[Victoria] Grace Lore | 2018 council candidate

I am curious about Ms. Lore's stance on desserts; multi-layer cakes specifically.

 

 

If you bring your Dutch Bakery cake box back to get another cake they will take 20 cents off your bill. Will candidate Lore promise to encourage other Victoria bakeries to adopt this policy? 

Edited by Rob Randall, 20 June 2018 - 01:45 PM.

cake.jpg
I am curious about Ms. Lore's stance on desserts; multi-layer cakes specifically.

She favours density and building up, not out.

She favours density and building up, not out.

So layer cakes it is then.

She favours density and building up, not out.

 

So layer cakes it is then.

 

Alternatively, you could place more cakes on the same size plate.

That's right, and so it shall remain right up until the heat death of the universe 

Hard Sun is coming.

I believe what might be even more unrealistic is to expect that such densification would ever be welcome in these older established Victoria neighborhoods to begin with.

 

Residents of Fairfield, Gonzales, Rockland and James Bay can easily look at Google Maps to see that the entire North End of town is a bunch of dumpy old single story warehouses with huge surface parking lots ... ripe for development.

A quick look at what they're doing at the old Hudsons Bay demonstrates how receptive and effective development of the North end of town actually is.

Why would residents of these single family home neighborhoods ever bless tearing their blocks apart when they can see a far better location to develop, even closer to the downtown core?

 

That large scale apartment and condo developments won't ever be welcomed by residents in the single family home areas of Victoria is a given (if you've lived here long enough - you already know that).

 

The North end of the COV awaits development ideas ... indeed it could not only solve the massive affordable housing crisis in the CRD, it could also be quite spectacular.

 

Forget about Fairfield and James Bay ... they're non-starters in terms of large scale development (and I currently own a home in Saanich, so I've no horse in this particular race).

 

 

Why is the narrative either preserve these neighbourhoods or destroy them by allowing anything more then a single family dwelling?

 

Why did downtown, Harris Green, James Bay, North Park, and Vic West absorb 74% of all growth in the last 7 years?

 

Why is it fair to say that if you want to raise a family in Victoria, there is essentially no housing available to you so you have to choose between driving till you qualify and living in the city you were raised in?

 

Why is it ok that the rest of the city is subsidizing the lifestyle of the few by essentially maintaining a moratorium on development in single family neighbourhoods which account for 68% of the city's land base?

 

What is neighbourhood character anyway? Was it spontaneously created in 1910? Or maybe 1950? Or maybe the day before the last person who moved in? Why dont we consider neighbourhood character"s" instead of character being defined by homogeneity in housing typology?

 

Is neighbourhood character becoming an alternative statement for: "I dont want a renter on my street", or "I dont want people who cant afford to live here...living here"?

 

At the end of the day, good densification is about supporting neighbourhoods as a neighbourhood of diverse people require diverse housing. This notion that the north end of town is "ripe" perpetuates two problems: 1. The principle that protection somewhere, causes displacement somewhere else. In the north end of town, the displacement is of highly valued industrial employment lands to 'somewhere else' aka driving more and also the gentrify of a lower income neighbourhood. 2. Why dont we densify the lowest density, richest neighbourhoods instead? If these neighbourhoods are so amazing that they needed to be frozen in time, why dont we share them with everybody? Especially since we the public is subsidizing them!

 

The funny thing is, if you were to ask residents people to paint a picture of what their ideal community is without saying the "D" word, you'd likely hear: walkable, good transit, schools, jobs, and great parks...they just described density! The challenge is that people want all these things but they want their neighbourhoods to remain exactly the same in regards to fit, density, and height. 

^ Spoken like a true developer of multi-family housing :-)

I've always maintained that neighborhoods should ultimately be controlled by the people who actually live in those neighborhoods, not people that don't live in the neighborhoods ... or may not yet even live in Victoria ... it just seems like the decent thing to do.

 

It's always the "have-nots" that want to take a little of what the "haves" have already got ... I get that - but that industrial land in the North end of town isn't quite as valuable as you propose it might be, and it would make an awfully nice place to live ... as the folks in and around the Victoria Public Market could tell you ... soon to be folks all the way out to Uptown.

 

I don't know how long you've lived in Victoria, but the locations you mentioned as absorbing the regions growth over the last decade or so were Victoria's low rent, less privileged neighborhoods in decades past.

When I was a kid, James Bay and Vic West were basically considered slums ... as a Gordon Head kid, we were told never to venture into either of one of them.

 

Development tends to work that way ... the nice places stay nice places ... and the less-nice places and industrial lands tend to get gentrified with the aim of eventually making them "nice places" too.

 

I support that general line of thinking as it pertains to development, and find it fair to residents who already live in old neighborhoods ... but I'm quite clear that many folks who would like to live in Fairfield, Gonzales, Rockland and other established neighborhoods don't support it, and feel that they have every right to demand a 14 story residential tower that they can buy a condo in be built on any given block in Fairfield ... mixed in among houses that have stood where they are for, in some cases, 100+ years (a formula that eventually gives you Vancouver's West End).

