800 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

It's been on the market for 328 days.  Black Press writes about it 6 days after my post.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 14 February 2023 - 06:47 PM.

[Barrrister]

Coincidence, 

[GaryOak]

It seems as if black press takes their articles from here and Victoria Buzz gets their articles from r/VictoriaBC

Edited by GaryOak, 14 February 2023 - 07:57 PM.

[aastra]

Here's a frame from a recent YouTube video:

 

 

--

 

And here's an excerpt from a 2015 news item:

 

 

Times-Colonist
September 10, 2015

Height hinders project in Victoria's Old Town

If Victoria council gives the green light to Stan Sipos’s $40-million redevelopment at the corner of Government and Wharf streets, the Old Town of Victoria should be classed as an endangered species, says the city’s oldest heritage preservation society.

"If they get the go-ahead with this one they might as well write Old Town off," said Hallmark Heritage Society president Ken Johnson. "Old Town is the way it is today because 25 years ago they passed a bylaw that stated height restrictions and zoning in Old Town shall be 15 metres high."

"Our main issues are the proposed height of the building and the design. It doesn’t really fit into the guidelines,"

Edited by aastra, 30 May 2023 - 07:54 PM.

[Mike K.]

Yeah.

This is the reason VV was formed. We couldn’t take that sort of narrative at face value, and not see a counter argument in the TC. Anyone remember Malcolm? The sky never stopped falling.

[aastra]

I appreciate care and caution re: redevelopment in a heritage district. But they were way too focused on the numbers with this one, as if any living person has ever enjoyed a heritage district in terms of counting 4-stories here and 3-stories over there. Nobody actually does that. Most people don't give any thought to how many levels this or that building has. Most people have no idea how tall this or that building really is, and (as we've seen many times) most people severely underestimate the heights of notable heritage buildings like the Empress Hotel, Belmont Building, Driard Hotel, etc.

 

Methinks the critics of the Customs House project and the Northern Junk project were overlooking the forest for the trees. They were too focused on trying to quantify the ingredients and not understanding how everything comes together to make an enjoyable meal. After everything Victorians have been through over the decades re: unfortunate development controversies, this is the kind of project they should have been cheering for.

 

The bus station property is another one that needs to be done well.

[Barrrister]

And after all that debate it still ended up unattractive. 

[aastra]

 

And after all that debate it still ended up unattractive.

 

Love it or hate it, it's far and away the finest modern building in the old town area. Not only that, it actually even offsets some of the atrociousness of the Harbour Square mall building, which is a pretty amazing feat. One building that does almost everything right can actually make another building that does almost everything wrong seem not so horrible.

 

The logical problem with criticism of the Customs House building is this: by extension we're effectively saying every fine lowrise building in the Old Town is unattractive (even some of the finest "long gone greats"), so therefore why should anyone care about the Old Town one way or another?

[Barrrister]

A lot of the old buildings are attractive, the custom house is not particularly pleasing. Your leap in logic seems mostly just argumentative. Why dont we just agree to disagree. 

[aastra]

Nope, I'm talking about the attributes. Believe me, for decades I've been talking about the attributes, but few people bother to listen.

 

There's a common theme in the controversies around projects like this one or Northern Junk: even though many Victorians claim they like the attributes of "old town" buildings, in practice they really don't seem to like those attributes. They claim they want the same kind of heights, massing, ground floor design, cladding materials, window styles, and ornamentation as the old building stock, but then they complain whenever a developer follows through on these attributes. "It's all wrong!"

It's really no wonder the governments are pushing massive and/or bulky buildings with plain cladding, blank walls, small windows, and unengaging ground floors. They'll give the people what they really want.

[aastra]

If we always reserve the right to pile the standard-issue ambiguous and undefined criticisms upon exceptional projects (projects that went the many extra miles we claimed we wanted them to go), then what does that say about us?

 

By now I bet I've logged hundreds of substantiated posts on this board which expose this ongoing fault in Victoria's "heritage appreciation" narrative. Suffice it to say, if the most committed efforts to address all of the purported concerns are still going to receive the same old contemptuous dismissals, then people deserve those plain bunkers that are going up everywhere.

[Barrrister]

Simple, compare the new part of the custom house with the building on the other side of government. Being better than super crappy tends to leave you with just mediocre at best. Were we agree is that the building we are putting up these days are really super crappy. 

 

I know, if it is not absolutely horrible we all should be grateful.

[lanforod]

I think people only care about one attribute really, and thats why they whine: age. Its the one attribute you can't manufacture.

[aastra]

You're being as persistently vague as the heritage politicos.

 

We can do an assessment by evaluating one attribute at a time.

