819 replies to this topic

[Nparker]

 

...municipalities have come to recognize the urgency of the shortage and are making way for more housing, having passed through the phase where municipal councils approached all developers as bad...

Except in the CoV where this attitude continues to this day.

He wondered if the considerable attention paid by the press to the housing shortage has not created "a psychological problem" whereby "we have begun to think the problem is greater than it is."

Wow. Plus ca change...

 

You really do find some gems aastra. Well done.

[aastra]

Maybe it's just me, but I've been getting this nagging feeling that it might soon be time for people to start adjusting their expectations a bit re: home ownership:

 

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Globe and Mail
January 13, 2020

Canadian house prices: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

"Owning a home in Vancouver, Toronto and Victoria, in particular, continues to be an impossible dream for many,"

 

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Comment: Step up or step aside, developers

Times-Colonist
February 17, 2019

The rapid price escalation of real estate has effectively erased many first-time homebuyers’ downpayments, and where the flow of renters into homeownership has frozen, adding to the competition for rental units.

With a generation shut out of homeownership, and competition for rentals fierce, people with any sign that they are different don’t have a snowball's chance in hell of securing a place to live.

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Globe and Mail
May 11, 2018

Why Canada’s cult of home ownership is in trouble

 

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Huffington Post
December 21, 2016

It's Time To Lower Your Home-Ownership Expectations (Again)

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Vancouver Sun
29 May 1993

Trouble in the Garden: Behind Victoria's grand facade lies a crisis in affordable housing

Victoria is the most difficult city in Canada for people to get out of renting and buy their own place.

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Daily Colonist (The Victoria Express)
December 6, 1973

Home-owners must give ground

Housing minister urges lifestyle changes

He argued, however, there still is a place for the single family home, even though it may appear to be an inefficient dwelling unit.

While an increasing proportion of the population is living in multiple dwellings, British Columbians should still have the option to live in their own detached home "in the foreseeable future,"

 

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Daily Colonist
September 14, 1969

The day of the single-family home, so long considered the natural aspiration of everyone, may be just about over in Canada, said Mr. Jackson (Philip G. Jackson, president of Victoria Real Estate Board).

 

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Daily Colonist
October 15, 1967

...the prospects of the average working man owning his own home today are so remote as to be practically out of sight.

Edited by aastra, 11 June 2020 - 03:08 PM.

[aastra]

Summary:

 

In 1967, the prospects of the average working man owning his own home were so remote as to be practically out of sight.

 

In 2020, owning a home continues to be an impossible dream for many.

 

I bet a donut that owning a home in the year 2073 is going to be challenging.

[aastra]

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Daily Colonist
December 13, 1973

 

(pic) HIGH PERCH for this unusual view of Victoria's skyscraper Executive House hotel is the crane on top of Chateau Victoria, hotel complex under construction on Blanshard.

 

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Daily Colonist
December 13, 1973

 

"Building" lights to have reprieve

(Public Works Minister) Hartley had earlier announced that the lights (on the legislative buildings) would be switched off as an energy-conserving measure by the provincial government...

The decorative lights consume about 90 amps per night... enough energy to heat and illuminate "several pensioners' homes."

[Victoria Watcher]

I bet a donut that owning a home in the year 2073 is going to be challenging.

 

by 2073 your dallas road rv will be self-driving.  so it'll just drive around all night while you sleep.  to avoid any parking penalty.  

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 February 2020 - 07:21 PM.

[Nparker]

by 2073 your dallas road rv will be self-driving...

By 2073, your Dallas Road RV will need to float, cuz rising sea levels will have submerged all but a few of the highest peaks on Vancouver island.

[aastra]

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Daily Colonist (The Victoria Express)
December 13, 1973

City studies cost "too much dough"

One of the more crusty, money-conscious members of Victoria city council is apt to comment that "too much dough" is spent on various fancy studies and reports, which then are relegated to dusty shelves at City Hall.

