3582 replies to this topic

[dasmo]

But more disturbing is the global meddling into the fabric of our local established communities. The city (like every other city ramming this through right now) represents it like it’s a homegrown solution based on public engagement. It’s anything but and that’s alone should raise alarm bells.
The form itself is fantastic. The need for more affordable housing is without question. Will this policy redux achieve this aim?

[Victoria Watcher]

Probably not. I noticed yesterday there were only about two dozen residential lots for sale south of the Malahat. That’s pretty bleak.

[dasmo]

I am curious if they read my letter....

 

Dear Mayor Lisa Helps, Councillor Marianne Alto, Councillor Stephen Andrew, Councillor Sharmarke Dubow, Councillor Ben Isitt, Councillor Jeremy Loveday, Councillor Sarah Potts, Councillor Charlayne Thornton-Joe, Councillor Geoff Young,

I am opposed to the Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 22-045

I have been a resident of Victoria for most of my life. I have lived in Fairfield, Vic West, and the Fernwood neighborhoods. I have appreciated living in those neighborhoods distinctly because they were walkable and had tremendous character and connection to what makes Victoria such a great urban center which is its walkability. In Fairfield I lived in an illegal suite in a single family house and I also lived in a single family house in Fernwood that was converted to 3 suites. I lived in Fairfield again later in life as an owner and can say by observation single families do not seem to dominate these neighbourhoods already.
I appreciate the intention to add more housing inventory and to make housing more affordable. This is a huge problem in this area. I also think the forms proposed by the missing middle are elegant and an excellent foundation to urban planning. We are seeing some of this already happen in VicWest and in fact these forms already exist throughout the area.

What is missing is the transparency in this process and the true consideration for the outcome.

From a transparency perspective I find it disingenuous that this is being presented as a grass roots initiative based on public need and engagement. How can that be when a simple search of "missing middle" reveals that this exact same plan is being rolled out in most urban centers in Canada and America around the same time? All with the same rhetoric and images with only slight tweaks to make it appear local in nature. The origins of this plan come from "The Congress for the New Urbanism" a private organization without democratic leadership or transparent funding. This is where the "missing middle" and all the associated marketing materials come from. It doesn't appear to only be an inspiration point since the forms of rowhouses and multiplexes is nothing new even here in Victoria. What is new is the idea of amending zoning laws to essentially blanket up-zone existing communities and neighbourhoods without up-zoning them. One quote from their website "resources" section is mostly about how to market this idea to the public. For example:“ Brilliant communicators of the New Urbanism know how to get beyond rational arguments to the emotions that motivate people” There has actually been very poor public engagement. This also seems to be part of the marketing plan proposed by the CNU. "We all know about successful processes, as measured by the how-many count, that flunked out when it came to producing real, measurable results. So long as you view engagement essentially as an end goal, you’re missing out on its true value as a tool for moving communities forward. We unsettle people when we tell them, no, your goal shouldn’t be engagement. It should be disengagement. Reaching a point where trust has been built, people are satisfied and they retreat, confident that their interests are not being undermined.” with these sorts of instructions it's hard not to think the lack of engagement is by design.

These tools given to misdirect away from rational debate of course makes it difficult to talk rationally about this amendment since the rebuttals will be well prepared to redirect the conversation back  to the emotional appeals. The rational arguments against are this recrafting of all single family to include multifamily complexes would seem to be more likely to do the opposite of creating affordability. With each property now being a development opportunity the land value will rise. It is rational to expect taxes will increase as a result. Oregon is a bit earlier in their implementation and they are already talking about taking the next step to now encourage actual building out of the missing middle by changing their tax code to put more emphasis on land value since land values have lifted as a result. As Victoria's own report states this will not spur a flood of new development in the short term so it is reasonable to expect that the next step would be to "encourage" through more interventions. These neighborhoods are already full of suites so there is potential that this will simply displace affordable units with much more expensive units. But these are rational objections that are expected and have the CNU has prepared a methodology to dismiss them.

