Link to letter on the Times Colonist website
Relying on council for the revised proposal
Re: “Proposed 17-storey James Bay tower deemed too high, sent back for redesign,” July 29.
The report about the Mike Geric Construction proposal to build a 17-storey block in James Bay being sent “back to the drawing board” unfortunately overlooks a key point.
The objections to the proposal were not just based on height. The proposed density also goes way outside the floor-space ratio currently permitted.
As Coun. Stephen Hammond put it, “this is simply too much”—112 units, as Geric proposed, is too many. Not all the council took that view.
The key point is that they voted for the revised proposal to go straight back to the council, without public consultation or even scrutiny by the council’s own advisory design panel. We are therefore dependent on the council to review the revised proposal. They still have the option of rejecting it.
Let’s watch what happens. Most of Victoria’s councillors were elected in 2022 for the first time, so we were voting on the basis of their promises.
Most said that James Bay is already dense and should not be densified further. At the next election, we can vote for them (or not) on the basis of what they actually did in office.
—Roland Clift, Victoria