How did we end up with 13 municipalities anyway?

Why do communities incorporate?   Over the years there were different reasons of why, but the underlying interest always goes back to local people wanting some local control over their community.

The first to incorporate was Victoria in 1862.  This was first and only incorporation passed through the legislature of Vancouver Island.   The legislature of BC before union with Vancouver Island in 1867 incorporated the first city in BC, New Westminster, two years before Victoria.   New Westminster and Victoria were the only two cities incorporated before BC joined Canada.

The set of powers that the City of Victoria was allowed to have power over in 1862 was much different than today.   Specifically the City was not allowed to have any power over land use.

Till the turn of the century there seems to have been very little active movement towards more incorporation in the CRD.  Things changed shortly after the turn of the century.

The second municipality to incorporate in this region  was Sidney in 1905 - this included all of Sidney and North Saanich.  Given the distance from Victoria and the time it took to travel between the two, it made sense to incorporate.   This municipality disolved in 1911 because the people did not think it was sustainable.

Meanwhile the people of Oak Bay and Saanich wanted to become part of the City of Victoria, but Victoria did not want to expand because there was a fear that Oak Bay and Saanich would cost the citizens of Victoria too much.   This debate continued for a number of years until the residents of Saanich and Oak Bay gave up.   The result was the creation of Oak Bay and Saanich in 1906.

Esquimalt incorporated in 1912 because there was a need for local services.   Esquimalt had a very defined core and felt removed from the City of Victoria.   It also had a very different history and people that lived there.   With the creation of the Canadian Navy in 1910 and the transfer of the base from Great Britain to Canada, the future of Esquimalt looked very different.

From 1912 to 1950 the region only had four municipalities.

Central Saanich was formerly Ward 6 of Saanich but seceded in 1950 to become Central Saanich.   The reason for this was that the farming community of Ward 6 did not feel it was well represented by the core of Saanich which was becoming a suburb of the City of Victoria.

Sidney incorporated in 1952 because the population was larger now than in 1911 and with the new airport the expectation was for more growth,   North Saanich was not part of Sidney this time.

North Saanich first came  into existence in 1956 as a Fire Prevention District and then a municipality in 1965. With the creation of North Saanich in 1965, the core and peninsula were all covered by local governments.

From 1965 to 1984 the region had seven municipalities.

The process on the westshore to get to incorporation took a long time.   Numerous studies were done, votes were taken, but incorporation did not happen.   One of the reasons for this is that in BC it is financially beneficial not to incorporate.  The province looks after many of the costs such as roads and policing.   Incorporating has normally meant an increase in taxes.

Another major issue on the Westshore was what the boundaries should be of any new municipalities.   Various divisions already existing for planning purposes, land management and simply as communities.   The Westshore as we know today did not have end up as we know it today.   We could have had from four to eight municipalities instead of the six we do now.

In the mid 1980s the first municipalities were formed on the Westshore, Metchosin in 1984 and Colwood in 1985.   In 1988 View Royal was formed out of the lands left over between between Esquimalt, Saanich and Colwood.

Langford had been a sticking point in the incorporation movement on the Westshore.   There were at least three votes before 1985 against incorporation and votes against forming a single municipality with Colwood.   It took till 1992 for Langford to incorporate.

A year later the Highlands incorporated.   I do not have the details but will look into it, but I have to assume it came about because of resistance to being part of Langford.

The final incorporation in the region was Sooke on December 7th 1999.   In my opinion, Sooke makes sense as a community and should have been incorporated earlier, but given the number of roads in Sooke, the cost of incorporation was not going to be cheap.

For the last 12 years we have had 13 municipalities which really is a lot more than we need.  I do not think that there is much likelihood that we could have any more municipalities, though there are a couple of potential ones that may incorporate some day.

East Sooke was not willing to join Sooke.  With a population of 1500, it is not much smaller than the Highlands when it comes to population.

The population of Shirley/Jordan River is around 700 people which would make it the smallest municipality in the CRD based on population, but it would be long short of the smallest municipal population in BC, there are 20 municipalities with smaller populations.