 

Underlying all of this is that, in my 61 years here in Victoria there's really never been anything at all that one could call mass development of affordable housing.

Even in the early 60's, folks who wanted to live here because of the weather and lifestyle put local property values far above similar property values in other cities and towns in B.C. ... and that ratio has never really changed even as the years turn into decades.

An example would be that my dad built a house out Glanford way in 1955 for $7000.00 (inc. property purchase), when he could have done the same thing elsewhere in the province for $3000.00 or $4000.00 --- literally half the cost.

 

Victoria has always only been affordable "now" only for those who purchased houses or condo's way back "then" -- a statement that rings true (without modification) if theoretically spoken at any point in the last 60 years ... and I don't expect any sort of development short of mass development of the Westshore would ever change that.

Edited by Cassidy, 21 June 2018 - 02:16 PM.

Spanky:

Yep, you are right   . I'm also a renter, millennial, father, consumer, cyclist, donut enthusiast, urbanist, and sport a mediocre dad-bod haha

 

The fact that I'm a developer doesn't preclude me from being able to study cities and hear from friends and family who are feeling heavily squeezed just trying to stay in our city. Check out: https://www.talktoaryze.ca/dialogue and read Ash and Ali's housing story. We have met with over 1000 people are out Talk to ARYZE booth at a few events recently and the story is really sad, young people choosing between kids and living in Victoria. 

 

Cassidy:

Good news, we agree on a lot of things. I have to be honest, we tend to hear the same things when doing projects in core neighbourhoods and the are legitimate...change is scary and we have to acknowledge that but we can't let it paralyze growth. 

 

Take Gonzales for example, since 1971, the area has added 31 net new people in 45 years...that is 0.6 people per year. It went from a working class neighbourhood with the highest share of children in the city to having the fastest decline of children between 2011 and 2016, a 45% increase in seniors to children ratio (city avg of 14%), school enrolment down 8% at MJ and the most expensive rents in the City 10 years in a row. During this time, there were 29 secondary suites (avg 600sq.ft), 11 new houses (avg 2400sq.ft), 1 duplex (2000sq.ft), and 22 new condos (avg 955sq.ft and $$$). So the protection of the housing character is resulting in the destruction of the people character.

 

Where we disagree is the people who don't live here year are just as valuable as those that do. Should we be making decisions about our planet for just the current citizens and not those to come?

Can't our administrators take all of the discussions on density and neighborhoods and move them (cut/paste?) to a different topic so this one CAN be for discussion re Grace Lore?

 

Take Gonzales for example, since 1971, the area has added 31 net new people in 45 years...that is 0.6 people per year. It went from a working class neighbourhood with the highest share of children in the city to having the fastest decline of children between 2011 and 2016, a 45% increase in seniors to children ratio (city avg of 14%), school enrolment down 8% at MJ and the most expensive rents in the City 10 years in a row. During this time, there were 29 secondary suites (avg 600sq.ft), 11 new houses (avg 2400sq.ft), 1 duplex (2000sq.ft), and 22 new condos (avg 955sq.ft and $$$). So the protection of the housing character is resulting in the destruction of the people character.

 

But don't you think a lot of that might just be kids grow up, leave school, leave home ... and the parents grow old, turn into senior citizens, and just continue living in the same house and same neighbourhood they've loved for the past 50 years?

 

Thus the number of children drops, and the number of seniors increases ... but in reality, nothing at all has changed other than some people grow up, and some other people grow old.

 

Parents then pass away, and the now grown kids decide to live in the Gonzales house that the parents willed to them ... remembering how good life was growing up in a neighbourhood like Gonzales, they then choose to keep the house in the family, and perhaps down the road raise their own kids in the same house they were raised in.

 

Sometimes things like this just aren't very complicated ... rather they're just people living in Victoria, and living out their good lives as they see fit to ... here in what is, at its core, probably one of the most fantastic places to live and grow up in on earth, it's all really just folks making good on wise investments made by themselves or their parents decades ago?

 

Sure there are the occasional tear-downs, and subsequent million and a half dollar "new" homes ... but I'm not sure that's really a bad thing ... it's just dead-slow change - which is how some residents of some neighbourhoods really like it to be.

 

Meanwhile, the North end of town awaits, with no existing residents, no NIMBY's, and tons of future Victoria residents desperately wanting to get a piece of the pie that my folks (and maybe your folks) baked up 60 or 70 years ago.

Edited by Cassidy, 21 June 2018 - 05:10 PM.

Can't our administrators take all of the discussions on density and neighborhoods and move them (cut/paste?) to a different topic so this one CAN be for discussion re Grace Lore?

We will. But we like to keep things in one location while a discussion is heated, and then move them. Usually.

Ok back on topic here. What's the deal is this candidate going to win or what? If she does will we suddenly feel good about Isitt's moderate approach or is she really just misunderstood here and literally not totally a hardcore leftist I swear lol.

I dunno, I think a candidate with Ms. Lore’s family oriented approach is what the city needs. Family-friendly neighbourhoods are crucial to a city and if Ms. Lore wants to fill that gap politically that’s great.