What I find it disturbing is the meddling into the fabric of our local established communities based on theories created in foreign thinktank. It might be offering the local governments an opportunity to appear like they are "doing something" to solve the affordable housing problem. But a great PR opportunity is not necessarily a real solution. "Doing something" shouldn't be rushed. Doing the right thing should have more weight especially when there is no evidence that this will actually address the issue it is proposing to solve. Will this bylaw revision create more affordable housing in reality? What is the clear definition of affordable housing?  What is the true impact of this action on our established communities in regards to affordability, transportation impacts, doctor access, general lifestyle? Why is it not transparent that this is not a home grown locally focused solution? Why isn't it being tested first in one area? Why are we not first observing the many other places implementing for a few years as test subjects? Why isn't it an election issue? There are simply too many unanswered questions to support rushing this amendment through.

[dasmo]

I was going to try and fit in a "Thanks Truckers" but kept my adult hat on as best I could.  

[dasmo]

Submit written comments:
You can provide your submission by email to publichearings@victoria.ca or by mail to Legislative Services, #1 Centennial Square, Victoria, BC V8W 1P6, or drop your submission off to the Ambassador in the City Hall Lobby (entrance off Pandora Avenue). Written submissions will be published on the Council Meeting Agenda if they are received by 2 p.m. on the day of the Council meeting when the Public Hearing will take place.

[aastra]

 

The city (like every other city ramming this through right now) represents it like it’s a homegrown solution based on public engagement. It’s anything but and that’s alone should raise alarm bells.

 

Every issue is uniquely local. Unique local solutions to address unique local circumstances. Only a conspiracy theorist would ever notice the exact same verbiage being used by politicians and news reporters in a thousand different locales to push the exact same initiatives at the exact same time.

 

Seriously though, we've already noted how Victoria is actually very well-supplied in this supposedly missing middle like few other places in Canada (in no small part because Victoria downplayed the highrise format like few other places in Canada). Suffice it to say, if Victoria had gone off the deep end and banned all other forms of housing except the "middle" stuff, it wouldn't have made any difference to the current narrative. There still wouldn't be enough middle. Crisis, crisis, crisis.

[Tom Braybrook]

Submit written comments:
You can provide your submission by email to publichearings@victoria.ca or by mail to Legislative Services, #1 Centennial Square, Victoria, BC V8W 1P6, or drop your submission off to the Ambassador in the City Hall Lobby (entrance off Pandora Avenue). Written submissions will be published on the Council Meeting Agenda if they are received by 2 p.m. on the day of the Council meeting when the Public Hearing will take place.

right...i was looking at video submissions

[dasmo]

right...i was looking at video submissions

If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have written so thanks.

[Jacques Cadé]

Here's a cheat sheet on the various issues raised by Missing Middle: https://www.focusonv...ue-analysis/68/

[Victoria Watcher]

Here's a cheat sheet on the various issues raised by Missing Middle: https://www.focusonv...ue-analysis/68/

 

Good piece.

 

 

 

Highlights:

 

 

TENANTS: Although more than 60 percent of the City’s residential land is technically zoned for single-family houses, many people live in those areas in garden flats, accessory homes, duplexes, and collectively in older houses or in houses carved into suites. Missing Middle could flatten these often-affordable rental homes, causing “displacement”—that is, putting their tenants out on the street. In July the City rewrote its Tenants Assistance Policy so Missing Middle developers can save thousands in City fees if they create a plan to help tenants evicted by a project—by giving them a paltry one month’s rent and moving expenses. “Why should tenants pay the huge price of losing their homes for people who can afford to buy new homes?” asks Leslie Robinson, a member of the City’s Renters Advisory Committee. “I’m not opposed to Missing Middle, I’m opposed to Missing Middle without tenant protection.”

 

____________________________

 

 

DENSITY: Under the City’s plan, six-unit houseplexes totalling up to 5,600 square feet and 10.5 metres (three storeys) tall will be possible, containing 75 percent more square-footage and three metres taller than what’s currently permitted for single-family homes. If you live in a bungalow next door, say hello to your new neighbours and goodbye to the sun.

