Link to letter on the Times Colonist website
Six storeys is enough for James Bay
Re: “Six storey buildings can be made attractive and homelike,” column, May 25.
Six-storey buildings can be attractive and, as Gene Miller points out, people living in buildings up to six storeys feel some “investment in place.”
There are many examples around our city of buildings up to six storeys that are attractive, both architecturally and as places to live.
There have been news articles about the declining market for high-rise buildings in major Canadian cities.
Cost of construction, affordability and a shift in buyer preference away from “a shoebox in the sky” are some of the reasons.
Why then is the city obsessed with promoting high-rise towers?
We can see an example of this playing out in James Bay, with Victoria city council promoting a zoning change to enable a 14-storey building in the heart of James Bay on a plot zoned for four to six storeys.
The project was not supported by city staff and local residents say: “Don’t do it, the site is already zoned for what the city needs.”
Is it too late for council to reconsider and listen to their own planners and the people who elected them, rather than a developer who only sees Victoria as real estate to be exploited?
—Elane Gray, Victoria