762 replies to this topic

[aastra]

I always find it interesting when people predict something like significantly decreased pollution over ~25 years, even though we would assume significantly increased population over that same period. On the one hand it's always the end of the world, but on the other hand things are quite a bit better than before.

[aastra]

Solutions are always just around the corner:

 

 

Capital Daily
November 26, 2022

Experts talk big picture solutions to the Island’s ongoing affordability crisis

With cost of living on the rise, how we can make life more liveable in Greater Victoria?

There’s no escaping the topic of affordability on Vancouver Island. Housing is expensive and hard to find, food, gas and childcare prices are high, and now even stable, accessible healthcare comes at a cost.

Earlier this month Capital Daily moderated a panel discussion with local experts called Vital Conversation: How Can We Afford to Live Here?

Panelists dove deep on the impacts they’re seeing in the community—but they also spoke about solutions. Instead of bringing you another story about what’s going wrong, Capital Daily poses the question: What can we do differently?

 

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Victoria News
September 14, 2020
   
Saanich Housing Strategy task force to start tackling the issue this month

 

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CBC News
November 10, 2006

Victoria launches homelessness strategy

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.

...councillors prepared to hear from dozens of people who have been lobbying council for less talk and more action.

 

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Vancouver Sun
February 28, 1990

Victoria, municipalities agree to seek solutions to rental housing crisis

The provincial government and the Union of B.C. Municipalities came to a meeting of the minds Tuesday over the housing crisis, and have agreed to jointly look at solutions...

 

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Daily Colonist
September 14, 1969

Efforts for Two Years May Ease House Crisis

Efforts are being made by both government and private agencies to solve Victoria's housing crisis, and the worst problems could be over in about two years time...

 

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Daily Colonist
January 7, 1969

Saanich sets up council committee to tackle housing crisis

 

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Daily Colonist
August 31, 1968

Rent Controls Suggested to Solve Housing Crisis

Governments may be forced into rent control until the housing crisis is solved, Saaanich Ald. Edith Gunning suggested Friday.

"There are so many factors beyond our control -- high land prices, and high interest costs are the main ones. I've never been in favor of rent controls, but you wonder what else can be done to keep rents at a reasonable level."

...the crisis has reached such proportions that all reasonable solutions will have to be considered.

 

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Daily Colonist
March 6, 1968

Victorians Tackle Homes Crisis

The Community Welfare Council has announced plans for a meeting of organizations interested in solutions to Victoria's housing crisis.

Edited by aastra, 23 June 2023 - 06:19 PM.

[Nparker]

Your posts always bring a smile to my face aastra. 

[aastra]

Reading old news articles is the solution for blind belief in current news articles.

[Mike K.]

Aastra, would you mind if I borrowed these clips you’ve curated for an article?

[aastra]

Dude, they don't belong to me.

[aastra]

What's mine is yours and what's yours is also yours.

[Mike K.]

Is Victoria’s housing crisis talk dated back to 1968, or have we discussed articles speaking to a housing crisis prior to?

[aastra]

You know this forum has a search tool, right?

[Mike K.]

It doesn’t even work, dude.

[aastra]

I'm pretty sure somebody on this board has posted housing crisis articles from WW1 era (I might have even done it myself once or twice, I can't remember). But generally I don't pay much attention to anything prior to the late 1940s.
 

 

Daily Colonist
April 13, 1956

 

$60,000,000 Worth of New Homes Answer to Grim Post-War Shortage

To the grim housing problem of the immediate post-war years, new houses worth $60,000,000, in Greater Victoria alone have provided an answer in the past decade. This figure does not take into account more millions spent on construction of new apartment blocks -- a much larger proportion of the population is living in apartments than before the war -- nor the money spent on building new homes in View Royal, Colwood, Langford, Central Saanich, and Sidney.

9,511 NEW HOMES
...were built between the beginning of 1946 and the end of 1955.

