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Affordable housing in Victoria


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#101 Oxford Sutherland

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Posted 26 October 2006 - 10:43 PM

I see Fairway Market is renovating the old Brick store in Quadra village. Imagine if instead of simply renovating, they knocked it down, then built a 15 floor condo building with a grocery store on the ground floor?

14 floors of residential with 8 units per floor would be 112 units with 1.5 people per unit, that would provide housing for 168 people on a bus route not far from downtown.

The building wouldn't need to be luxury, no marble countertops, crown mouldings or swimming pools.

Not only would this provide more housing close to downtown, but it would do a lot to revitalize Quadra & Hillside.

But since it's not happening, and the boring old 1 floor building is being renovated, it will probably be at least 15 years until the opportunity comes up again.

#102 Oxford Sutherland

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Posted 26 October 2006 - 10:50 PM

Besides losing an opportunity to greatly increase housing in the Quadra/Hillside area, the opportunity to replace this boring old building has also been lost.






#103 Holden West

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Posted 26 October 2006 - 11:03 PM

Yep, and townhouses along both those sides, commercial deliveries round the side. Ah, well.
"Beaver, ahoy!""The bridge is like a magnet, attracting both pedestrians and over 30,000 vehicles daily who enjoy the views of Victoria's harbour. The skyline may change, but "Big Blue" as some call it, will always be there."
-City of Victoria website, 2009

#104 Oxford Sutherland

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Posted 26 October 2006 - 11:06 PM

That property is so big, you could probably build two towers on it.

#105 G-Man

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Posted 27 October 2006 - 06:26 AM

I know they dug up the parking lot on the side there but does anyone know what their plans are for that space. It would be nice if it came out to the road with some more commercial space.

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#106 gumgum

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Posted 27 October 2006 - 07:31 AM

^they should. it would make a huge difference

#107 Holden West

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Posted 27 October 2006 - 07:49 AM

Help developers create affordability

Times Colonist
Published: Friday, October 27, 2006

Recent protests in Victoria and Vancouver have attempted to put the issue of affordable housing front and centre in the public's mind. So far the discussion of the issue has focused on the need for more public funding for social housing.

While this is definitely a part of the solution, what has been given little attention is the role that municipal regulation plays in the inflation of housing prices in our region.

Developers in our city, both large and small, face a bewildering array of red tape when seeking approval for new projects. Arbitrary height and density restrictions, onerous secondary suite permitting requirements, and the tendency for some neighbourhood associations to demand excessive and expensive "public amenities" in exchange for their support effectively force developers to cater to the luxury market in order to afford building here.

While I have no doubt that much of this regulation was born of a genuine concern for the character and welfare of our community, the time has come to evaluate the fruits of this effort.

We see the unintended consequences of an over-regulated land-use planning regime all around us. Our skyline is dotted with beautiful new condominiums that most of us will never be able to afford to live in, while ever greater numbers of the city's most vulnerable sleep in doorways.

Clearly the status quo is a failure. The time has come for the city to work with rather than against developers to provide more affordable homes for our citizens.

Sasha Kvakic,

Victoria.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2006
"Beaver, ahoy!""The bridge is like a magnet, attracting both pedestrians and over 30,000 vehicles daily who enjoy the views of Victoria's harbour. The skyline may change, but "Big Blue" as some call it, will always be there."
-City of Victoria website, 2009

#108 G-Man

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Posted 27 October 2006 - 08:17 AM

Hmmm sounds familiar:)

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#109 aastra

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Posted 27 October 2006 - 09:15 AM

Somebody get that guy Sasha on this forum.

A few years ago there was a proposal to build a highrise on Carey Road. Anybody remember that?

All I remember was a quote from a Saanich resident at the hearing. Something to the effect of, "Monstrosities like this one are for Vancouver, not Victoria."

It's the same old impasse. Everybody wants affordable housing and rental housing, but no way in hell are they going to let anybody build some.

#110 mikedw

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Posted 27 October 2006 - 02:51 PM

That property is so big, you could probably build two towers on it.


With Fairway moving in there, they will would likely want a long term of occupancy before the space is altered.

In theory, they could build on top of it. Or, turn the remaining parking space in a parades levels and put a buildings overhead-- like the Sears and Sports Chek stores over the Michael and Future Shop on Blandshard/Cloverdale.

The difference there was a hilly property that posed a crisitunity solved by building two levels and leaving some of the hill as a bridge between the upper and lower levels.

With of the flat parking lots in town, we need to challenge the parking spaces: keep them but build above or below.