Some movement on amalgamation

This came out yesterday

Media Advisory
For Immediate release
A Conversation about Amalgamation
The Greater Victoria community are invited to attend and participate in a public meeting on local and regional governance.
When: Tuesday February 7th,
Where: S. J. Willis School, 923 Topaz Ave, Victoria BC
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Free entry
Speakers will provide short presentations on the history of Greater Victoria – how we arrived at 13 municipalities – and the current challenges facing regional government. The presentations will be followed with an opportunity for the community to share thoughts, comments, suggestions and questions at a number of engagement stations.
Meeting Conveners: Shellie Gudgeon, Tamara Hernandez, Susan Jones, Rod Phillips and Mat Wright
Mission Statement: We are a group of Greater Victoria citizens opening the conversation on how we are governed
Speakers will be announced when confirmed. Further information can be found on the Facebook Page, (Amalgamation Victoria) and through the media contact.
Please include this event in community calendars and public service announcements.
Media enquiries and requests for interviews please contact Mat Wright.
Mat Wright
contact@wrightresult.com
Mobile – 250 686 5945

The local News Group newspapers

In this region we have the Times-Colonist as a daily but we also have our community newspapers.   All of our local newspapers are owned by the Black Press.

We have:

• Saanich News
• Victoria News
• Goldstream Gazette
• Peninsula News Review
• Oak Bay News
• Sooke News Mirror
• Monday Magazine

Just outside of the CRD we have the following

• Gulf Islands Driftwood
• Cowichan News Leader Pictorial
• Lake Cowichan Gazette

What we have is one company having more or less all of the local weekly papers under their control.   Since there are other media, this is not a media monopoly, but it certainly does mean a lot of control of the small scale community news.

I can not see all of the papers in print because you only get the one delivered for your area.   I get the Victoria News and across the street they get the Saanich News.   I also really do not want to get all of the papers with their mountain of flyers, but I would like to quickly review them to see if there is anything interesting happening elsewhere in the region.

In the past it was not hard to quickly read the headlines for each local paper, if you look at the format of the Saanich News from April of 2003, the news from the Saanich News is a list of headlines sorted by date.  I used to quickly be able to read what has happening in this region and throughout BC with this format, but the Black Press changed their format to make that much harder.

It has become very hard for me to see what the news is from any of our local papers because there is so much news from other papers coming up in the feed for the local paper.  In going through seven local papers, it seems that 80% of the stories are the same ones.   It means I have to dig to find the ones that are different.  I end up being behind on what is happening in this region.

I am gripping about this now because Monday Magazine has also gone over to this format, though their feed still seems to be only Monday Magazine stories.

So what does one do when one company controls the flow of information locally and makes it hard for people to find out things?   I can only assume it reduces the traffic to their sites but this might be masked by the general increase in online traffic.

I do not own the papers and I have to assume they are doing what they think works best for them to get revenue.   I assume that the flyers that are delivered with the papers is what pays the freight and makes the papers profitable.  That could certainly make the case for not wanting a lot of the readership to be online.

As a response, some people have started online papers:

• Sooke Voice News - they do print a four page newspaper every week, it feels like an attempt to start some serious competition to the Sooke News Mirror.  I do read their stuff because I do learn more about what is happening in Sooke
• Saanich Voice Online - they print once a month and seem to rely primarily on their online component.   They also do not seem to have much "news" as such.  No more than a a few articles per month and very few of them tell you anything that is news.  I have more or less stopped reading their stuff because it does not offer me much new.

I would like to see some sort of well edited local online newspaper that focuses on community news.   I am not about to start it and I have no idea if it could be made to pay. 

Today's storm

We went out to storm watch for a bit.    Max was excited at first to be going to the "beach" but when we got there, that was the end of his interest.

The winds were gusting to over 100 kilometers per hour.


Sheila got out to look at the parking lot at the Oak Bay Marina and was utterly soaked by a huge wave.   The water in the parking lot was about 20 cm deep

I would have more pictures, but the spray kept fouling my lens.



