276 replies to this topic

[aastra]

I think Victorians need to pay more heed to having complete intersections. The character and the flavour of a neighbourhood or district can really take a hit when that completeness is lacking. It's just amazing how one bad corner (a strip mall, or a surface parking lot, or a lame open space, or whatever) can diminish the entire equation. If three of four corners are decent but one is bad, it doesn't produce a 75% score. It ends up being more like a 40%.

 

For example, Oak Bay Avenue's main intersection. Did that intersection really benefit when they wiped out the established atmosphere and introduced a whole lot of nothing in its place?

 

 

 

pic of Wick Building from Oak Bay Archives...

 

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pic from Oak Bay Archives...

Edited by aastra, 13 April 2022 - 12:55 PM.

[Mike K.]

So sketchy mid-block walkways chained and fenced-up are all the rage, but allowing pedestrians to cut corners at busy intersections is verboten?

In the span of 30 years, exactly four new buildings have materialized between Pandora and Discovery.

Snail’s pace is a fitting descriptor for the type of rapid development our Main Street has seen.

[aastra]

I should introduce you to a guy I know. He claims the development scene in Victoria is busy enough to justify a website just so people can talk about everything that goes on. And yet you say nothing ever happens.

 

 

So sketchy mid-block walkways chained and fenced-up are all the rage...

 

Like I say, the top priority should be to get the fundamentals right. Plazas, mid-block shortcuts, waterslides and rollercoasters shouldn't be the star elements.

[Nparker]

[Mike K.]

I should introduce you to a guy I know. He claims the development scene in Victoria is busy enough to justify a website just so people can talk about everything that goes on. And yet you say nothing ever happens.


Like I say, the top priority should be to get the fundamentals right. Plazas, mid-block shortcuts, waterslides and rollercoasters shouldn't be the star elements.

You’re right.

Let’s not rush into anything here. Statistically speaking another proposal will give us direction in seven years. One day, if we play it right, our grandchildren will experience the ultimate Main Street like our grandparents did.

[G-Man]

A corner plaza is supposed to be a solution to a problem caused by too much density and a lack of open space. This is not a problem North Downtown has right now so it looks odd to me.

I think we are past the point of being satisfied with anything so long as it is better than what was there before.

I don't think it is too much to ask an architect and developer to walk around the space they are considering and try to get the context of the area and maybe ask what we are trying to do.

This area needs strong urban spaces to detract from the many parking lots and ugly buildings.

[Mike K.]

The other three corners can do that, but this one, as the first out of the gate, gets to choose how it interacts with the intersection. The other two less so, and the last one not at all.

We can’t build a city that is tethered to what’s there now (adjacent to development sites), but will be developed some day (so it’s not even fixed in stone, it itself will change). You just gotta grab the reins and go, hoping the next pieces of the puzzle arrive a little sooner than seven years later. That’s been the problem with downtown for generations. Every new project was chained to the junk around it as though the junk had more value and -right- to the urban realm than the new stuff.

[Mike K.]

Speaking of which, all Langford does is build its downtown residential projects to the lot line, but it’s crickets from Victoria urbanists on the architecture there. They won’t even utter the words urbanism+Langford in the same paragraph, but they’re (Langford) doing out there what the urbanists are calling for in downtown Victoria.

So is it just criticism for the sake of criticism that we pick apart the relationships of downtown proposals with the street, because what’s being asked for downtown, is what’s being done in Langford, and not a single person calling for no setbacks ever had a positive thing to say about Langford’s efforts.

So it begs the question of just how sincere this all is when we largely hear how wrong everything is regarding Langford’s efforts.

[Mike K.]

An example of how they do it on Stew’s territory: https://goo.gl/maps/4N46yE6DWVyH4wV4A

Here’s another: https://goo.gl/maps/ds79yZbHdwMrTg3M7

And another: https://goo.gl/maps/4skJSgaq5z7CidPR6

One more: https://goo.gl/maps/CJkYQ6ZbFb8mi8yw8

[G-Man]

I don't get it. So Langford is doing it right by building to the lot line but Victoria is doing it right by creating plazas where we don't need them? Explain.

[Mike K.]

What I’m saying, is Langford is doing what the Victoria urbanists say they want to see downtown, but they harshly critique Langford for doing it.

Either there’s a total disconnect between what Langford is doing and ragging on it is just an accepted form of dialogue on Twitter, or they reject its urban form because it’s not the way to go, and variety with plazas, no setbacks, imposing podiums, less imposing podiums is the secret sauce after all.

