3521 replies to this topic

[spanky123]

Oh it’ll be back, but not until July.

We just need more time to assess what’s in this report. City Hall is not doing a good enough job communicating what it is council is being asked to vote on.

 

Of course not, if they did then people would be opposed!

[Mike K.]

None of the other promised solutions have delivered the promises, so right before an election, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the electorate is very skeptical of the largest change to municipal governance in generations.

We supposedly solved homelessness in 2016 and in 2020. We also introduced changes that were supposed to mitigate the housing crisis circa 2015, by doing away with AirBnB and introducing garden suites. We then moved to solve the housing crisis again by fast-tracking rental proposals (anyone remember that?), and addressed affordability by introducing mandated affordable components into proposals (remember that, too?).

[dasmo]

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that if you rezone a property to be more valuable to redevelop that it will be more expensive. It takes an expert in doublespeak to present the idea as an affordability path.... The highest density cities are not the most affordable. 

one action towards affordability is to stop sending people letters that their house is now worth a million dollars. Change evalue BC to an index value. It's supposed to be for tax purposes right? Next examine the building code. We need to allow for people to build less expensive homes. Net zero is very expensive to build to. Plus it's not necessarily better since it doesn't look at things like embodied energy or waist etc. For xample: A quadruple pane window is not repairable. it's also more to produce and ship and install because of it's weight. My old house had single pane windows that were 90 years old. A rock went through one pane in the front from a car passing. Cost $100 to fix....

[Nparker]

There doesn't seem to be any level of government whose meddling with the housing market has had much beneficial effect.

[max.bravo]

I maintain that it’s insane that home ownership is out of reach for so many people in the second largest country in the world.

The Feds should solve this by creating 100+ new small cities across the country. release crown land in strategic locations (close to highways) in small parcel sizes. Create a new national bank that will finance lot and building costs (for individuals; not developers) if you can prove you can work from home in the new location. Or prioritize them for new immigrants. We have oodles of land, let’s put it to work.

Vancouver, toronto, Victoria, etc will always be expensive places to live. But not everyone needs to live there.

Edited by max.bravo, 27 May 2022 - 11:19 AM.

[Mike K.]

We do. But [insert reason] makes it such that we live in the CRD, with hundreds of vacant square kilometres of logged and re-logged land we deem sacred, that any other jurisdiction would allow us to build housing on.

Meanwhile, we compare ourselves to those jurisdictions with massive land bases, and say see, they have affordable housing! So can we!

[LJ]

I suspect it’s also a product of recognizing that big changes are occurring socially and the downtown core on which the CoV relies on heavily for taxation will not survive without a mass infusion of density.

However many thousands of workers not at the office now, are not coming back. But the cost of doing business downtown is rising. The only solution is a mass in-migration of new residents.

Careful what you wish for, Helps already engineered one mass immigration to the city, are you sure you want another?

[Nparker]

...Helps already engineered one mass immigration to the city...

To be fair, the Province stepped up with lots of taxpayer-funded housing for Helps' invitees.

[Mike K.]

Careful what you wish for, Helps already engineered one mass immigration to the city, are you sure you want another?

Oh I’m not advocating for it, but it’s perhaps the train of thought that is guiding some portion of this agenda.

[Victoria Watcher]

While the impact of the missing middle program isn’t known, Helps said, the result of doing nothing is “massively escalating costs of housing in our city and in our region.”

Helps said the program is not a silver bullet, but part of a suite of initiatives to tackle the housing crisis.


https://www.timescol...ictoria-5412330






If the impact of the program is unknown, why are we doing it? It’s a radical change.



ATTENTION all councilors reading this:

PILOT the program in the community where the association most welcomes it. 2-3 years. See what plays out. If it's wonderful, next term you can extend it further. And when detractors in the extended communities complain, say "look at XYZ community, they have had the program for 2/3 years and [results] has happened".

I've already volunteered North Park, Fernwood, Oaklands, North Jubilee, or Gorge/Burnside. Shop it around, who really wants it?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 28 May 2022 - 02:15 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

“This is not the affordable-housing initiative, it’s the attainable home ownership initiative,” she said. “The expedited affordable housing and the villages and corridors planning [strategy] is the affordable and the rental-housing initiative.”

Helps said increasing housing costs make it ever more difficult to attract city staff, doctors, teachers, mechanics and professionals to Victoria.

“We could be part of the solution,” she said. “We could help with these problems by getting out of the way so more housing can be built. We need to make it easier to build homes that families who live in our city can afford — it is that simple.”




Pretty sure city staff, doctors and mechanics and the like can all just drive in like most do now. No reason to convert single family communities to 6-plex heaven.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 28 May 2022 - 03:56 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

I’m coming around to Sparky’s view on this. We don’t need to build for new arrivals. Our housing stock is absolutely sufficient to support the local birth rate. And the City doesn’t need to “attract staff” from elsewhere. Train our own.

As I have stated in this thread previously, feel free to show us the jurisdiction where this type of density lead to the desired outcome here.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 28 May 2022 - 04:16 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

After months of planning, meetings and discussions, there’s been another delay to the City of Victoria’s Missing Middle initiative to rezone single-family neighbourhood — and the latest delay may kill the proposal for good.

The average price of a single family home sold in Victoria since 2018 is not $1 million, but millions, according to research by developer Julian West.

“What the data shows is this year, the average price was $2.2 million per home. This is expensive, luxury housing. There is no way to do affordable single homes.”

https://www.cheknews...r-good-1037120/

Just because an election is coming, does not automatically mean the proposal is dead forever. It’ll give residents an opportunity to vote for or against council and mayor candidates that are for and against this plan.

Sounds absolutely appropriate.

Still time to put a non-binding referendum question on the ballot this fall:

Do you support the draft “missing middle housing plan” for your specific community?

Then see how each area votes. That beats the very small 800-person feedback received so far.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 28 May 2022 - 04:25 AM.

[Mike K.]

The average house price in Victoria is $2.2 million between 2018 and today?

That’s some interesting math here.

[Victoria Watcher]

Ya, wonder where that number comes from.


What the data shows is this year, the average price was $2.2 million per home.



^ that’s the exact phrase.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 28 May 2022 - 06:43 AM.

[dasmo]

“There is no way to do affordable single homes.”
This what I keep saying. Let’s build 40s style shacks again. They would be affordable. Step code is a big problem.

[Victoria Watcher]

Step code lowers the house’s operating cost though. So it’s potentially a wash.

[dasmo]

Do the math. Net zero isn’t free. It’s just moving all the costs up front. My operating cost of my 1933 house was very low. $70/month in the summer and peak was $380 in the winter.

[Mike K.]

As dasmo rightly pointed out before, whatever eventual energy savings you might realize through Step Code means nothing when the replacement cost of materials is ridiculously high. And repairing is limited, if not impossible. Manufacturing isn’t energy-free just because it happens far away.

[Victoria Watcher]

Look, I’m not in favour of the step code, and I think heat exchangers are very expensive.