 

Did they get the height right? Yes or no?

(If we say "no", then there's no point in continuing because we're effectively saying every landmark building in the old town didn't get the height right. The Belmont Building is not right. The Weiler Building on Government Street is not right. The Driard Hotel was not right. The old post office building itself -- on the very same site as the new Customs House -- even the old post office building got the height wrong. Obviously this would be an absurdly antagonistic position.)

 

Did they get the cladding right? Yes or no?

 

Did they get the ground floor right? Yes or no?

 

Did they get the windows right? Yes or no?

 

etc.

 

If we want to be stubborn stinkers and answer "no" to everything then we're effectively saying we don't like the attributes that characterize the old town. We don't want the old town area to be like it is, or like it was.

[aastra]

 

age. Its the one attribute you can't manufacture.

 

The aging aspect takes care of itself.

[aastra]

 

I think people only care about one attribute really, and thats why they whine: age. Its the one attribute you can't manufacture.

 

But again, the absurd irony. If this exact same building had been constructed in 1890 then it would be perfect. But it was constructed at a later date, so therefore it's all wrong. It's inappropriate. It's too tall. It's ugly, etc.

 

And to add irony to the irony, if this exact same building had been constructed in 1890 then Victorians would have demolished it in the 1950s all the same.

[aastra]

 

...if this exact same building had been constructed in 1890 then Victorians would have demolished it in the 1950s all the same.

 

You know, because Victorians love the city's architectural heritage and historic built form. Nothing indicates that passion and enthusiasm quite like a wrecking ball.

[GaryOak]

Everyone hated the Eiffel tower when it was first built but now it's an iconic landmark that's as much of Paris' and the nation's soul as Notre Dame. Give it a hundred years and view towers will have a heritage designation due to it being one of the first tall buildings in Victoria, and as a representation of mid 20th century high rise residential architecture.

[AllseeingEye]

While I certainly do appreciate heritage as much as the next person provided it doesn't just sit in a bubble and is maintained and upgraded periodically as needed - and as long as its the real deal and not that ludicrous 'faux heritage' crap (cough, cough the original Songhees condos from the 80's which were and are a steaming pile of hot garbage) - those of us raised and born here well remember Old Town for what it was in 1970 - a festering pile of poo that had been allowed to rot and fall into disrepair and disuse for the most part for the previous half century.

 

Buildings were literally allowed to sag and buckle and fall apart largely because groups like the heritage people, and by extension various city councils, were so paranoid about anything "new" it was apparently believed (even) old 'falling apart heritage' s*** was preferable to modern touch ups. "World class" my butt - it was an awful semi-industrial eyesore, the entire area. I'll take Chris LeFevre's vision of Old Town circa 2023 over that crapulent nightmare any day.
 

I well remember that place and time and the only thing missing in Old Town by the early 70's were 1) the coyotes and 2) tumbleweeds. No one lived there, the entire area was bereft of life, energy or any form of urban vibrancy whatsoever, unless Capital Iron was considered to be those things. I highly doubt however that millions of tourists couldn't wait to jump on a plane to see that place at that time. Why would they when they see any similar junky, creaking old neighborhood in their own cities?

 

And really what could you expect when you are so paralysed by fear of 'change' - that awful despicable c- word that haunts so many Victoria heritage people - that the city sat idly by literally for decades staring at its collective shoes, doing nothing while the area fell to pieces?

 

At the same time the same process was happening across the harbour on the Vic West waterfront; after the rail tracks were largely torn up by 1968-9 the entire area looked like a poster child for a USAF bombing range. Literally the only structure of note left standing was the old Princess Mary restaurant which stood lonely vigil amongst a sea of busted up disused shacks left over from the rail era, concrete parking and weed choked lots. To call that entire area on both sides of the harbour ugly beyond belief would have been an insult to truly ugly things. 

[aastra]

I'm making a differentiation here between whether or not a building exhibits certain identifiable attributes and whether or not we personally "like" the building. The Customs House building nails many of the old town attributes. I like the Customs House building. I also like the Reef in James Bay. The Reef in James Bay doesn't nail any old town attributes, except maybe the overall height. I like the Wedge on Johnson Street near Vancouver Street. The Wedge doesn't nail any old town attributes, except maybe for the minimal setback along the sidewalk.

 

We went through all of this before with the myriad Northern Junk concepts. Some of those concepts nailed the old town guidelines almost to the letter. But there were many iterations and the overall appearance varied significantly from one iteration to the next. No design is going to please everyone, and I don't even think we should aspire to that goal because it tends to mean you're going more in the direction of blandly inoffensive fast food than flavourful fine dining.