But don't you think a lot of that might just be kids grow up, leave school, leave home ... and the parents grow old, turn into senior citizens, and just continue living in the same house and same neighbourhood they've loved for the past 50 years?

 

Thus the number of children drops, and the number of seniors increases ... but in reality, nothing at all has changed other than some people grow up, and some other people grow old.

 

Parents then pass away, and the now grown kids decide to live in the Gonzales house that the parents willed to them ... remembering how good life was growing up in a neighbourhood like Gonzales, they then choose to keep the house in the family, and perhaps down the road raise their own kids in the same house they were raised in.

 

Sometimes things like this just aren't very complicated ... rather they're just people living in Victoria, and living out their good lives as they see fit to ... here in what is, at its core, probably one of the most fantastic places to live and grow up in on earth, it's all really just folks making good on wise investments made by themselves or their parents decades ago?

 

Sure there are the occasional tear-downs, and subsequent million and a half dollar "new" homes ... but I'm not sure that's really a bad thing ... it's just dead-slow change - which is how some residents of some neighbourhoods really like it to be.

 

Meanwhile, the North end of town awaits, with no existing residents, no NIMBY's, and tons of future Victoria residents desperately wanting to get a piece of the pie that my folks (and maybe your folks) baked up 60 or 70 years ago.

 

 

Cassidy, it all sounds very romantic and almost Tom Sawyer-ish the problem is there is a net cost to not densifying. Some of the costs are jobs far from homes, hour long commute times, un-cordinated transit investment, disproportionate property tax rates, productivity losses, and healthcare costs. In the US, it is estimated that urban sprawl costs $1 trillion per year. Is the plan really to leave these neighbourhoods alone and only let people in when their parents die and will them a house? That is essentially saying that because you weren't born 15 years ago, you've missed your chance to live in a beautiful Victoria neighbourhood. If we are going to make these kinds of reaching statements, I'd like to posture that you buy a property, not an entire neighbourhood. 

 

Why is it such a loathsome idea that how much money you have shouldn't determine whether you get to live near public amenities, beaches, parks, jobs and transit. In a society such as Canada that is built on immigration and caring for one another, shouldn't people of low and modest incomes deserve healthly, nice neighbourhoods to live in too?

Edited by PPPdev, 21 June 2018 - 06:21 PM.

Buying a property in a neighborhood should not entitle anyone to torpedo anything at a whim. Neither do neighborhoods live in self-contained bubbles; they always exist relative to their surroundings. For instance, Rockland is not desirable just because it has nice houses and a sense of "community"; it's desirable because it's centrally located in relation to Greater Victoria, next to jobs hosted in nearby neighborhoods with all kinds of amenities that taxpayers from diverse places help maintain, without the dirty industrial, noisy commerce, busy offices, spooky social services or commuter traffic hosted by other neighborhoods. 

 

You cut out Rockland and paste it just outside Duncan; how many of the residents who so vehemently keep new development out would still care about "character" and "community"? Wouldn't it be nice for them that the rezoning applications would stop coming? Ha.

 

And we're not even talking about an activist government allying themselves with crypto-communists to build Soviet-style projects next to golf courses. It's property owners wanting to build things in their own damned property, and people concerned that if the private market can't even do that, how the hell can the housing market function?

 

Like, someone like Lore coming along saying we should have more townhouses and rowhouses is not "big bad government will kick out law-abiding taxpayers out of their hard-earned homes". It's literally "we will allow people to build townhouses and rowhouses in their property".

Edited by Casual Kev, 21 June 2018 - 07:06 PM.

Cassidy, it all sounds very romantic and almost Tom Sawyer-ish 

Or maybe it's just real people living real lives.

 

Not every neighbourhood welcomes developers or developments, that's just the way it is.

I'm perfectly fine with situations where entire neighbourhoods get together and shut down a pending development.

 

No big deal ... folks can go live somewhere they can afford to live ... just like I did 25+ years ago when I desperately wanted to buy a house in Vancouver, but simply couldn't afford it ... and here I am 25 years later in Victoria, in my house.

 

That's just life.

 

Buy where you can afford to live, work where you can afford to live ... it's just not that hard to figure out.

One of the reasons Fairfield, Gonzales, and Rockland are so desirable is because they're not an overdeveloped West End (a still unaffordable, overdensified crap hole).

Edited by Cassidy, 21 June 2018 - 09:12 PM.

“Dear young person who was born and raised in Victoria. I’m sorry that it takes 16 years to save a down payment for a house these days. I wish there is something I could do but unfortunately we need to protect nearly 70% of our land base from renters and young people like you who want to have kids and live in a nice, walkable neighbourhood. We’ve worked really hard to maintain the neighbourhood character that is largely made up of an entire generation that held the same job from graduation to golden watch and were able to buy a house by saving a down payment in 5 years. If only you were born a earlier, you too could have kids in the city and have home security. Thank you for subsidizing our lifestyle, we really appreciate it. Anyway, time to go, this is a gated community here in the single-family land reserve.”

- SLR Commission

(written in jest and understand not everybody who is a boomer or SF homeowner feels this way)

Although written in jest, you've just summed up the definition of "not being able to afford to afford something you really, really, really want".