The thought I had a while back is take a page from Seattle. Offer free bus services inside of the downtown "core"-- but expand that definition to go out to Mayfair Mall. Encourage Mayfair to build a parkade and serve as one of several park-n-ride hubs for traffic bound for downtown. Coming in from the Western Communities (Douglas) or Sidney (Blanshard), you would hit Mayfair Mall. The southern lots would be converted into a pay parkade. The parkade would subsidize the free shuttle bus service. Parking 15 blocks out prohibits a walk from your parking to your destination, but the free and frequent bus service would make up for that. Then, you'd have less automobile traffic density in the downtown core. Because bus transit out to Douglas/Finlayson would be free, some people may be able to get free bus service if they lived in the area. Or, Mayfair could be become a second bus hub.

Or, do this same trick with the SJ Willis grounds. Wouldn't that thrill the nimbies? With that said, it would put more transit in range of the campus and the people who live in the newly spruced up Quadra-Hillside.

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#111 G-Man

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Posted 27 October 2006 - 03:01 PM

That's a pretty good idea and it works with the BRT plans for Douglas as there is a station planned there.

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#112 D.L.

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Posted 27 October 2006 - 05:36 PM

I saw that letter in the TC today and really agreed with it. Thanks for posting it Holden.

#113 captain highliner

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Posted 27 October 2006 - 07:16 PM

Who is that Sasha guy?

Anyway, I think that a key message that those with a positive attitude towards urban development should be trying to drive home is the hidden costs of regulation in terms of housing affordability. Groups like the Fraser institue (whether you love "em or hate 'em), have done some good scholarship around trying to quantify the economic effects of government regulation at the provincial and federal level. We need a comparable investigation of municipal regulation. It would be cool to move beyond bare rhetoric and inject some emprical evidence into the mix.

#114 D.L.

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Posted 27 October 2006 - 07:21 PM

He's dreamy. :o

#115 Walter Moar

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Posted 01 November 2006 - 09:59 AM

I know they dug up the parking lot on the side there but does anyone know what their plans are for that space. It would be nice if it came out to the road with some more commercial space.

It's been paved and painted during the past couple of days. Looks like they resurfaced most/all of the lot.

#116 G-Man

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Posted 01 November 2006 - 10:28 AM

That is too bad. Their was an opportunity there for increasing the pedestrian feel of that neighbourhood.

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#117 Holden West

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Posted 01 November 2006 - 11:48 PM

Housing treats given

Victoria News
Opinion
By TomFLETCHER
Nov 01 2006

There was an awkward moment at the end of the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention last week, when the clock ran out as it always does on the many resolutions brought for debate by mayors and councillors across the province.

After delegates shelved the goofy idea of a punitive tax on plastic bags, Kelowna Mayor Sharon Shepherd saw that her resolution calling for the province to raise welfare rates wasn't going to make it to the convention floor. Shepherd kept Premier Gordon Campbell waiting in the wings while she pleaded for assurances that it would be back on the agenda next year.

When Campbell stepped to the podium moments later, a promised increase in the welfare housing allowance was near the top of his annual bag of goodies for towns and cities.

The housing theme for the UBCM convention was set on Oct. 3, when minister Rich Coleman announced a modest rent-subsidy program for the working poor, more money for emergency shelters, and a challenge to local councils: "Quit talking about it. Show us the land and the opportunities, stand up to the NIMBY syndrome and do something for the homeless people in your communities."

The convention opened with the obligatory street march and occupation of private property, staged in the two cities that matter, Victoria and Vancouver. The usual message was dutifully conveyed by the city media: give us free housing or we'll start taking what we want.

Now some of us are tired of drug-addled anarchists ordering us to set them up on real estate we can't afford for ourselves. We'd also like to see the working poor get ahead, and support for the genuinely mentally ill, instead of seeing them herded around as props by "anti-poverty activists." The government hopes to do that.

Campbell ended the convention by restating Coleman's blunt challenge, citing social housing developments in Vancouver, Kelowna and Prince George that have provincial support but either stalled or took too long. Five years for the Woodward's project? "That is longer than it took us to fight two world wars and win them."

Yes, there is new government money for shelters, and some for social housing, but the main message was that the only way to produce that elusive "affordable housing" is to build smaller, with higher density and less red tape.


In an interview near the end of the convention, Coleman shot back at critics who say rent subsidies don't work, and the only way to supply low-cost housing is for the government to build it.

He said hard lessons were learned in the 1970s about building what became known as "the projects," big ghettos for people on welfare, keeping them isolated from exposure to working life and education.

In June, B.C. inherited all of the federal government's social housing, some 72,000 units across the province. Some of those sites can hold 10 times the number of housing units as they have now. That land along with tax or mortgage rate relief will be the province's contribution. Municipalities, non-profit societies and market housing developers have to do the rest.

It's important to note that this is expected to take place across B.C., not just in the bigger cities. There are small towns where housing is relatively plentiful and cheap right now, and people who don't work for a living shouldn't get to turn up their noses at them.

Another treat to emerge from the premier's Halloween goodie bag was a new infrastructure program for towns of fewer than 5,000 people. The "towns for tomorrow" program should help spread the wealth as well as the poverty.

