I recently read in Victoria news that the City of Victoria proposes rezoning a part of Broughton Street to allow a seven-metre setback rather that the required eight metres. Are our cities not crowded enough? The city is taking an open space and filling it with a large building and then reducing the amount of setback even more than is absolutely minimal. Such crowding makes the city basically unlivable.
In addition, the residential building is proposed to have no parking for either residents or visitors. The city says that 40 per cent of downtown households do not own cars. This is a deceiving statistic. How many residential buildings are there wherein none of the residents own a car and none of the residents have visitors that do not own cars. Probably none or very very few. Plus, how many of those households that do not own cars would prefer to own a car but simply cannot because of the limited number of places to put a car and the expense created by their residence that makes it difficult to own a car.
The city is creating a mess by forcing automobiles associated with this residence to park on the street or by making a poor worker who must have a car to keep their job to pay high fees just to park the car. The actual rent for this person will be astronomical when one includes the rent for the car. Is the city saying that if a car is required for work then too bad the person should just quit the job and go on welfare?
James Tirrul-Jones
Victoria
