652 replies to this topic

[Brantastic]

For those who may have forgotten some of the earlier proposals for this site. This one was presented back in 2012.

Northern Junk 2012.jpg

Honestly I think that design was terrible. Not bad from the Wharf Street side but it looks like another Victoria Regent Hotel from the waterfront.

I watched most of the video and Helps and Potts were the only ones that really seemed to want to push it forward. 

[Sparky]

Don’t give up Jon. I’m still saving this calendar for you.

[aastra]

You may want to seal that calendar inside an archival-grade protector. I don't want to seem pessimistic but this one might take a while.

[2F2R]

so sad ...

[LJ]

Mayor Lisa Helps objected to yet another delay as well, and warned that council’s perpetual foot dragging is costing developers “hundreds of thousands of dollars” that will translate into higher rents down the road.

 

"The more time we tack on, the more money it costs,” she said.

 

All the councillors know this, and they may be purposely sending it back until the developer quits and the city can build some nice new affordable housing units on the site.

[On the Level]

All the councillors know this, and they may be purposely sending it back until the developer quits and the city can build some nice new affordable housing units on the site.

 

Nothing says affordable housing more than prime waterfront.

 

Sorry..but anyone providing funding....especially bridge financing (no pun intended) for rentals.....CoV is a dead zone.

[On the Level]

Just to be clear....not tied to this project but instead this is a bellwether moment.

 

More specifically, the CoV doesn't understand the potential ramifications.

Edited by On the Level, 12 June 2020 - 08:23 PM.

[Casual Kev]

Just to be clear....not tied to this project but instead this is a bellwether moment.

 

More specifically, the CoV doesn't understand the potential ramifications.

 

Sadly, I think the councilors understand the ramifications exactly. A chunk of the constituents don't want evil developers to build housing, only glorious taxpayer-funded comrades. Another chunk of voters use up all their political energy to grind the wheels of time to a halt. 

 

It's hard to get people to become passionate about abundant housing outside of the industry, specially in a city ingrained with an insular attitude - pun fully intended. 

Edited by Casual Kev, 12 June 2020 - 09:27 PM.

[On the Level]

^ Agreed.  Many of our current project started years before this goofy council was in place.  We won't see the true impact of this buffoonery for a couple of years.

[spanky123]

Just to be clear....not tied to this project but instead this is a bellwether moment.

 

More specifically, the CoV doesn't understand the potential ramifications.

 

The buildings have been vacant for 40+ years, I don't think that if they are vacant a few more the wheels are going to fall off of the bus. 

 

I don't have a strong opinion on this project one way or another but I cringe when I hear the developer and Mayor trying to pass BS off as fact to try and swing opinion. "They may be luxury apartment rentals now but they will come down in price as the building ages". I can't say that I have ever been to a waterfront city and found that to be the case.

[Brantastic]

^Helps was called out for that by one of the councillors - either Loveday or Alto, I can't remember. I can't see this ever being affordable. Nonetheless, Helps was right in pointing out that over ten years of pre-construction costs for the developer only serve to inflate the rental prices. I'm just tired of looking at these eyesores on my daily walks. Over 40 years of vacancy and when the opportunity comes to redevelop they say no, let's wait a bit longer?

[Nparker]

This area could have been home to 100 people or more for years now, but then how could the CoV claim there's a housing crisis? Better derelict buildings than the "wrong" sort of residences.

[spanky123]

^Helps was called out for that by one of the councillors - either Loveday or Alto, I can't remember. I can't see this ever being affordable. Nonetheless, Helps was right in pointing out that over ten years of pre-construction costs for the developer only serve to inflate the rental prices. I'm just tired of looking at these eyesores on my daily walks. Over 40 years of vacancy and when the opportunity comes to redevelop they say no, let's wait a bit longer?

If I was Reliance I would be upset. When claims are made that are clearly false people ask what else may not be true. If one person on council voted against the proposal for that reason then that was enough to defeat the plans.

[aastra]

 

"They may be luxury apartment rentals now but they will come down in price as the building ages". I can't say that I have ever been to a waterfront city and found that to be the case.

 

Hang on a second, we're saying a tiny new boutique-style building would NOT instantly and automagically address the CoV's deliberate aggravation of the housing situation over the preceding several decades?

 

Restricting the building of new homes never helps. It never does anyone any good, it only makes things worse, as every Victorian knows by direct experience over the course of their lives.

 

Why do we fight the construction of large buildings that contain hundreds of units for ordinary people? Because adding a lot of ordinary people would ruin the neighbourhood.

Why do we fight the construction of small niche buildings that contain a small number of exceptional units? Because small niche buildings wouldn't add a lot of ordinary people into the neighbourhood.

 

It's all political theatre. Why are we still talking about this as if we don't understand it? If you truly and sincerely want to ease the housing crunch then you make it quicker and easier to build new housing. You don't hum and haw for years and go back and forth endlessly with inscrutable grievances.

[aastra]

Devon Properties website says Seaport Apartments (200 Dallas Rd) currently has one listing available (1 bedroom for $1395 per month)

 

Critics of new construction should note: those units were considered luxurious when new. And the rents in 2020 are higher than they were in 1973. They sure didn't get cheaper over time.

 

So in terms of the housing crunch, do we seriously believe it would have been preferable to have never built those 156 units? Or the thousands of other "luxury" units that were built back in that era, which now account for a huge share of the rentals and condos available to ordinary Victorians?

