An article in Best of the City encourages you to: “Explore Victoria’s original neighbourhoods.”
Yes, explore historic neighbourhoods now as tomorrow they will be gone. James Bay is Victoria’s original extant family neighbourhood, the oldest urban neighbourhood north of San Francisco, west of Winnipeg, a quaint draw for nearly four million tourists who visit Victoria annually.
Several members of council are bent on destroying the historic character of James Bay to build ugly apartment towers as fast as they can, while the less charming and less tourist-visited areas of Victoria are largely left alone.
This past month, Coun. Jeremy Caradonna motioned to maintain an egregious developer proposal, as dense as proposed albeit lower, without further public or planning staff input for a redesign, effectively with carte blanche to build what they want. The development breaks most rules of the official community plan.
Will our citizens stand by while council concretes over Victoria’s cultural history, chasing away our tourism industry?
Kirk Buhne
Victoria
