Yeah that’s completely fair and I apologize if I seem aggressive. I just see time and time again how big sweeping changes crush any and all nuance out of a subject. I’m not a fan of one-size-fits-all solutions because they typically don’t actually do the thing they say they’ll do.

Maybe next year you can recommend staff figure out a 12% increase

Designating the neighbourhood also means that city property (parks, streets, sidewalks) are likely designated as well. This means to repaving without a public hearing. It would waste so much council time.

If we water down the heritage designation bylaw then that’ll affect way more houses. We just simply cannot allow an entire blanket designation of the neighbourhood. That mean nothing will ever get better. There’s a reason we do it one lot at a time.

It also means absolutely no additions to buildings or their footprints. If you want to do any of those things you have to appear before council and be subject to a public hearing.

I agree, but that’s not what heritage designation is in Victoria. There’s a very specific bylaw and anything that gets designation MUST follow it. That means no visual changes to the appearance and materials of the property. It also means no alterations except those that are invisible from outside.

I am fully on board with protecting a large swath of heritage homes, but I simply can’t imagine a world where designating a mishmash neighbourhood with no remaining architectural cohesion is a good idea. Why freeze a seismically questionable post-war elementary school in amber forever??

How do we justify the old fucked up gas station on Menzies and Michigan that’s been closed for umpteen years becoming heritage-designated? Does that mean it simply can never be opened again, since the soil toxicity would require excavating the lot? What about the thrifty foods? It doesn’t make sense

Roughly half of the buildings in the neighbourhood are less than 60 years old. It may be an old neighbourhood, but it’s not a neighbourhood filled with intrinsically valuable heritage buildings.

I won’t tell you that you can’t think that way, but I truly believe that heritage designation should be for buildings that have heritage value. Emily Carr’s house absolutely deserves designation. But an ENTIRE neighborhood??

I guess that shows the value of the program!

Thank you for the detailed response!

I can’t wait to see the outcome.

My man 😎

The last one was a Saturday! I’m sure more will be going forward