 

If we're truly worried about enhancing availability and diminishing exclusivity then the best approach would have been to double the number of units. But in 2020 some people subscribe to the contrarian notion that the best approach would be to prevent the units from ever existing in the first place. It's all just politics, about categorizing and labeling and dividing people. If all of those 1960s/1970s units were for the rich rather than for ordinary Victorians then who the heck lives in them now? Wait a minute: thousands of ordinary Victorians live in them. So are thousands of ordinary Victorians also rich and wallowing in exclusivity in their ostentatious apartments? Of course not, by definition the masses of ordinary people cannot also be rich and wallowing in exclusivity.

 

Yes, some units are going to be at the very top end and some units are going to be at the very bottom end. So what? Why are we so willing to let politicians divert our attention to the extremes and away from the meat of the issue?

 

It's all about availability. If units are in short supply then build more.

 

 

Daily Colonist
August 15, 1973

WATERFRONT
NOW RENTING
BRAND NEW
THE SEAPORT APARTMENTS
200 DALLAS ROAD

156 LARGE, FINELY APPOINTED SUITES LOCATED ON THE WATERFRONT AT VICTORIA'S GATEWAY TO THE PACIFIC ACROSS FROM THE BREAKWATER.

-Wall to wall shag
-China shelves
-Luxury appointments
-Enclosed pool
-2 billiard tables, workshop
-Therapy pool-sauna
-Best soundproofing
-30" fridges in all suites
-Frost-free fridges

Two Bedrooms from $195

 

[Casual Kev]

Devon Properties website says Seaport Apartments (200 Dallas Rd) currently has one listing available (1 bedroom for $1395 per month)

 

Critics of new construction should note: those units were considered luxurious when new. And the rents in 2020 are higher than they were in 1973. They sure didn't get cheaper over time.

 

So in terms of the housing crunch, do we seriously believe it would have been preferable to have never built those 156 units? Or the thousands of other "luxury" units that were built back in that era, which now account for a huge share of the rentals and condos available to ordinary Victorians?

 

If we're truly worried about enhancing availability and diminishing exclusivity then the best approach would have been to double the number of units. But in 2020 some people subscribe to the contrarian notion that the best approach would be to prevent the units from ever existing in the first place. It's all just politics, about categorizing and labeling and dividing people. If all of those 1960s/1970s units were for the rich rather than for ordinary Victorians then who the heck lives in them now? Wait a minute: thousands of ordinary Victorians live in them. So are thousands of ordinary Victorians also rich and wallowing in exclusivity in their ostentatious apartments? Of course not, by definition the masses of ordinary people cannot also be rich and wallowing in exclusivity.

 

Yes, some units are going to be at the very top end and some units are going to be at the very bottom end. So what? Why are we so willing to let politicians divert our attention to the extremes and away from the meat of the issue?

 

It's all about availability. If units are in short supply then build more.

 

I swear anything nowadays with stone countertops and stainless steel appliances is called "luxurious" in marketing materials, I suppose the embellishment was no different for whatever was trendy back then.

 

I agree, though - new stock will always be more expensive, due to building codes you can't deliberately build crappy cheap apartments. But once you introduce that new supply, you put downward pressure on rents for existing housing stock. The easiest way to see this is to compare the difference in prices between the Westshore and the core municipalities - it's not all that cheaper to rent in Langford because right now there isn't much rental stock on that side of town (RIP Danbrook One), but due to the sheer abundance of condos and single-family homes the price gap in that particular housing category is far more pronounced. 

[Greg]

There are only a couple of things you can do about a housing shortage. One of those is obviously to build more housing (and even expensive housing has a knock-on effect). The other is various forms of governmental intervention, most of which require a tax base to fund them, and most of that funding at the municipal level comes from property taxes. 

 

Those two old heritage buildings that have been descending into a state of rubble for decades are sitting on prime waterfront property, where they aren't housing people, and they aren't contributing to the tax base. Which seems like a damn shame to me.

[UserofVic]

The name Northern Junk was quire serendipitous since the fate of the buildings seem to be a junkyard

[todd]

The name Northern Junk was quire serendipitous since the fate of the buildings seem to be a junkyard

I find the decaying contrast uplifting getting harder and harder to find in the CRD. Any interior photos of the current buildings?

[aastra]

 

I swear anything nowadays with stone countertops and stainless steel appliances is called "luxurious" in marketing materials, I suppose the embellishment was no different for whatever was trendy back then.

 

For sure, the definition of "luxury" ranges as widely with the promoters as it does with the critics. It's impossible to pin it down.

 

Many formerly-luxurious-but-now-ordinary buildings have swimming pools, whereas swimming pools in new luxury buildings today are not nearly so common. Maybe today's luxury is less luxurious than it was in the past? Maybe today's exclusivity is less exclusive than it was in the past? And yet we're much more worried about the hypothetically negative impacts today than we were back then.

 

But we also scoff at it more today than we did back then. This new building claims to be luxurious but it's really not, it's just marketing. That new building claims to be exclusive but it's really not, it's just marketing.

 

We worry and we scoff at the same time: about the luxury, about the exclusivity, and about the desirability of the location.

 

"That proposed building is a joke. It's not really luxurious, it's not really exclusive, it's not really a desirable location. I'm going to fight it like crazy because it's ultra-luxurious, ultra-exclusive, and it will occupy an ultra-desirable location."

 

The contradictions and inconsistencies are endless, which is why this stuff is the bread-and-butter of the political angle. But come on, if it's so meaningless then that's all the more reason not to get hung up on it.