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Building tall in Victoria


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#201 Torrontes

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Posted 18 April 2020 - 11:04 AM

That's what I was wondering. If you look at the old ads for the "high end" apartments and condos they always list a variety of wild amenities, most of which disappeared over the years. 

 

Like bike workshops and gas firepits?   :whyme:



#202 Nparker

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Posted 18 April 2020 - 11:24 AM

Like bike workshops and gas firepits?   

I think these have recently been installed along side the new housing in the 900 block of Pandora.



#203 mbjj

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Posted 18 April 2020 - 01:42 PM

I lived in Orchard House in the late 1970s, then my mum lived in the suite until she went into a nursing home around 2000. The pool was great, I used to take my daughter over for a swim when she was little. The water was quite warm. There was an interior whirlpool as well. The grass always took a beating in the summer as I don't think they watered it. Last year my daughter and I went to look at a suite there. It had been very nicely renovated and was on the pool side. Don't recall the price.


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#204 Jackerbie

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Posted 20 April 2020 - 07:27 AM

That's what I was wondering. If you look at the old ads for the "high end" apartments and condos they always list a variety of wild amenities, most of which disappeared over the years. 

 

I know someone who lives in an older apartment across from Beacon Hill Park, and one of the amenities is a tiki bar. You have to be your own bartender, sure, but all the decor is there right down to a palm frond awning over the bar counter.


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#205 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 20 April 2020 - 07:36 AM

I know someone who lives in an older apartment across from Beacon Hill Park, and one of the amenities is a tiki bar. You have to be your own bartender, sure, but all the decor is there right down to a palm frond awning over the bar counter.

 

Enjoy the vast list of amenities available here including a pool, lounge/party room, view room on the roof, tiki-bar room, and a guest suite! 

 

http://www.vicreales...ria-bc-v8v-2p4/



#206 Jackerbie

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Posted 20 April 2020 - 07:43 AM

^ OK but no picture of the tiki bar in the listing? Guess they're saving it for the showing to get that WOW! moment and close the sale.


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#207 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 20 April 2020 - 07:47 AM

^ OK but no picture of the tiki bar in the listing? Guess they're saving it for the showing to get that WOW! moment and close the sale.

 

https://southislandc...et-victoria-bc/

 

 

 


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#208 aastra

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Posted 18 July 2020 - 04:33 PM

How many times have we seen this? When somebody attempts to define "human scale", they inevitably imply that the entirety of old Victoria is not and never was "human scale." If we like Victoria for what it is and was then why would we advocate for the inversion of everything that it is and was?

 

Anyway, I'm still hopeful they'll figure out a way to address that housing shortage and those rising taxes (while also impeding the creation of new homes for new taxpayers):

 

 

Daily Colonist
November 8, 1975

Mayoralty forum: Rising taxes, housing lack among problems facing Pollen's successor

(candidate) McElroy expressed basic support for city council's zoning policies, but said he would go one step further.

The existing 14-story or 140-foot height limit, he said, was still too overwhelming for certain parts of the city.

"The height of a building shouldn't exceed the distance it is located from the street. This will automatically cause a human scale of all buildings that are going up," he said.


Edited by aastra, 18 July 2020 - 04:34 PM.


#209 aastra

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Posted 18 July 2020 - 05:26 PM

This was specifically relating to the Reid plan, which certainly would have been flirting with disaster in many aspects. It was an extremely tall project, an extremely large project, an extreme design, and an extreme treatment for the waterfront site. Plenty of potential for regrettable results.

 

But if we play ball with Clack's premise, what happens when we try to apply it to a recent development like the Sovereign on Broughton?

 

Did the Sovereign ruin the entire area within a few years? No, obviously it did not.

 

So then does that mean the Sovereign isn't a highrise? Fair enough, it's only 11 stories, right? So let's say the Sovereign didn't ruin the entire area within a few years because it was never a highrise to begin with.

 

But then... why were some people so worried about the impact of the Sovereign? And why are some people worried about considerably shorter lowrise proposals in the old town area, such as at Northern Junk?

 

It's as if we've taken legitimate concerns related to potentially overwhelming projects in the past and misapplied those same concerns to ever smaller modern projects.

 

 

Daily Colonist
October 2, 1971

Clack Backs Old Town Concept for Victoria

"To put highrise apartments into the Old Town, near or at the Inner Harbour waterfront, is completely unnecessary," he said.

Permission for one highrise development, Clack said, would "ruin the entire area within a few years."


Edited by aastra, 18 July 2020 - 05:27 PM.


#210 Nparker

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Posted 18 July 2020 - 05:45 PM

 

This was specifically relating to the Reid plan, which certainly would have been flirting with disaster in many aspects...Plenty of potential for regrettable results...

Or maybe it would have encouraged other, better redevelopment of the waterfront. Instead we have had an additional 50 years of acres of asphalt as the first impression for many visitors to the city.



