.

 

If we expect those less desirable areas would also command rather high prices then we're really just acknowledging how the measures that we take today are so very late to the proverbial party. After 60+ years of reports, inquiries, media coverage, etc. we should be well past the contemplation stage.

 

Anyway, the past is the past. It's never too late to start taking action.

[sdwright.vic]

The issue is our infrastructure can not handle far flung density to less expensive areas.

When you have people in close trying to kill car access then your are never going to have the capacity to bring those people into the job centre without making the commute unrealistic.

[Casual Kev]

I do wonder about the infrastructure tradeoff between density 3-5 km away and sprawl 15+ kms away, though. If the Westshore keeps growing disproportionately then commuters will keep driving or at least using the full extent of Victoria's transportation infrastructure. On the other hand, more density in areas like Gorge/Burnside and Fernwood wouldn't be as intensive on the infrastructure because people have more transportation options, and they also aren't using as much road per capita even if they did all drive.

Edited by Casual Kev, 23 July 2018 - 03:09 PM.

[aastra]

 

The issue is our infrastructure can not handle far flung density to less expensive areas.

 

This is yet another one of those moments when I note how Victoria can flip from a tiny town to an unmanageable megalopolis and back again depending on the issue and whether or not anybody actually wants to do anything.

 

Uptown, Tillicum, and UVic are not far-flung by any definition. Tillicum is effectively a city neighbourhood, about 2.5 miles on the ground from the very heart of downtown and less than a kilometre from the city proper's border. That's walking distance for any able-bodied person. Uptown is actually slightly nearer, situated at the northern end of the extended downtown area and also less than a kilometre from the city of Victoria's border. To claim that the short distance to Uptown presents infrastructure challenges seems rather ludicrous in light of the fact that the distance from downtown to Uptown is comparable to the distance from downtown to the Jubilee Hospital, or the distance from downtown to Gonzales, or the distance from downtown to Lampson St.

 

UVic is a bit further but it's really just barely on the edge of the mature suburbs. Still easily accessible by bike or by neighbourhood bus routes. No billion-dollar freeways or subways would be required to make a new residential neighbourhood at UVic feasible, believe me.

 

Are we really thinking that a metro area's new housing needs could possibly be addressed by focusing exclusively on sites that are shouting distance (literally) from the heart of downtown? I'm becoming a skipping record about this but the city proper constitutes less than 3% of the CMA's land area.

[sdwright.vic]

^I am referring to increased density in places that would actually be more affordable. Not the areas you mention. New rentals in these areas are going for as much as downtown.

[aastra]

Which places would actually be more affordable?

[sdwright.vic]

You are going to need to go further out the pennisula and into the sooke hills.

[aastra]

New rental developments won't be more affordable unless they skip the outer neighbourhoods and suburbs altogether and go straight for the farmland and wilderness? Now I'm seeing what you were getting at re: infrastructure issues.

[Love the rock]

Could UVic build more student housing we get initiated with students who don’t have enough housing every fall year after year .
Could UVic build small no frills apartments maybe one price for students and have a percentage mixed use at a slightly higher rate .

[PPPdev]

We have three active rental buildings in the 2018-2020 project pipeline and their land cost as a share of project costs is as follows:

Saanich, 27 units, wood frame: 8.85%
Saanich, 72 units, wood frame: 13.5%
Victoria, 65 units, wood frame: 15.7%

Moving to the fringes for cheap land certainly helps but it doesn’t have as big as an impact on project costs as one might think. Just our experience so far anyway!