 

____________________________

 

Despite all these concerns, Missing Middle may just turn out to be a slowly evolving experiment. (Minneapolis instituted its own scheme in 2019, and a year later it had produced only three new triplexes.) Land and new construction is already so expensive that the City’s financial analysis says the viability of Missing Middle projects will be “marginal,” producing a return on investment of 14 percent at best, below the 18 percent needed for bank financing. (The analysis also says the financial performance and likely rate of development will be “strongest in the neighbourhoods with higher residential values, such as James Bay, Fairfield, Gonzales and other nearby areas”—not uncoincidentally the neighbourhoods also showing the strongest resistance to the initiative.) 

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 03 August 2022 - 12:06 PM.

[dasmo]

They forgot the issue of transparency. This is not a local initiative based on public demand and feedback. It is agenda driven enabled by the tools provided by the congress for the new urbanism. I’m no journalist but one would think that would be an interesting thing to point out. These are all rational issues and as the CNU instructs, stay away from the rational and bring it back to the emotional. Expect a lot of that in the excusing of passing this regardless of the feedback against it.

[Nparker]

... Expect a lot of that in the excusing of passing this regardless of the feedback against it.

Which is exactly what is going to happen. Lisa Helps last (missing) middle finger to the citizens of Victoria.

[mbjj]

We know lots of people in Fairfield and they're all folks who raised families in that area and now still live in their homes even though their children are adults now. All single families in single family homes, most of which are smaller, one story houses. 

[Nparker]

...MP Laurel Collins and MLA Grace Lore have urged approval of the plan...

https://www.focusonv...ue-analysis/68/

I can't think of a better reason not to support the "missing middle" plan.

[dasmo]

I can't think of a better reason not to support the "missing middle" plan.

It's good work if you can get it.... I wish I could close my office and still get paid. 

 

GRACE LORE

I am honoured to be the MLA for Victoria-Beacon Hill and serve as Parliamentary Secretary of Gender Equity.

My constituency office is currently closed due to current events. My office is still committed to assisting constituents. You can get support from my staff by calling  (250) 952-4211 or emailing grace.lore.MLA@leg.bc.ca

[Nparker]

 

...My constituency office is currently closed due to current events...

  What current event is preventing her office from being open to her constituents? Is it closed in solidarity with the war in Ukraine? Has inflation made it too expensive to keep the lights on? Does she have monkeypox?

Ms. Lore may very well be the most useless MLA Victoria has ever had and she's not even a member of the opposition.

[Victoria Watcher]

  What current event is preventing her office from being open to her constituents? Is it closed in solidarity with the war in Ukraine? Has inflation made it too expensive to keep the lights on? Does she have monkeypox?

Ms. Lore may very well be the most useless MLA Victoria has ever had and she's not even a member of the opposition.

 

It's been closed for Covid for 2.5 years.

 

You're paying the rent for her downtown office, while her staff works from home.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 03 August 2022 - 04:51 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

From the Rockland community association letter:

t is only very recently that the details have emerged and been made public. Even then, they have continued to change. One such example is regarding height restrictions: initially, City staff advised that corner townhomes could be built up to 10.5 meters, while houseplexes in the middle of blocks would be limited to 8 meters. A fact sheet posted by the City in July 2022 states that a houseplex could now also be built to 10.5 meters, an increase of over 25%, which was certainly not part of the consultation process. The difference between an 8-meter high houseplex and a 10.5-meter high houseplex is massive, especially in the middle of a residential block of single-story houses, sitting just 1.5 meters from its neighbours' property lines. Such drastic change deserves meaningful consultation based on facts.

[Victoria Watcher]

I suspect the meeting will run very very long. Well past tonight.

[Nparker]

So I'll need snacks and lots of caffeinated beverages if I am going to take in the whole event. I assume it will be available for viewing online.