Affordability was the promise; predatory luxury development is the reality.
There is a powerful social movement arising over Bill 44. The drums are beating steadily and getting louder.
Bill 44 is extreme. All communities in B.C. are entitled to design oversight over all proposals. Using that oversight to stall bad projects and in our case make Oak Bay less attractive to predatory developers. This legislation was justified to voters as an emergency measure addressing the “affordability crisis.” But is that what it’s really doing? Why is the government supporting developers who will be profiting millions by building luxury townhomes at the expense of communities and existing homeowners? This is not affordable housing.
The residents of Oak Bay are not up in arms because ugly triplexes and large apartments are going to be built in leafy heritage neighbourhoods, but because the proposals in our area are for luxury developments. All we really want is more reasonable limits: duplexes not quads; two-storey limits, not three storeys, etc.
Vague rumours had circulated for months. The residents assumed that Bill 44 would be applied as appropriate gentle densification. Zoning for luxury is not “affordable housing,” This premise has turned out to be a lie. In fact, districts like Oak Bay are being exposed by this legislation to predatory luxury development in the false name of “affordability.” There were better ways to craft Bill 44, if affordability really was the goal. We invite journalists and politicians to consult their own experts and put this legislation under a microscope.
This isn’t about Oak Bay alone: we reject with anger the canard of “nimbyism.” Many residents purchased many, many years ago, struggling to achieve home ownership. Now because of market forces, they sit on valuable land, and they struggle day to day just like folks in Vancouver, New Westminster, Surrey, Coquitlam, Victoria, Esquimalt, etc.
The alleged incompetence or corruption of Bill 44 is simply more apparent in established historical areas, districts like Oak Bay, where real estate is very expensive, and opportunities to make millions densifying hitherto protected heritage neighbourhoods with luxury townhouses are more plentiful. But our objections to this legislation apply to the whole province.
We support respectful densification – densification that really is about affordability, rather than about windfall profits. Why is this B.C. legislation, using a broad-brush approach, so crudely designed? Who benefits from that?
Lin Rubin
Oak Bay