...the year now ending has produced a lot of arguing, agonizing and earnest discussion, but not nearly enough positive action and decision-making.

Another key segment of the Inner Harbor jigsaw, the Ocean Cement site now cleared of its unsightly silos and industrial junk, has been left in a sort of planning limbo.

Erickson envisaged it as a multi-level perspex "galleria" cascading from Wharf Street to water level, full of boutiques, restaurants and other commercial amenities.

Aldermen... argued endlessly over the implications of using the site for underground parking, and finally disposed of the matter by agreeing to do nothing -- or almost nothing -- for the time being.

The plan is to carry out some "interim" dressing up, with gravelled pathways, planters and the like, then leave the site for several months to await suggestions from the public on its long-range future.

Public "input", to use the politicians' beloved cliche, is all very fine and desirable, but is there a tendency at City Hall to use this as a convenient excuse for not facing the responsibility of far-reaching decisions?

Edited by aastra, 06 February 2020 - 07:31 PM.

[Nparker]

It seems as though endless studies and fear of making the wrong decision is written into the very DNA of local governance; past, present and undoubtedly future.

[aastra]

 

by 2073 your dallas road rv will be self-driving.  so it'll just drive around all night while you sleep.  to avoid any parking penalty

 

The irony being that all of those preserved surface parking lots will be sitting unused?

[aastra]

 

...so it'll just drive around all night while you sleep.  to avoid any parking penalty

 

No doubt the traffic will be heavy because of it. I can already smell the CoV's plans to widen streets and rip out bike lanes, in an effort to address the self-driving housing crisis.

[aastra]

From the pool thread:

 

 

Daily Colonist
January 3, 1971

In Deep Water
by Gorde Hunter

No sense starting out a new year in the wading pool; jump right into the deep end.

The continuing comic opera of the new swimming pool down there in Central Park has, of course, long since ceased to possess any jocularity. It has been a disaster from word go, and by the looks of things, isn't likely to improve as time goes by.

It wasn't bad enough that the McPherson estate money would go down the drain, but the city also had to cough up another $80,000 to meet the end price of nearly one and three-quarter million.

For this we get one pool. West Vancouver, on the other hand, can build three pools in a complex, for $750,000.

For this pool we lose a good chunk of Central Park, a tranquil bit of Victoria that can never be the same again.

And remember, too, that the previous administration forked out yet another $350,000 for property near Central Park. That property was originally earmarked as the site of the new pool.

But there was a slip... somebody discovered the rock formation of the property was not conducive to building a pool.

So now, the city still owns that property and there have been hints that it might be turned into a parking lot to service the pool -- which is a block or two away. I don't know what it would cost to level all the houses presently on the land, or how much it would cost to blacktop the whole shooting match, but whatever and added to the initial cost of $350,000, it would be one helluva expensive parking lot.

(aastra says: I give him a point for using "helluva". I like using "helluva" myself. Now I'm wondering if Gorde Hunter is where I got it from.)

Now it appears we have blown the Canadian swimming championships in July because there is strong doubt work will not be completed in time.

The general contractor is claiming yet another $40,000 for unexpected extras...

Meanwhile, back at the Crystal, lots of confusion, plenty of rumors.

Remember how they said the place was structurally unsound and couldn't be renovated as a swimming pool, as certain people had proposed?

And remember, too, that a few months later somebody down there in city hall was proposing the place be renovated for some other use and that it maybe wasn't so unsafe after all?

Haddock still maintains the Crystal could have been renovated and certainly at a much lower figure than the cost of the new pool. But we'll never really know now.

And when the pool is finally up there in all its splendor, I wonder how much the annual drain will be on the taxpayers of Victoria?

...I suggest the previous administration got carried away by grandiose visions of a lasting monument rather than viewing it as a purely functional swimming pool.

...I suppose this is a common affliction of elected representatives. They love to point out major works carried out during their terms of office.

