Building Height, Livability, the Housing Crisis, and the City of Lights
There's a building proposal for 205 Quebec Street, 507 Montreal Street, and 210-224 Kingston Street in Victoria's James Bay neighbourhood coming to the Committee of the Whole on Thursday, November 21.
This proposal first came to council in July 2023 as a 17 storey tower. Council sent it back with "a modified proposal that is more contextual to the surroundings, while retaining the approximate proposed number of homes and floor space ratio."
The applicant did that, and the proposal came back again in July 2024 as a 14 storey tower that staff concluded "generally fulfilled Council's direction." Council narrowly moved it…forward… sideways… "directing consultation on the proposed OCP amendment".
I have always thought this proposal was fine and deserved support. I still do. As I said in another letter to council on this project:
At the same time, Council's previous decision has delayed this project by an entire year. Even worse, as we all know, costs have gone up substantially, and those increased costs will be paid by the new residents and through the loss of community amenities.
Given that cost, it's worth asking what we gained. In July of last year, Council asked the applicant to come back with "a modified proposal that is more contextual to the surroundings, while retaining the approximate proposed number of homes and floor space ratio." The applicant responded by making a wider tower that's 14 storeys tall instead of 17 storeys, and staff has concluded that they have "generally fulfilled Council's direction.". In return for those four storeys, the city has lost four homes, will receive reduced amenity contributions, has lost the benefit of low-cost space to a non-profit organization, and has locked over 100 people out of a home for a year.
Of course, now we're up to a year and a half delay.
What follows, is based on a letter I wrote to the generally pro-housing members of Victoria's city council back in July of 2023. I think it has held up pretty well.
I’m writing to you because you have all committed to addressing Victoria’s housing supply issue. I want to start by saying how impressed I’ve been with your work so far this term, and how much I appreciate your commitment to abundant housing, active transportation, and livable neighbourhoods. That said, I was disappointed in your July 27 decision on 205 Quebec Street, 507 Montreal Street, and 210-224 Kingston Street.
I read, and understood, the staff report recommending that the proposal be declined. Given the current zoning and the OCP I don’t think staff could have made a different recommendation. Furthermore, I would have had an easier time if the council's response had been to accept the staff recommendation and to commit to modifying the OCP.
What I object to is the idea that this proposal was, fundamentally, “too tall”. It’s not, and it’s definitely not in the context of Victoria’s housing crisis. Here are some reasons:
- This decision, and the terms used to justify it, demonize the concept of “height” and imply that neighbourhoods where we choose to allow taller buildings, like Vic West where I live, are somehow “second class.” You may not have meant to do that, but you did, and that will make fixing Victoria’s housing shortage that much harder.
- The only perspective that matters is from the street. Building height is almost always less significant than the way the building relates to the street and the quality of landscaping. If the council wants to promote more livable neighbourhoods, I think we should focus far more on wider sidewalks (without poles in the middle), new street trees, and space for active transportation than height. More on this, below, in the section "An Experiment".
- I can’t see how the developers can return with a “better” proposal that is slightly shorter and has the same FSR and number of homes. A shorter proposal with the same FSR will necessarily be squatter and wider, and that will mean less greenspace. The neighbours will not approve, and all this decision will have done is delay the new homes, increase their cost, and cause bad feelings.
- When building heights are discussed, one of the terms that often comes up is whether we want a city like “Vancouver” or “Paris,” which is based on the observation that Vancouver has many tall buildings in its center, while Paris is famous for its 6-8 story residential buildings.
Vancouver’s population density is much lower than Paris’s. That’s because 6-8 story buildings are allowed virtually EVERYWHERE in Paris, and they’ve been building them for centuries, while most of the land in Vancouver (and Victoria) goes to low-rise single-detached houses. The density in Paris comes from the ubiquity of the mid-rise form. What does this mean for Victoria?
- If we want to go the “City of Paris” route, then we need to upzone the entire city to six to eight story buildings built to the street.
- We still need to build taller buildings in many areas because they’re the only way to deliver significant new housing quickly. Even if we do allow mid-rise forms everywhere, which we should, they require land assembly, and that is a slow, slow, process.
For the record, I would love to see Victoria evolve into a city of tree lined streets with a mix of mid-rise apartment buildings and townhouses. It’s a beautiful, highly livable, urban form, offers many living choices, and is both relatively inexpensive to build and has a low carbon footprint. However, even in my neighbourhood, I actively support taller buildings like the new Bosa proposals at Dockside and the even taller buildings at the Roundhouse. The reason is that we have a crisis right now, and we needed new homes years ago.
- There was a small group of very vocal opponents to this project that spoke at council meetings for months. I’m sure there were many letters in opposition. None of those are representative, and this decision makes it look like the Council caved to a classic NIMBY opposition tactic. That just invites more of the same
Victoria’s, and Canada’s, housing shortage is a major contributor to so many of our societal problems:
- Unaffordable housing.
- A shortage of workers.
- “Drive till you qualify” and the increased auto dependency and greenhouse gas emissions that entails
- Homelessness and the drug use, mental health issues, and crime that are associated with it.
We cannot afford to let a few angry neighbours dictate policy to an entire city in crisis.
Again, I deeply appreciate what you have done, and are doing, and I look forward to major steps on reforming the OCP, addressing excessive limitations in the Missing Middle policy, and on enhanced walkability, active transport, and better transit.
An Experiment
As promised earlier, here's a little experiment. The experiment takes the form of a walk down Tyee Road in Vic West, my neighbourhood.
And here's a picture of the section that was recently completed (it was just finishing up in 2023 when this photo was taken).
The question you need to answer is:
how tall are the buildings on the left?
The answer is at the end!
To make it easier, here's a video of me strolling down the same road:
Oh, and the buildings in the video range from nine to sixteen stories. The phase they're building next (someday) has a 16 and 19 story building, and, from the street, they won’t look any different either!
Notes
References
- Wvong, R. (2024, March 8). Image of the day: Vancouver vs. Paris. Vancouver Needs More Housing. https://morehousing.substack.com/p/paris
- Nolan, J. CityDensity.com. https://citydensity.com/
- Herriges, D. (2020, July 22). Is This Development "Out of Scale"?. Strong Towns. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/7/21/is-this-development-out-of-scale
- Colburn, G., Clayton, A. (2022). Homelessness Is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns. University of California Press Books. https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/
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