Only one of those things is true. Which is it?

[Mike K.]

See, what it all comes down to, is the pace of approvals in Victoria is so slow, that you cannot build a city cohesively when you’re held back for 2-5 years just to garner approvals. This stuff needs to happen quickly, with a concise vision that bridges the proposals together.

We’ll be lucky if any of the other three corners get redeveloped in this decade. That’s how slow things are. So if Chard wants to go with a plaza, it’s all good. That plaza now becomes the urban form to meld to for the other guys. You’re not going to be seeing any other change at that intersection for a very, very long time, statistically speaking.

(Watch me eat my words as BC Housing pitches a redev of the Paul’s site, the hotel proposes an expansion and a philanthropist acquires the bombed out corner, all next month )

[G-Man]

I don't think anyone is ragging on downtown Langford. What you do see on twitter and elsewhere about Langford is concern about the swaths of forest being cut down for suburban single family homes. It is not Langford in and of itself, it is an idea (right or wrong) of what it represents, which is car dependency. But either way that doesn't mean that downtown Victoria needs to include inappropriate open spaces in its make up.

[G-Man]

And again we should ask for the form we need and not just take what we can get. The proposal has some positive points but we can ask for some refinement before it is approved.

[Mike K.]

From what I’ve seen, the talking points lament people moving “to” Langford. The rhetoric is that through a lack of housing in the core, people are forced to move to the West Shore, and that’s never supplanted with pictures of downtown Langford’s apartments built just the way you guys like them, it’s with pictures of some bloke clearing trees. The majority of Langford’s housing is urban, but the images are always of a clear cut.

I love this plaza. I think it will create a nice buffer from what will be a busy grocery store and Douglas, at the current entrance to downtown. But if that changes as the design progresses, I’m ok with that too.

[Mike K.]

Speaking of inappropriate spaces, the mid-block walkways imposed on developers and residents are a logistical nightmare for the people tasked with maintaining them.

Those walkways are solving a problem that doesn’t exist, and despite that, they are being forced on people who don’t want them all in the name of good urbanism. Good for whom? So if we’re going to challenge urban spaces, I’d start there, not with a plaza in front of a downtown tower.

[Victoria Watcher]

I love this plaza. I think it will create a nice buffer from what will be a busy grocery store and Douglas, at the current entrance to downtown. But if that changes as the design progresses, I’m ok with that too.

 

Grocery stores have to get their act together and get with the online program.  That includes having 23 varieties of pickles and not the same 5 you have on your shelves.

 

Hopefully this gets better over the next 5 years.

 

Of course, by then my Telsa Bot will do my grocery shopping in person if required.   

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 April 2022 - 08:50 AM.

[Mike K.]

Then you’ll love my mid-block walkway grocery store concept. Every walkway is an aisle of a grocery story, with enough room for lots of variety. You pay once you get to the end of the walkways. Or at the mid-point in the View parkade.

[G-Man]

I get that you are trying to rile me up 😉

Saying mid-block shouldn't be built because there are a few bad actors, is same as saying we shouldn't have roads because there are bad drivers. I mean think of the maintenance costs due to bad drivers. On the whole the vast majority of users of mid-block walkways are law abiding citizens.

[aastra]

Dude (Mike K.), you've served up some very strained non sequiturs over the years and we've all patiently suffered you without making so much as a peep (the mods can back me up on this), but today is the day I dare to politely and respectfully put my foot down.

 

Those Langford neighbourhoods you're showing are pretty decent. If I want to criticize them I would say there's just something about the way it all comes together that seems not entirely genuine, not permanent. I'd say the Selkirk waterfront or Vancouver's River District or the south campus neighbourhood at UBC are better examples of purpose-built neighbourhoods "on the fringes" that pull off a legitimate urban neighbourhood feel with better results.

 

But anyway, why is the discussion of a project at Douglas and Caledonia getting redirected to Langford? We're looking at the renderings of a major downtown development and we're wondering why it needs to have the de-urbanized treatment on the main corner.

 

Somebody humour us and alter the image so the grocery store is closer to Douglas. Who knows? In this case maybe we would say it seems better to be set back. But my question is, why is it set so far back to begin with?

 

If anything your Langford misdirections should lead us to wonder why a purpose-built neighbourhood in the deep suburbs should have urban-format corners but a major development at a very prominent intersection in downtown Victoria should not.