Building tall in Victoria

 

...what does this possibly have to do with having a "right to a view"?

It should be self-evident that such notions are absurd. If every view were guaranteed then it wouldn't be possible to build anything, anywhere. Somebody's view would always be impacted, whether building big or small, whether building short or tall, and whether viewed from nearby or afar. And what constitutes a preserved view as versus an altered view as versus a ruined/eliminated view? We've talked about it countless times, how things like the Empress Hotel, the legislative buildings, the RBCM etc. were all massive view blockers that stole harbour views from huge numbers of homes and businesses. So did those buildings ruin the view or didn't they?

Edited by aastra, 16 May 2019 - 10:00 AM.

A good illustration as to why no one has (or will ever have) a view in downtown Victoria.

Here's the James Bay mudflats in 1893. Nobody has a view here.

Not even the renters? I hope they were compensated for that.

Cookie-cutter architecture, too.

Hang some towels to dry over your balcony railing today and see what the reaction is.

Statistics Canada says there are ~46,000 private households in the city proper, and ~28,000 of them are renter households (which is a bit under 61%, so methinks we can assume this is what the writer was referring to).

 

The rental market report says there are ~17,500 rental apartments in the city proper.

 

Edit: Statistics Canada also says occupied dwellings of 1-4 rooms account for 60.x% of the private dwellings in the city proper.

Where I think it becomes misgiving is the amount of illegal basement suites, if a house has one then that entire house is counted as a renter household even thou the owners live there too?

17,500 rental apartments still seems high, but I guess I will believe it

I know a house that is occupied by the owners and it also has a rental suite and an airbnb room. How is that counted?

The owners are allowed to have a view, but the renters and Air BnB guests must wear blindfolds.

I suppose we'd need to read up on their definitions re: what a household is, what a dwelling is, etc.

A comment and a reply re: "The need for granularity in urban design". If developers can't build tall in the air then they'll build long around the ground:
 

 

Isn't course-grained urbanism inevitable when land costs are high and height is limited by zoning? On a high-priced piece of land, a landowner must build a lot of units to make a profit. And height limits prevent the landowner from doing this by building tall,thin buildings- so the only alternative is the kind of long, coarse-grained buildings seen above.

 

*****

 

It may be that our economic functions have scaled to such a degree that granular urbanism is outdated - i.e. the market isn't calling for a bunch of small businesses doing small things, but a bunch of large businesses doing large things. And this inevitably will be reflected in the build pattern. As you say, if these large corporations can't build long, stand-alone entities vertically, they'll do so horizontally.

I'll take a moment again to criticize the very tall towers under construction at Brentwood Mall. They're ponderously repetitive, and they sure didn't hold back with the standard-issue spandrel. Methinks you'd need to be a diehard "tall-for-the-sake-of-tall" skyscraper fanboy to take any satisfaction in stuff like that. I wouldn't say the design is ugly. I'd say the design is plain, unexceptional, etc. But it's the sheer amount of repetition that brings us around to the "U" word.

The podiums look like they'll probably be okay.

I don't know... maybe some people think a plain design is improved by excessive height, because the unexceptional thing is now exceptional in at least one aspect? If so, I don't agree with that. Buildings should have to earn that sort of prominence. The very first skyscrapers earned it. They still look great. Many of today's supertalls are mailing it in re: the design aspect.

Here's the Brentwood redevelopment master plan massing

It's pretty clear that Vancouver is positioning to become Canada's #1 city.*

I watched Candyman the other night (tis the season, right?) and was blown away that I had not noticed when I last watched it that the film had been partially filmed in Vancouver. Back then (early 90s) if you had shown someone Vancouver's modern-day skyline or its rapidly expanding suburban high density nodes you'd have been laughed out of the room. What the next 20 years hold will be nothing short of incredible judging by what has transpired over the last 20.

*Montreal is tired, it has no future apart from sustaining its existing industries and organizations, and a growing population. Toronto is the Big City today, but 50-years-ago it wasn't, that title belong to Montreal. Today Vancouver is the trading powerhouse with Asia and its global prominence is exceeding that of Toronto which gets attention because of its size, but Vancouver is unlike it or Montreal. Anyways, just musings, I guess.

It's pretty clear that Vancouver is positioning to become Canada's #1 city.*

I watched Candyman the other night (tis the season, right?) and was blown away that I had not noticed when I last watched it that the film had been partially filmed in Vancouver. Back then (early 90s) if you had shown someone Vancouver's modern-day skyline or its rapidly expanding suburban high density nodes you'd have been laughed out of the room. What the next 20 years hold will be nothing short of incredible judging by what has transpired over the last 20.

*Montreal is tired, it has no future apart from sustaining its existing industries and organizations, and a growing population. Toronto is the Big City today, but 50-years-ago it wasn't, that title belong to Montreal. Today Vancouver is the trading powerhouse with Asia and its global prominence is exceeding that of Toronto which gets attention because of its size, but Vancouver is unlike it or Montreal. Anyways, just musings, I guess.

Edited by Mattjvd, 29 October 2019 - 12:49 PM.

It's pretty clear that Vancouver is positioning to become Canada's #1 city.*

 

I watched Candyman the other night (tis the season, right?) and was blown away that I had not noticed when I last watched it that the film had been partially filmed in Vancouver. Back then (early 90s) if you had shown someone Vancouver's modern-day skyline or its rapidly expanding suburban high density nodes you'd have been laughed out of the room. What the next 20 years hold will be nothing short of incredible judging by what has transpired over the last 20.

 

*Montreal is tired, it has no future apart from sustaining its existing industries and organizations, and a growing population. Toronto is the Big City today, but 50-years-ago it wasn't, that title belong to Montreal. Today Vancouver is the trading powerhouse with Asia and its global prominence is exceeding that of Toronto which gets attention because of its size, but Vancouver is unlike it or Montreal. Anyways, just musings, I guess.

Merely curious Mike...Number 1 in what sense?

The GTA is and always will be Canada's financial heart; according to a StatsCan study in 2017 TO had 690 head offices, the Vancouver region was a distant third with 233, only slightly ahead of Calgary with 210; and lastly YVR currently sits at ~ 2.65 million people in the metro area, and I can`t ever envision it surpassing Tronna which is around six million `plus` and growing....

Speaking of building tall (in Vancouver), there are no renderings yet but Pinnacle is planning the tallest building outside Toronto in.... Burnaby. At 82 storeys or 900 ft, it'll be about 240 ft taller than the current tallest building in Vancouver, the Living Shangri-La, and about 80 ft taller than the current reigning non-Toronto tower, the Stantec Tower in Edmonton.

via https://urbanyvr.com...sed-for-burnaby