I have little doubt that when completed, the new pool will be a very fine edifice indeed -- probably the best pool in all of Canada.

I'm still left with the nagging suspicion, however, that the citizens of Victoria were sold a bill of goods beyond their means. That we could have a decent swimming facility without blowing all of what was left of McPherson's generous bequest.

[Nparker]

Wow. Just wow.

[aastra]

Speaking of groundhog day, I think I've already mentioned this article (or one very similar to it):

 

 

Daily Colonist
February 28, 1971

The Story of a Pool

When the first water enthusiasts dive into Victoria's new swimming pool in September, it will be exactly four years since city officials dropped the first hints of a new pool to replace Crystal Garden.

The new aquatic complex in Central Park, Quadra and Queens, will not only be Victoria's most beautiful recreational facility, but also its most expensive one.

The end product... will cost a whopping $1.8 million, more than twice as much as intimated four years ago...

Critics of the project have never denied that the new pool will be beautiful, and will add considerably to the city's recreational aspect, but they have voiced objections to the location and the cost.

They have objected to "cutting Central Park in half." They have objected to the lack of parking facilities at the site. They have pointed out that Saanich is building a swimming pool for less than $500,000.

Supporters of the project have countered with statements that construction of the complex won't cost the city's taxpayers anything since the project is financed out of the McPherson estate.

The question of parking, they have claimed, is irrelevant, because there is no provision for parking at the Crystal Garden, either.

(Some parking spaces will be provided at the nearby curling rink.)

"It's almost impossible to build a structure like this, and stick to your original estimate," one official said.

"Victoria is getting a beautiful swimming pool, and doesn't have to pay for it. I think there isn't a complex like it in western Canada," he added.

The schedule for admission fees hasn't been worked out yet, but Frampton says it will be "slightly higher" than at Crystal Garden.
 

[Nparker]

Of course the one thing that has really changed is that a $1.8 million 1971 pool would only be $11.5 million today instead of what $100 million?

[aastra]

Yeah, that's quite a difference. But then expectations for everything nowadays are much higher. Just look at airport terminals.

 

Anyway, I'm going to complete the circle here yet again and suggest that a small 25-meter pool and community centre, shops, etc. would be great in the Crystal Garden building. What a unique downtown facility that would be... all over again.

 

 

Daily Colonist
October 26, 1967

Two Pools Backed

More Central Than Crystal

Construction of two swimming pools, each half the size of that at the Crystal Garden and more centrally located, was suggested Wednesday by Ald. Percy Frampton.

The suggestion came following a meeting of city council recreation committee Tuesday at which members were told the Crystal Garden was in bad shape.

Ald. Ian Stewart said he had grave doubts about building a new complex on the present Crystal Garden site. The land there was extremely valuable and money from its sale might be used to establish a more central pool.

Ald. Frampton has long advocated the building of a new pool in the neighbourhood of Central Park.

Mayor Stephan was not optimistic...

"If we decide to tear the building down and build a new one there will be opposition from people who hold the Crystal dear. If we decide to rehabilitate the Crystal, we will be blamed for pouring money into an old building."

If money was spent wisely, said Ald. Frampton, the city could have two Olympic-size pools in the city for the price of a new one on the Crystal site. The city needed two pools and they should be built without ballrooms or other frills.

[aastra]

This exact same sentiment is expressed today as if it were some new thing (and just like back then, many people today still don't seem to be particularly concerned about knocking something down and replacing it with a void... there's only a problem if you're knocking something down and replacing it with something bigger).

 

Anyway, I'd suggest that 21st-century Victoria has been striking the balance that people were wondering about back in ~1972. You can't undo the damage that was done in those earlier decades, but you definitely don't need to abide by the either/or thinking that prevailed back then.

 

 

Daily Colonist
April 9, 1972

Victoria's Heritage

Monument or monstrosity: that is the question!