The water was washing over onto Dallas Road.  


In McNeil Bay the waves did not look as big, but the road was getting covered in more water and debris.   Sheila was not willing to stop to let me take any pictures.

Two sailboats and a dingy washed up on the rocks by the storm

Craigflower and Tillicum corner and recent changes

There have been a couple of smaller developments near the corner of Tillicum and Craigflower.    It strikes me that there is the potential for a village centre to come about in this area.

The two newest developments are certainly a step up in quality for the area.

The one is a four story condo development on Tillicum called Gorge Hill.  Since my kids go to Esquimalt High and I do a lot of shopping at the Real Canadian Wholesale Store, I pass this location a lot.  The development seems to have had some trouble selling out even though it only has 12 units.  It has been quite a while since it has been done and it has been sitting at four units for sale for ages.

The ground floor offers one small commercial space which has been rented by a hair salon 

View Larger Map
This is the location of the Gorge Hill condo

View Larger Map
This is looking at the location that is now Stratford Place.  Most of the houses on Craigflower look well past their best before date and the apartments built in the 1970s have awful street profiles.

The second new development is Stratford Place at 934 Craigflower.   It has recently been completed and the units are now for sale, though it does not look like any of they have sold.  People have been able to move in as of December 1st.

There are 13 units in the development and all of them are three floors tall and have three bedrooms.

The units range in size from 1246 square feet to 1741 square feet and are on the market for $449,000 to $539,000

I like the brownstone look of the place, it makes for a nice streetscape.   It makes Craigflower a much nicer place to walk.  That said, I am not certain if these will be successful in this area.   Neither development seems to be moving quickly.   I think the area needs at least a few more comparable developments.  The obvious location for this would be the building on north west corner of Tillicum and Craigflower and the crappy commercial development just to the west of there.

There is also some interesting potential with the area to the north Craigflower even a bit further west.   There is effectively a service road in the area.   Giving up that road to someone willing to redevelop the area would allow for something more interesting to be constructed along the road, ideally with some decent commercial space.

Snow Removal

Given that we only have snow at most a couple of times a year and it is one of those budget items that can vary dramatically from year to year, would it not make some sense for all 13 municipalities to sit down and coordinate how the deal with the snow?   I make note this very specifically because I live on the border of two municipalities but I see no coordination between Saanich and Victoria on how they handle Harriet and Burnside.

It is a bit after 11 am in the morning and I am not sure they have plowed or sanded.  It says something about my expectation when I look out at a road partly clear and wonder if anything has been done or not.

How could I resist a palm in the snow?

It is in everyone's interest in the region to have the core routes clear ASAP and then to get as many secondary roads clean.   I am not sure how that happens when you have crews from 13 different municipalities working under 13 different plans?   I can not see how having one central dispatch controlling all the crews would not be more efficient and faster.  It would also mean you could have a couple of crews in reserve to deal with specific problems as they arise.  

If you could be more efficient and faster, local governments could also make some of their costs back by charging a fee to clear private parking lots.   The major malls in this region do a crap job of keeping their parking lots cleared.   Since plows and sanders from the local governments are already passing by, adding the parking lots would not be hard and should not take too much time.   The cost to hire a private contractor to clear a parking lot is expensive.

Snow should not be a surprise here in Victoria and our preparations should be much better than they are.

LRT Funding

There is a process of public consultation around how the LRT might be funded.  People need to think about this clearly and what this whole process means.  

What it clearly means:
Building the LRT will not increase transit use enough to cover the increased costs of operating the system.

There is something wrong if you increase your capacity but get no cost savings from it.   Seeking to get more money from non-users is a problem as we only have so much that can be raised in taxation.

What needs to be asked and no is asking is "What are we trying to achieve with our transit system and what is the best way to do this?"

As it stands at the moment, vehicle users in BC pay more in fees and taxes to cover all of the costs of the provincial and local governments related to roads and transit.   The road system in BC is not only 100% user pay, it makes enough extra money to cover the costs of transit in BC.

Options under consideration:

User Pay Options

• