Victoria City Style Council

West End Vancouver density

Fact checking: who is the densest?

Oct 11 2006, 11:38 PM EDT by Yule

Thread started: Sep 18 2006, 8:17 PM EDT Watch

Councillor Pam Madoff claims density in the West End actually decreased when single family homes replaced by highrises in the 1960s due to the large grassy setbacks. I would like to see the stats that back up this remarkable claim.

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RE: West End Vancouver density
By: Yule, Oct 11 2006, 11:38 PM EDT

Sorry, I wasn't signed in before: that comment above is from me (Yule).

I want to add something, though: you write "James Bay is the place council put buildings they don't know where else to put." What exactly do you think "council" is -- an omnipotent force or something? A "they"? Do you really think "council" is orchestrating development with some sort of unseen hand?

Look, no one is sitting around council table saying, "ok guys, let's spare Rockland and dump this next condo in James Bay." It doesn't work that way. Council is reactive, and you're reacting to the reaction. Great.

Nor is it the case that there's this evil cabal of developers sitting around in some backroom smoking cigars, saying, "ok guys, lets rodger JB till it bleeds."

You write, "James Bay needs help quickly." By whose lights? According to whose criteria? A friend of mine (Victoria native) moved out of JB because it was too parochial -- don't assume that you speak for everyone when you say "we want to keep it the way it was before it was," because chances are you're just representing one minority view.

Also, the idea that "James Bay needs help" is insulting. Help from whom? If the people who actually live there aren't on the barricades making a difference, maybe it's the case that your view is a minority view. Maybe you shouldn't be living in JB. Cities change. It might be sad, but consider the alternative: a place like the village of Portmeirion in North Wales, where the 60s cult classic "The Prisoner" was filmed, maybe? Believe it or not, I have friends from high school (Oak Bay High) who consider OB a PERFECT setting for the prisoner, which is why they left. Who needs to be a prisoner -- who wants to be a prisoner? Cities are made up of many different kinds of people, including non-prisoners, including people who won't agree with your point of view.

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Anonymous

The falls

New development

Sep 16 2006, 1:15 AM EDT by Yule

Langham Court

Langham Court Theatre article

Sep 11 2006, 2:27 PM EDT by Yule

Thread started: Sep 9 2006, 9:13 PM EDT Watch

Great article. I saw "Visiting Mr. Green" there a couple of years ago. Nice to know the renovations will ensure the viability of the theatre long into the future. It seems such a beloved and accepted part of the neighbourhood but I can imagine the uproar if it had never existed but was proposed today. The area residents would be up in arms. "A theatre! In our residential neighbourhood! Think of the parking! The crowds! The noise! The kittens! Nevah!!!"

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Fountain of Youth

Caracas

Sep 11 2006, 11:09 AM EDT by Stuart_de_Stael

Yule

Addendum added

Victoria History in a nutshell

Sep 7 2006, 1:59 PM EDT by Yule

Yule

comprehensive planning, planned ambitions: life happens

Victoria History in a nutshell

Sep 6 2006, 2:13 PM EDT by Yule

Thread started: Aug 29 2006, 10:29 PM EDT Watch

I want to comment / add more later, but for the meantime -- the Permanent Loan Bldg & the Campbell Bldg were destroyed during a period of ambitious, centrally planned urban thinking (is that even the right word?, thinking?; I guess it is...), which really reinforces, for me, the idea that centralised planning is NOT a good idea. We have councillors at City Hall and we have people in the neighbourhoods who want Centralised Planning Now, who want a Comprehensive Downtown Plan, and who want the Planning Dept to say with certainty what the boundaries of downtown will look like, along with the things within downtown. It's not the case that these people are evil or benighted, they just want rules, and accountability. But I can't help thinking that they're looking for them in the wrong place. "Do A., and B. will happen." Nuh-uh. It just doesn't work that way, not in a living city. Centralised planning and comprehensive plans/ rules choke the living life out of a place: they don't respect the spirit of the place.

Which is not to say that developers (who don't necessarily respect any plans/ rules) have the "spirit" of a place close to their hearts, because, let's face it, they have to check in with their wallets (kept in a back pocket, hence the expression "greedy-ass developer"... <joke>).

About Victoria's history: Confederation and the completion of the trans-Canada railway did the most to herald the deathknell for a vibrant Victoria, IMO. Once Vancouver had that bloody terminal, ALL the go-getters who knew a thing or two about the blood-sweat-and-tears necessary to building an economy got up and left Victoria. Just take a look at the history of the Chinese and the Jewish communities in Victoria for proof. The Leiser Warehouse (part of the lower Yates redevelopment) and the Leiser family are a case in point, as is the fact that Vic's Chinatown WAS the biggest/ oldest for a while, but was overtaken by Vancouver.

My money's on the internet: no RR needed now?

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Anonymous

Metropolitan Ambitions

Victoria History in a nutshell

Aug 29 2006, 9:49 PM EDT by Anonymous

Yule

"nesting" structure of this wiki format

Schuhuum -- 1322 Rockland Avenue

Aug 27 2006, 11:26 PM EDT by Yule

Anonymous

community consultation

Schuhuum -- 1322 Rockland Avenue

The Urban Cliff Revolution is happening in our western suburbs...

Aug 27 2006, 7:39 PM EDT by Yule

Thread started: Aug 26 2006, 7:06 PM EDT Watch

My initial thought is how this reminds me of the Castana/Food County debaucle in that the final result is likely much worse than if all sides stepped away from the table for a moment to sincerely consider what would be the best architectural solution for the site.

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RE: community consultation
By: Yule, Aug 27 2006, 7:39 PM EDT

There is some similarity with Castana/ Food Country insofar as developer and community have been at loggerheads since Day One. It's different, though, insofar as 1322 is tucked away in a residential spot and has no commercial component, unlike Castana, which is on a main street and includes residential and commercial.

I can't begin to speculate on financial similarities. All I know is that the current owner's original proposal would vault this (the 1322) development into the many-multi-million-dollar range (she bought the property for just under $2m [I think], and an earlier scaled-down proposal included 22 condos [average price?, maybe $400-500K?], 6 THs [average price?, at least $750K if not more], and the coachhouse [add another TH price at least], and... well, YOU do the math -- it's a ton of money, that's for sure...). Naturally, the $-amounts involved merely exacerbated hostilities and upped the ante all around.

What I find very interesting is that Rockland is ~70% renters -- i.e., it's a nice little fairy-tale to think of it as an enclave of SFH, but in reality it isn't. I'm not sure how Fairfield (the neighbourhood with Castana/ Food Country) adds up. But it is the case that the Rockland Neighbourhood Association has less than 10% of the Rockland population as members, and that its board is almost always exclusively composed of property owners, i.e., primarily people who own a SFH in Rockland, or even a MFH. The renters aren't represented, and don't seem to be interested in joining these boards, either (currently, one renter is on the board, but he has political ambitions [IMO] that go way beyond Rockland).

The fights take place between yesteryear's small-scale property owners and newer, big-scale property owners (the developers), with the renters staying out of it for the most part. That's too bad, I think. Since they make up the majority of the population, it would be interesting to know where they stand on development...

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Anonymous

KeyPlanet

Aug 4 2006, 11:21 AM EDT by Anonymous

Thread started: Jul 23 2006, 1:54 AM EDT Watch

On discovery of this Cliff Hypothesis (and I found it here, for which I am grateful), I've acquired it and knee deep in the first several chapters, hopefully to discover the primordial reason I'm in the highest building on Rockland, and Victoria. I don't think I can come down into the trees. I have cracked Da Valley Code.

Victoria is coined a Garden City - citta giardino - obviously because almost half the year is spring-like weather; cool and showery. Great for botany, but fatal to evening sidewalk culture. However, in many areas that were cleared at the turn of the last century, it is now returned to a Forest City, with much help from decades of environmental awareness. I look down on a Rockland submerged under 5 to 7 storey trees. I have guests thinking I live next to a park! Many homes in Uplands enjoy neither a sunrise nor set.

My last residence was clinging on the lower slopes of Gonzales Hill. But wherever I abode, I must have a view to the southwest. A view of the sky. Realtors can't fathom the request. Mountin view? Ocean view? No, a blue view. It's a grey winter here and you need to catch the few rays are thrown in the dark months during the cool monsoon.

I need to see the southwest because that's where are prevailing winds come from, that's where the weather comes from, that's where you can literally, see the future.

Skill-testing question; in which direction does the camera pan in cinema to seque to the future?

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KeyPlanet

Sustain and Retain: A short history based on the Upper Harbour

Jul 21 2006, 11:29 AM EDT by Yule

Thread started: Jul 21 2006, 12:15 AM EDT Watch

Victoria is a Terminal City, in more ways than one. It used to represent the brief end of one's life - retirement and death - and still does, but now, people have an extended semi-retirement (at socially acceptable earlier ages) and, lingering seniorhood, well subsidized.

But it also The End for many other aspirations and endevours, especially in the arts, acutely because of the perpetual small population.

It's the end of style, of grace, of form, including bodily form. Think of a body type and universal "dress code" for the City. I apologize for causing that thought. Is there ever a place where the rule of grump and frump still reigns.

Even provincial governments are borne and formed elsewhere in the ridings of the province, but die here in the Legislature.

Career professionals find themselves lying in the Velvet Rut, that soft swale in the their local lawns that prevents them from getting up and re-establishing - even a few kms to Vancouver - to successfully ply their talents. They're half-way into a grave.

Many in the City live on inheritances, the repitive legacy of terminality.

Don't dare begin to skip travel to other urbs, because the that terminal grip pulls you like a bony hand. And you find yourself not leaving for an entire year.

If it weren't for the gardens, the little City would've turned into a suicide capital like Venezia. In Victoria, it's the end, but a pleasant one. Spring is five months long, and winters are cool monsoons. It's a soft landing, the end, real soft. But it is, terminal.

Terminal City.

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RE: KeyPlanet
By: Yule, Jul 21 2006, 11:29 AM EDT

This a great and poetic (if somewhat depressing!) observation, KeyPlanet... Certainly when I and my other high school friends were at Vic High & OB High in the 70s, we couldn't wait to get away because options seemed to end here, while they seemed to begin elsewhere.

So, have I come back here to die, or (worse?) to grow soft? What an uncomfortable thought! Granted, those who "got away" and stayed that way still regard Victoria as a place for "losers," and Victoria continues to suffer from this schizophrenic attitude that on the one hand one is "better" or superior simply by dint of having made it all the way to here (notice how even newcomers often enough adopt this mantle of fabricated "uniqueness" and "Englishness"), while at the same time one must be a "loser" because one didn't manage to get out or stay away (the old "Victoria is only for retirees" story, so unless you're a rich retiree, you must be a real lost cause...)

But (and maybe I'm deluded), I like to think that we're potentially on the cutting edge of something new insofar as the internet is a sort of End of Ends: it reaches into even this "garden," this final (ends, again) colonial outpost of former (ended) empire, bringing new beginnings for conversation, polity, and (gasp!) economic activity. Perhaps those new beginnings will also all end in the same place (we all gotta die eventually), but perhaps Terminal City will grow fibreoptic connections that link us to the rest of the world after all, and show even the craniosclerotic (is that a word?) that the world doesn't end where you are. Let's say it's just beginning...? ;-)

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Anonymous

Right on! Human scale - not human sized

Jul 20 2006, 2:08 PM EDT by Anonymous

melanie

cars and the built environment

Jul 19 2006, 6:35 AM EDT by melanie

Thread started: Jul 17 2006, 10:53 PM EDT Watch

I look forward to your essay on the growth of suburbia which, while dependent on cars, could result from either an attempt to escape from a city destroyed by cars or an attempt to escape from (urban?) society for other reasons.

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Anonymous

Great Site.

Home

Jul 17 2006, 2:33 PM EDT by Yule

Human Scale in Vancouver

Jul 17 2006, 2:29 PM EDT by Yule

Thread started: Jul 17 2006, 2:14 AM EDT Watch

Skyscraper Page forumer KeyPlan passes along this essay from the Journal of Urban Design: Street-facing Dwelling Units and Livability: The Impacts of Emerging Building Types in Vancouver's High-Density Neighbourhoods (.pdf)
http://www-iurd.ced.berkeley.edu/pub/RP-2005-02.pdf

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Great essay.

Jul 16 2006, 2:27 AM EDT by Stuart_de_Stael

ben

This is great!

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