 

 

[aastra]

These were all from the same issue of the Daily Colonist:

 

 

Daily Colonist
April 13, 1956

The year 1946 is fresh in many Victorians' minds as a year of housing shortage, but a year in which many empty spaces were filled with new homes.

Each year since has seen several hundred homes added. By 1966, if town planners' estimates prove correct, Victoria's urban area will extend far into Saanich. Victoria city will have 62,000 people; Saanich, 50,000, and soon far more; Oak Bay, 18,000, and Esquimalt, about 13,000.

 

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Daily Colonist
April 13, 1956

 

Colonist Housing Supplement Surveys Island's Progress

The Daily Colonist today includes a 28-page Parade of Homes supplement -- a survey of the tremendous progress Greater Victoria and other parts of Vancouver Island have made and are making in overcoming the post-war housing shortage.

 

[aastra]

Just search for "housing crisis" displayed "as posts" with aastra as the author.

[Mike K.]

Ok, I think ‘56 is about right.

My God.

The 18,000 people projected for Oak Bay by 1966 is pretty funny.

[aastra]

Funny because it was accurate? And yet Oak Bay's population is still basically the same today?

[aastra]

Check it out:

 

 

Daily Colonist
April 13, 1956

"Hurry-Up" Home Built in One Month

The House That Speed Built

"It's a pretty darn wonderful house as far as we're concerned," says Harry Pigot of his National Housing Act home at 2451 Camelot.

The Pigot home was built by contractor Al Vickery in just one month. The idea was to use "hurry-up house" construction as a test -- to see if it could be built in that time and to check it later to see how the structure stood up.

Results Good
Fifteen months later the report is out. It reads "good." Average home building time is three to six months.

 

[Mike K.]

Right. It hasn’t budged in 60 years (Oak Bay’s pop, not the hurry up house).

[aastra]

This is why it still rings hollow to me when people say "we're building new homes like never before, golly gosh darn it".

 

Greater Victoria in 2021:

population: 398,000

4,800 new homes

 

Greater Victoria in 1965:

population: 176,000

2,670 new homes

 

 

Times-Colonist
October 28, 2022

...nearly 5,000 rental housing units are under construction and another 5,000 are in the planning stage in the region, where rental demand and employment rates remain high. “We are facing a crunch and we are already seeing a ­supply issue ahead of us,” said Grant Evans, vice-president with ­Colliers International ­Victoria. “The pressure is going to continue and I don’t see it being alleviated any time soon, because the fundamentals haven’t changed and we’ve been talking about the same pressures for 20 years.”

...Victoria’s residential ­construction industry has been working flat out to build new homes, last year breaking a 45-year record with 4,809 new homes started. The previous record was 4,439 set in 1976.

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Daily Colonist
January 7, 1966

Population in the region, which includes Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, Central Saanich, Sidney, North Saanich, View Royal and Langford-Metchosin rose to 175,600 in 1965... and total value of building permits was $41,000,000 -- the same as in 1964.

Residential construction declined from 2,670 units to 1,760, due largely to decreased apartment construction.

[Nparker]

...because the fundamentals haven’t changed and we’ve been talking about the same pressures for 20 years...

More like 70 years, but I am sure the brain trusts of today have a solution no one has ever before contemplated.

[Mike K.]

This is why it still rings hollow to me when people say "we're building new homes like never before, golly gosh darn it".

Greater Victoria in 2021:
population: 398,000
4,800 new homes

Greater Victoria in 1965:
population: 176,000
2,670 new homes

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It can be tough to make apple to apple comparisons. Today’s building standards are far more complex and labour intensive. Like a modern car, for example.

I also wonder, whether labour, like now, was transient back then. As in, were the home builders all local, or were they migrating for work from place to place. One of the key constraints today isn’t the lack of desire for building more, it’s human resources at the throttle.

In 2022, I think we have more developers building their own buildings with their own construction crews than we’ve ever seen before, to overcome local labour shortages.