In the continuing battle between proponents, and opponents, of such symbols of progress as highrise apartment and office buildings, this is perhaps the prime question facing Victorians concerned with the changing face of their capital city of gardens; a question, moreover, which currently is of continental importance.

...recent skirmishes between city council and developers have prompted many citizens to give serious thought as to just what the controversy is all about.

...it seems to have polarized, somewhat dramatically, between the preservation of Victoria's time-honored (if belabored) image as a little bit of olde England, and dazzling rebirth as a swinging city of the 70s.

Or: is there a happy medium between the old and new?

And, more importantly, if such a medium can be determined -- can it be implemented?

[aastra]

A glimpse into the future:

 

Daily Colonist
February 23, 1968

Phasing Out Likely For Crystal Garden

Report of a special committee which has been looking into the matter of the Crystal's present and future, is expected to recommend a new pool in the vicinity of Central Park...

There is speculation that the (Crystal Garden) site could be used as location for a convention centre.

[aastra]

Amalgamation, wards, etc. This thread really is living up to its title.

 

(I added some of my own punctuation to the otherwise confusing first paragraph to hopefully clarify things a bit.)

 

 

Daily Colonist
August 23, 1944

Ground for Inquiry

The arguments in favor of amalgamation of cheek-by-jowl communities in the Greater Victoria area have not changed much in twenty years. They are still sound. Yet every time they are mentioned, little jealousies narrow parochial channels of thought, (and) the immediate objections -- which are far outweighed by the long-range benefits of cooperation, unity, and harmony -- are brought forward to defeat the plan, and indeed to bar all inquiry into its feasibility. This newspaper, which was in existence long before the City of Victoria was incorporated, has reported the discussion many times over.

Taken upon its positive side, a Greater Victoria community of 75,000 people would have a good deal more practical influence in urban, provincial, and national affairs than a city of some 45,000 population. One administration for education, fire prevention, policing, water, transportation, health, and joint community efforts could be made far more effective than five such administrations. Borders created artificially in the past have to some extent been outgrown through settlement and development in the last few decades. The Greater Victoria area is attracting people, and to a degree not experienced before. These are facts which will bear scrutiny.

Internally in Victoria, this city did not make much progress while it retained its "ward" system. There was always a contest between the various wards: for roads, for schools, for fire halls, for this and for that. The abolition of the ward system coincided with the development of Victoria as one economic and cultural unit. Everyone in the community, and the thousands of people since attracted, have benefited from that. And today a two-mile circle around the City Hall stands for precisely nothing in plain common fact. The community overlaps it in every human sense.

It will be nobody's loss, and to every individual's gain, to ascertain the facts. Inquiry may reveal factors of cohesion that have not existed before. Inquiry will show, we submit, that never was there a time in the past when amalgamation could have done so much for the greater area as a whole. Even if only two of the five municipalities can draw a little closer together, that will be a gain. At least the nucleus of a larger union will have been created.

Citizens of Victoria, if we interpret them aright, have been open-minded on this question for a long time. They are ready to go half-way into any bargain that is fair and workable for all concerned. Let us examine the facts, as they have shaded, and changed and progressed with the passing of the years. For, nothing in nature stands still. Neither can five divided communities whose borders now crowd one another, so that often they have to be written in terms of half the width of a street.

Edited by aastra, 24 February 2020 - 11:00 AM.

[aastra]

How many times in the 21st century have we discussed the absurdity of municipal lines running down the middle of ordinary neighbourhood streets, through yards and other properties, etc.?

[Jackerbie]

How many times in the 21st century have we discussed the absurdity of municipal lines running down the middle of ordinary neighbourhood streets, through yards and other properties, etc.?

 

You don't know municipal absurdity until you have seen maps of Montreal. Voila, the City of Côte-Saint-Luc!

Edited by Jackerbie, 24 February 2020 - 11:08 AM.