Developments after ever-increasing density
Re: “Spread the density around the capital region,” letter, Oct. 27.
I applaud the writer for pointing out the already high population density of Victoria. It is indeed time to put the brakes on “density intensification” and spread density out more equitably across the Capital Regional District.
I live in James Bay, which is already the densest community in Victoria. Yet it is not unusual for our community to have 30 development applications at any one time, the highest of any community.
Each application seems to compete for ever higher and ever denser developments. Despite vocal community opposition during the election, early reports suggest that the new mayor and council intend to continue the course of development at all cost, all too often overriding local area plans.
An approved development at Village Green on Menzies Street is an egregious example. The outgoing council approved the proposal, ignoring overwhelming opposition from the community. The development will demolish 45 units of low-cost housing (evicting all existing tenants), and replace them with 137 units of market-priced rental housing, at triple the height and density.
It will also destroy 17 mature bylaw-protected trees, a row of flowering plum trees and all existing green space visible to the community.
During the election campaign, a number of council candidates met with residents to discuss development concerns and committed to a gentler approach that is more community-sensitive and community-driven. We applaud those candidates and await evidence of an approach that respects and benefits communities over density at all cost.
Mariann Burka
Victoria
The problem was not just a few hanging around
Re: “Convenience store’s drip system to discourage loitering sparks debate,” Oct. 27.
I’m an early 5:30 a.m. regular visitor to the downtown 7-Eleven where the drip system was installed — and it was not just because “people were hanging around.”
The system was installed mostly because of the mind-boggling amount of garbage and urine piling up everyday from people camping out there. From old clothes and blankets to broken electronics, bike pieces, bottles, needles and medical waste, many times it covered the entire sidewalk. And who do you think is responsible for all that?
I would see the people who work at the store out there hosing off God knows what and sweeping up, they don’t get paid extra to do all that.
Not to mention the smell would get awful. So just for the sake of the employees and public health, I’m for the drip system.
Holly Stevens
Victoria
A fix to the St. Charles obstacle course
Anyone who regularly drives as we do on St. Charles Street between Fort and Fairfield knows they face an obstacle course.
The city allows parking on both sides of the street. It’s both an irritation and dangerous. I don’t understand why the city has not adopted the very simple fix we encountered during our many years in Kingston.
In that city’s inner core streets, parking is limited to alternate sides for 15 days each month. From the 1st to the 15th of each month one is allowed to park on one side; for the remainder of the month, the other side.
All it takes is new signs. What a wonderful, simple solution.
Sandy Cotton
Victoria
In London, blocking streets has been a failure
An interesting editorial in The Times newspaper of London, U.K., on Oct. 25 has relevance to Victoria.
In reviewing those London boroughs that have adopted a policy of blocking off residential side streets with the promise of “less pollution, safer side-streets, new cycle lanes and quieter walks to schools,” The Times concludes that these laudable initiatives “have proved an expensive and infuriating failure.”
Its investigation claims that total miles driven rose more in those boroughs that introduced the schemes than in those that didn’t, and that cars caught in congestion on main roads or having to take longer journeys had contributed to a significant increase in carbon emissions.
It also noted that as a result of introducing these measures with “scant consultation” (sound familiar?), “little thought has been given to access by emergency service vehicles or to the added pollution affecting schools situated on main roads” and pointed out that cycling lanes have been “successfully introduced without the need to fence off neighbourhoods.”
All this is very familiar to Victoria residents who, since the blocking of Vancouver and Richardson streets, have found themselves having to take circuitous routes to reach their destination while also experiencing more traffic and congestion on Cook Street, Foul Bay Road, Fairfield Road, Oak Bay Avenue, etc.
Perhaps the new Victoria council will follow the concluding recommendation in The Times’ editorial: that it should “listen to the complaints and rethink hastily imposed schemes.”
John Weaver
Victoria
Bright headlights can hurt drivers in front
Re: “Road-rage victim has no idea why driver ran him off road, then punched him,” Oct. 26.
Let me begin by emphasizing that I wholeheartedly agree with the victim when he says that nothing gave the other motorist licence to do what he did.
Having said this, I found the driver’s statement to be quite illuminating (no pun intended).
“I was trying to think about if I’d cut anybody off accidentally, but he was in front of me,” he said. “The only thing I can think about is if my lights in my truck, the truck being higher up, were shining right in his car.”
As a driver of a normal sized car, I can guarantee you this was exactly the case. I will often choose to pull over and let the offending vehicle pass, just to stop those lights from searing into my retinas. So far, though, I have resisted the urge to throw beverages at anyone’s vehicle.
Having experienced this literally thousands of times, I can attest that it comes across as pure bullying. On many occasions, the only thing that has stopped me from giving into road rage myself in this situation is reminding myself that the driver of the larger vehicle probably has no idea how their vehicle’s lights are affecting the driver in front of them, and that they are probably not tailgating intentionally.
And there’s the problem. Almost nobody leaves a safe following distance anymore, and trucks keep getting larger and taller, and those lights drill into the optic nerves of smaller vehicles in front them. I really believe it is time to make people who choose to drive these oversized vehicles take some kind of simulator training to make them understand how their driving can unfairly affect other motorists.
So there you have it. I’m sorry this had to happen to this gentleman, but now he knows why it happened, and I hope other truck drivers will read this and try to be more considerate toward those of us who choose not to drive obscenely large vehicles.
Norman McConnell
Victoria
Protect the rest of us, the entire community
Re: “Supreme Court ruling allowed those tent cities,” letter, Oct. 27.
Judge Carol Ross’s 2008 Supreme Court ruling giving the right of individuals to homestead in public parks under the powers conveyed by Article 7 of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms may be correct, but as time has proven, this ruling has certainly been annoying, impractical, dangerous and costly for the taxpaying citizens within our community.
Common sense would suggest we should have seen the current problem coming. The individual rights of all should have been considered in the ruling rendered by Ross by respecting the future safety of the majority.
Surely public safety is as equally important as individual rights, and therefore the police need the power to protect their citizens, their property, and businesses.
Thankfully I am not a lawyer, but I am a concerned citizen who believes law in such cases needs to be applied with at least some degree of practicality and overall sense of community.
Mark Appleton
Victoria
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