Mayor Lisa Helps announced two key platform commitments at the kick off for her re-election campaign, Friday.
While talk of bike lanes or homelessness might have been expected, Helps instead focused on two residential-based issues.
Her first priority would be to lower speed limits on local neighbourhood streets from 50 km/h to 30 km/h and “tactically enforce new rules.”
On her campaign website, Helps said the reasoning behind this move comes from two months’ worth of “kitchen table talks” with Victoria residents, both in small groups and in casual meetings with her.
“One key recommendation that came up at almost every gathering was: make our local neighbourhood streets safe for our children,” she wrote.
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Helps stated that she will work with city council, School District 61, the provincial government and the Greater Victoria Integrated Road Safety Unit to accomplish this.
Her second priority is to allow family-sized garden suites on Victoria’s plus-size property lots.
The application process for garden suites changed when Helps was first elected to be quicker and less expensive, but at this point garden suites are limited to one-bedroom suites.
With Helps’ proposed changes to the zoning process, she hopes to see multi-bedroom garden suites for families on plus-size lots, adding that there are currently 5,600 potential lots available.
This would help with the housing crisis, she said, while still sustaining the character of Victoria’s neighbourhoods.
To see more details of these commitments, head to lisahelpsvictoria.ca
