Van dwellers expect everyone else to pay
Re: “Victoria mayor gets an earful on Dallas Road vans,” Feb. 5.
People who say there’s nowhere in Victoria to discharge grey water are wrong. They’re not looking hard enough, as there are locations. Fort Victoria RV Park is one that comes to mind and they do charge a fee.
The problem with these van campers is that they want services for free. They quickly forget that the rest of us pay fees or taxes for services such as garbage and sewage.
I’m pretty darn sure these campers are not paying property taxes for parking on Dallas Road along with other parks in the city — Esquimalt Gorge Park and Gorge Waterway Park in Saanich are two that are used by van campers all the time.
They simply don’t want to pay for RV parking or for their services. They expect the rest of us to pay for them.
Mike Briggs
Esquimalt
Victoria should consider a subsidized RV park
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps seems to be missing an excellent opportunity to solve two problems at the same time, namely camping on Dallas Road and homelessness.
What about a subsidized RV park in the city? Users would have to be able to prove their inability to pay full price for accommodation, similar to the test for subsidized housing. Stays could be limited to a maximum period per month.
I fully expect that there would be a huge market for such an offering. In fact, rentals and/or sales of used RVs, trailers and vans might just skyrocket.
Bruce Morrison
Colwood
Provide services for street campers, as in U.S.
In Victoria, the reality is that some people have to live as nomads in their vehicles.
We have witnessed the intolerance expressed by those privileged enough to enjoy adequate accommodation.
Dallas Road is often sought after for access to the very limited number of public-toilet facilities in Victoria, not for the lovely views.
The lack of affordable housing is only increasing, as Victoria offers large bonuses to those developers who have moved on from condo developments to create pricey and profitable rentals.
This is in response to the fact that the condominiums have priced themselves out of the market.
Regulation and enforcement are primitive responses. The segment of our population living in their vehicles do so because they have no alternative. These include students at UVic, the servers at your favourite restaurant, construction workers and the underemployed.
This is a poverty issue and one that requires an imaginative and sympathetic solution.
Many cities in the U.S. have come up with responses that include providing areas where longer-term parking is available, as well as rudimentary services such as bathrooms, garbage collection and outdoor kitchens.
Time for city council to squeeze the development community to support this displaced population — a problem that they have created.
Marc Pakenham
James Bay
Certifying self-contained vehicles fair compromise
Re: “New rules target Dallas Road van campers,” Feb. 2.
Funny to hear owners of million-dollar homes disparaging the “van-lifers” who park on Dallas Road — can’t be sharing those ocean views with the commoners!
In all seriousness, though, perhaps Victoria could consider following in New Zealand’s footsteps.
New Zealand has implemented rules for Freedom Camping in order to facilitate environmentally sensitive, orderly use of public lands.
Parks in New Zealand will indicate if no camping whatsoever is allowed (often in culturally sensitive areas), or if camping is allowed by self-contained vehicles.
A self-contained vehicle must meet the “self containment of motor caravans and caravans standard,” which stipulates that you need to be able to live in it for three days without getting more water or dumping waste.
The self-contained vehicle must have a toilet, fresh-water storage, wastewater storage and a rubbish bin with a lid. Vehicles are inspected, and if the criteria are met, they are issued an official sticker.
While this solution is sure to make neither side of the Dallas Road debate happy, it seems to be a fair compromise.
The rules will enhance the likelihood that only conscientious individuals who take care to get certified are using these public spaces overnight. It will allow the city to protect particularly sensitive areas, and hopefully prevent the loss of freedom that would come with outright closures to overnight parking, which are the currently proposed solution.
For more information about the rules for Freedom Camping, go to: govt.nz/browse/recreation-and-the-environment/freedom-camping.
Sadie Quintal
Victoria
Lack of enforcement invites land ‘liveaboards’
Has anyone noticed the proliferation of wheeled street dwellers in their neighbourhoods?
“Liveaboards” on land abound in our temperate climate. That dilapidated old beater down the street is your new neighbour.
Why would he want to freeze in Winnipeg when Victoria beckons? Bylaw non-enforcement is the new solution to the political hot potato of dealing with tent-city social warriors and indigents.
Sweeping our exploding city’s serious problems under the carpet seems to be the norm. This latest passive invitation to the homeless and legions of the lost, no longer welcome in their parents’ basements, is merely a deferment of this problem.
Doing nothing only ensures that more will come.
We don’t build city walls any more to keep out the unwelcome, so maybe it’s time to get creative.
It’s about good maintenance. The underside of our city hall carpet is getting very lumpy.
And the fence the mayors are sitting on needs a new gate and some active keepers.
Russell Thompson
Victoria
Why do students have cars, anyway?
Saanich is considering allowing more unrelated occupants renting a home in an effort to increase affordable housing for UVic students. Several residents have protested this for various reasons, one being the marked increase in vehicles parked on the streets this brings, causing more congestion and safety issues for residents. Consider the following:
We have had numerous protests by UVic students urging governments to reduce carbon emissions and shut down the oil and gas industry. There is currently a student-led group that is calling for UVic to divest from fossil-fuel investments.
The UVic Undergraduate Students’ Society provides a mandatory transit pass plan for all undergraduate and graduate students.
Saanich has constructed bike lanes on major arteries into UVic.
I have some questions:
• How can “starving students” afford to own cars? This includes parking fees at UVic.
• Why don’t these students save money and use the already-paid-for bus passes or bike on the lanes provided?
• Why aren’t these students with cars curbing greenhouse gas emissions by instead using green forms of transportation readily made available and paid for, thus supporting UVic’s environmental agenda?
Maybe parking should be restricted so that occupants of rental homes must park on site. Given the points raised above, surely cash-strapped environmentally conscious students shouldn’t have a problem with that.
J. St. Gelais
Victoria
Do we want to become a high-rise metropolis?
The cost of housing is daunting for many here in the Capital Regional District, but the solutions are hard.
Silicon Valley, California, where I lived before coming here, was once a valley dominated by orchards and agriculture. Drawn to the opportunities and the climate, people came from all over the world.
Orchards were replaced with houses, local roads became highways, which became freeways, which became bigger freeways in order to handle traffic from homes being built ever further out.
Communities and cities merged and it is now an unbroken metropolis that stretches 200 kilometres, and it is still one of the most expensive housing markets in the world.
Just across the water from Victoria, Vancouver’s skyline is a forest of 20-storey apartment buildings, and it suffers from equally high prices and impossible traffic.
Will more high-rises in Victoria help with costs? It’s not lack of housing that is the problem. It is the demand that comes from people outside the region who are willing to pay more to live here.
Replacing Victoria’s old homes with high-density high-rise condos won’t make housing cheaper as long as people keep moving here.
What we need instead is a vision of what we want Victoria to become. Do we want a charming city of beautiful neighbourhoods and parks, or a bustling metropolis of high-rises?
I know which is more profitable for developers, but it’s not what I would want for Victoria.
Raymond Fischer
Victoria
Send us your letters
• Email: [email protected]
• Mail: Letters to the editor, Times Colonist, 2621 Douglas St., Victoria, B.C. V8T 4M2.