Helping the mentally ill

In addition to conceding his critics have a point about welfare rates, Campbell's other big surprise was to agree with the message from many municipal leaders that the program of deinstitutionalizing mentally ill people has been "a failed experiment."

He didn't blame that failure on councils, which feel the backlash from neighbourhoods chosen to host group homes and the like, but he hinted at that aspect of the problem. The one-time mayor recalled his own days of approving "special needs residential facilities" in Vancouver for people with mental illness and addictions.

Campbell said he was proud that despite objections, every facility was approved and all have gone on to work well in what are considered some of Vancouver's better neighbourhoods.

Some observers took that to mean returning to big institutions like Riverview Hospital, but that's not the case. The "failed experiment" can't be reversed now, and the government's answer would seem to be more community-based group homes of the kind promised when big institutions were phased out.

Tough week for NDP


NDP leader Carole James took her best shot at the government in her speech to the UBCM delegates, accusing Campbell of aggravating the homelessness problem by cutting social housing construction and restricting welfare, then blaming it on municipalities.

If any of the mayors and councillors denied their share of responsibility for the housing problem, I didn't hear about it. The growing municipalities have presided over a steady march of single-family and townhouse residential projects, which suit those who can afford the mortgages.

The B.C. Liberals also spent money to sweeten their message, with the small-town infrastructure fund, plus new "green cities" and "local motion" goodies.

Tom Fletcher is B.C. bureau reporter for Black Press.

mailto:tfletcher@blackpress.ca
"Beaver, ahoy!""The bridge is like a magnet, attracting both pedestrians and over 30,000 vehicles daily who enjoy the views of Victoria's harbour. The skyline may change, but "Big Blue" as some call it, will always be there."
-City of Victoria website, 2009

#118 Holden West

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Posted 10 November 2006 - 08:31 PM

Victoria launches homelessness strategy

Last Updated: Friday, November 10, 2006 | 11:24 AM PT
CBC News

Victoria city council has invited anti-poverty activists to work on its new housing strategy committee, which will try to come up with solutions for the estimated 2,000 homeless in the capital.

The proposal was made at a public hearing Thursday night, after councillors prepared to hear from dozens of people who have been lobbying council for less talk and more action.

But after hearing from just one speaker, Coun. Sonya Chandler announced plans to create a housing strategy committee, and invited the ad hoc citizens group to join it.

"I think that there's some pretty immediate stuff that can happen, that can satisfy everybody," she told the crowd.

Ben Isitt, a spokesman for the citizens' group, welcomed the offer, but has doubts as to whether all members of city council are ready to take action.

"It remains to be seen whether a majority is prepared to purchase or lease a building, open it up, open secondary suites across the city, to really pressure the province and the feds to do something."

The group has asked the city to create 50 more emergency shelter beds and to seize abandoned buildings downtown and convert them into affordable housing units.

"People are cold and wet and they're going to die," said another member of the group, Irene Pollack, who is also worried that the city is going too slowly.

In Vancouver, meanwhile, city councillors are putting forward different proposals to deal with the city's homeless crisis.

The governing civic party, the Non-Partisan Association, has proposed the construction of dorm-style housing, with 100-square-foot rooms with shared facilities.

The opposition Vision Vancouver party has suggested that the old city jail be renovated to provide 200 beds for the homeless.

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan recently released his housing strategy, a plan that relied heavily on additional money from the senior levels of government.

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This is the problem I have with the proposal to use old buildings that Mr. Hartnell and this activist group have been promoting:

If you have five million dollars, you could renovate the Janion building or 534 Yates St. or some other heritage building and house 50 people. Or you could take that same five million and build a new purpose-built structure (like the St. Vincent de Paul building) from scratch and house 80 people. We should be spending the money on the homeless, not the building. What do you say to the 30 people that couldn't get in? "Sorry, but just imagine the trendy, rustic brickwork the lucky people inside are enjoying!"
"Beaver, ahoy!""The bridge is like a magnet, attracting both pedestrians and over 30,000 vehicles daily who enjoy the views of Victoria's harbour. The skyline may change, but "Big Blue" as some call it, will always be there."
-City of Victoria website, 2009

#119 m0nkyman

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Posted 10 November 2006 - 09:58 PM

That, and that it sets a pretty dangerous precedent to start seizing buildings from people....

Citizens taking the law into their own hands and squatting a building is one thing. I can even cheer them on in my sympathetic to the subversive way.

Using the force of the state to do the same thing removes my sympathy.

#120 Holden West

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Posted 10 November 2006 - 10:14 PM

Berlin squatters were successful in part because of the hundreds of derelict buildings and also because German squatters tended to actually fix up the buildings they were occupying.
"Beaver, ahoy!""The bridge is like a magnet, attracting both pedestrians and over 30,000 vehicles daily who enjoy the views of Victoria's harbour. The skyline may change, but "Big Blue" as some call it, will always be there."
-City of Victoria website, 2009

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