Link to comment on the Times Colonist website
This huge influx of high-end market-priced condos would rise 14 storeys above ground, dwarfing nearby structures
A commentary by a former president of two Canadian universities who was born and raised in Victoria and lives in James Bay.
A construction project proposed for James Bay envisions a massive brutalist tower to be built on a parking lot in a residential area that is already characterized by unusually high density and traffic congestion.
This huge influx of high-end market-priced condos would rise 14 storeys above ground, dwarfing nearby structures.
Despite the opposition to this proposal expressed by more than 90 per cent of respondents during its public engagement process and by the city’s professional planners on all three occasions when they were asked for recommendations, last spring, Victoria council moved it forward to the public hearing stage required because it involved changes in the then Official Community Plan and bylaw regulations.
For the following six months, nothing apparently happened on this file.
Last week, city staff were asked by some constituents for an update on scheduling the promised public hearing, but they received no response.
After a search of the city’s website over Thanksgiving weekend, residents discovered that:
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The matter has been placed on council’s agenda for determination at this Thursday’s meeting, without informing those who have been asking about it;
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The public hearing has been cancelled since the recently railroaded OCP revision forbids one to be held in such cases; and
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This citizen-silencing has been justified because the new OCP conditionally permits such disproportionate erections if they’re located within the “Inner Harbour District,” to which this site was quietly shifted during the OCP revision.
What kind of a railroad is city council running here?
The proposed project will do nothing to advance affordable housing in Victoria, despite Coun. Dave Thompson’s curious claim that somehow it will bring about what he calls “aging into affordability”; most of the community “amenities” proposed as “sweeteners” by the developer are neither needed nor wanted in that vicinity and will do more harm than good to the neighbourhood (including a traffic-jamming day care centre, in an area deemed not long ago by the Ministry of Education and Child Care to be “already well served”); and the project’s proponent has recently been fined for “repeated and high risk” workplace safety violations.
Nevertheless, this proposal has been consistently supported by Mayor Marianne Alto, with councillors Matt Dell, Jeremy Caradonna, Krista Loughton and Thompson—all of whom accepted campaign donations from its developer. None of those opposing it did so.
The “gang of five” may well endorse it again this week, without any further opportunity for public input, despite significant changes in both the project proposed and the procedure followed since it was last considered.
Yet, one searches in vain for reasons that would justify a councillor’s approval of this neighbourhood-destroying construction, although such reasons will need to be revealed because of obligations in the Code of Conduct governing their behaviour, which require compliance with the principles of openness and transparency.
Also, their code’s principles of competence and diligence necessitate that if there is something about this specific proposal by this particular developer that justifies their approval, councillors should secure assurance that it will in fact be built there, including a prudent revocation provision that will prevent our public officials from being “played” by the developer’s subsequent “flipping” of the property for the profit that council’s approval could bring him.
It will certainly be interesting to see who votes how and why on this contentious issue, as council prematurely rushes to conclude this flawed and undemocratic process.