#211 Nparker

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Posted 18 July 2020 - 05:49 PM

 

The height of a building shouldn't exceed the distance it is located from the street

Does this mean that if a building is set 8 meters back from the street it can only be 8 meters tall? That's absurd. In which downtown cores has this architectural principle been consistently and effectively applied?



#212 sebberry

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Posted 18 July 2020 - 05:54 PM

How many times have we seen this? When somebody attempts to define "human scale", they inevitably imply that the entirety of old Victoria is not and never was "human scale." If we like Victoria for what it is and was then why would we advocate for the inversion of everything that it is and was?
 
Anyway, I'm still hopeful they'll figure out a way to address that housing shortage and those rising taxes (while also impeding the creation of new homes for new taxpayers):
 

Daily Colonist
November 8, 1975

Mayoralty forum: Rising taxes, housing lack among problems facing Pollen's successor

(candidate) McElroy expressed basic support for city council's zoning policies, but said he would go one step further.

The existing 14-story or 140-foot height limit, he said, was still too overwhelming for certain parts of the city.

"The height of a building shouldn't exceed the distance it is located from the street. This will automatically cause a human scale of all buildings that are going up," he said.



Sorry.. that last line. If a building is a sidewalk width from the street, how does that permit anything bigger than a dog house to be built?
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#213 aastra

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Posted 18 July 2020 - 06:02 PM

This is what I'm saying. He was calling for absurdly short buildings that would have been shorter than an average person in some situations. And why was he calling for such? To keep things "human scale". But if that's what "human scale" really is, then that means literally every building in Victoria's old town (the thing we're supposedly trying to preserve and protect) is many magnitudes beyond "human scale". (As we would logically expect... we're talking about buildings after all)

 

Can you really preserve a forest by prohibiting the planting of new trees and prohibiting anything taller than a shrub?


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#214 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 29 July 2020 - 04:25 AM

i see no good reason not to have this area all be tall.

 

and yes i have no great interest in seeing the industrial land/zoning preserved here.

 

 

 

the views up and down the gorge would be very nice.


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 29 July 2020 - 04:25 AM.

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#215 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 12 October 2021 - 07:21 AM

Tourists don’t come to see skyscrapers

 

Re: “Our new reality — fewer cruise ship visits,” commentary, Oct. 9.

 

Paul Servos lays the facts of Victoria’s cruise-ship dependency on the line.

 

Servos doesn’t say whether or not he thinks the ships ever contributed much — if anything — to Victoria’s economy.

 

The cruise ship industry has claimed that they produce tremendous benefits, but their boosters and Victoria’s shakers and movers never bothered to question them. The industry definitely benefited the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority mini-empire, which went about spending like a drunken sailor the fees it earned from each cruise-ship visit.

 

Now it’s time to face the fact we do depend on tourism and it’s time to do something about it. Tourists come here to savour Victoria’s harbour and heritage buildings, not to gape at ugly skyscrapers.

 

We’re killing the goose that laid the golden egg. We’re demolishing our history with high-rise development schemes to convert Victoria into a two-bit copy of Chicago.

 

Tim Davis
Victoria

 

https://www.timescol...r-65-1.24363329


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 12 October 2021 - 07:22 AM.

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#216 Nparker

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Posted 12 October 2021 - 07:26 AM

Perhaps Tim Davis can give an example of a tourist-drawing, heritage building that has been demolished to build a "skyscraper" in the CoV in the past 20 years.


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#217 Vin

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Posted 13 October 2021 - 03:47 PM

I think the problem with Victoria's Old Town is that since many of the remaining heritage buildings are rather modest in size, unlike those you see in bigger cities such as Montreal or London, the rise of newer developments will drown the heritage character of this city. which is the most charming part of it. Even at a modest 10 stories, many of these new featureless cookie cutters (eg. Yates on Yates) will turn the city centre into an ugly high-density bedroom community. The emergence of new ugly towers certainly does not elicit confidence of Victoria's ability to maintain its current heritage character.

 

Hence a good way to solve this problem is to have a new downtown district whereby all tall towers are held in a cluster. A perfect spot would be at the Rock Bay neighbourhood.


Edited by Vin, 13 October 2021 - 03:51 PM.


#218 Nparker

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Posted 13 October 2021 - 04:08 PM

Yates on Yates did not replace a heritage building. It replaced a parking lot. It is also not in old town.


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#219 aastra

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Posted 14 October 2021 - 09:22 AM

Victorians have been complaining about highrise buildings deterring tourists for decades now. I think the only tourism-related complaint that's been heard more often is the one where tourists complain about having a lousy view from a low floor.


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#220 Danma

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Posted 14 October 2021 - 11:03 AM

The emergence of new ugly towers certainly does not elicit confidence of Victoria's ability to maintain its current heritage character.

 

Right, right, so exactly where in downtown Victoria, west of Douglas, are we seeing big new buildings crushing Old Town? Cause I was down there a couple weeks ago, and everything that is going up is pretty much happening in non-touristy areas last time I checked.

Or are you thinking that cruise ship tourists are coming here to check out Market on Yates or the Romeo's on Blanchard?


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