652 replies to this topic

[G-Man]

I am disappointed though not surprised. Tragic. 

[RFS]

Issit indicated at a previous meeting (for the Cook & Pendergast development) that he would not support any market housing at this time. 

 

How can a Councillor make a statement like this and not be laughed out of town 

[aastra]

 

How can a Councillor make a statement like this and not be laughed out of town

 

It's a time of crisis so people expect their heroic politicians to be focused on the important stuff. Fluff issues like employment or housing can take a back seat.

 

(And please resist the temptation to remember how fluff issues like employment and housing were already taking a back seat long before today.)

[Greg]

I'm in favor of affordable housing in general. But anyone that thinks we should be building affordable housing on prime waterfront lots is just not thinking clearly.

[Nparker]

...anyone that thinks we should be building affordable housing on prime waterfront lots is just not thinking clearly.

That's the thing about ideology trumping practicality. The CoV could have sold the land around NJ to the developer for a very good price. This money could then have been used to build affordable housing in a more practical location. But when you are driven by ideology, your only motivation is sticking it to those you consider the enemies of your beliefs, and that is precisely what Council* is doing here.

*I am not entirely sure of Geoff Young's motivation, except perhaps he thought it was time for him to be curmudgeonly.

[On the Level]

Ironically, this churn is extremely expensive.  All it does is drive up prices and makes it less likely to have affordable housing in the CoV. 

[Casual Kev]

I'd make a communist joke but Young was also opposed? What gives? 

[Brantastic]

Young felt the additions overwhelmed the heritage buildings and was upset that it had come to a point where the developer could not build on the northern city-owned property instead. 

[DavidSchell]

Northern Junk referred back to staff, failed to get approval to go to public hearing.  Issit, Dubow, CJ, Young and Loveday opposed.

 

OMG, we need to boot this counsel out ... this is just beyond belief    

[Nparker]

Young felt the additions overwhelmed the heritage buildings and was upset that it had come to a point where the developer could not build on the northern city-owned property instead. 

I can't say I disagree with this, but between the city and the DRA that ship sailed some time ago.

[jstovell]

https://www.timescol...ears-1.24151034

[MarkoJ]

This is one pathetic city council.

Edited by MarkoJ, 12 June 2020 - 07:32 AM.

[Mike K.]

Meanwhile the Sparrow project on Cook and Hillside was approved: https://victoria.cit...condos/sparrow/

[aastra]

Methinks the entire saga is a perfect summary of the actual attitudes that have always festered beneath the "we love heritage, we love downtown" window dressing. Anyone who reads that TC article and still doesn't understand the game will never get it.

 

The city and the public have "very high" expectations. Not inscrutable expectations, not feigned expectations, not spurious expectations, not circuitous expectations, not contradictory expectations... but "very high" expectations. Those expectations are so high that they still can't be expressed in words in a manner that comes anywhere close to being definitive, even after more than a decade. Just give us something that meets our very high expectations, for crying out loud! What's so difficult?

 

And yet again I have to give a point to Lisa Helps for her quote:

 

 

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.

 

Obviously every single one of them understands this, not just for this project but for all housing projects. But I have to give her a point for saying it, and a point to the TC for printing it.

[aastra]

Hmmm. Maybe it would be better if the old buildings were set apart from the new construction?

 

You mean like how they were set apart in that excellent proposal from several years ago that we crapped all over?

 

Yeah, like that. That one was really good.

[Nparker]

Hmmm. Maybe it would be better if the old buildings were set apart from the new construction? You mean like how they were set apart in that excellent proposal from several years ago that we crapped all over?

Don't count me as part of "we". I much preferred the earlier proposals that preserved the heritage structures in more or less their original forms, rather than turning them into foundations for new construction.

[aastra]

The sheer amount of variation evident in the style, massing, and scale of the various proposals testifies to how broken the process is.

 

Heck, for me personally I've loved some of them, I've hated some of them, and I've been in the middle about some of them. But the critics have hated all of them, seemingly by default, even though their complaints tend to swirl around some undefinable & hypothetical ideal rather than relating to the specific attributes of the proposals themselves.

 

Every meal on the menu has been rejected. Every book on the shelf has been rejected. But there's nothing wrong with the process. Don't you dare suggest there's something wrong with the process. All we ask is that you give us something good.

[aastra]

When we claim Victoria's identity is so impossibly difficult to pin down, what are we really saying? Victoria has no identity?

 

(This is the implication, but it's baloney. Certain forces are still trying to force a false identity upon Victoria. The city's real identity keeps bubbling up and those forces keep trying to pound it down with a sledgehammer.)

[Nparker]

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

[Mike K.]

Obviously every single one of them understands this, not just for this project but for all housing projects. But I have to give her a point for saying it, and a point to the TC for printing it.

 

How many points did we subtract back when anything over five-storeys was a "tower" as far as the TC was concerned, with tale after tale that such proposals would "ruin" the Victoria as we "know it?"

 

It's too little, too late. These players created the housing crunch and now, decades later, they're realizing bureaucracy leads to higher costs which leads to affordability issues which leads to a housing crisis? We told them that 20 years ago, for free, but what we got back in return was ridicule.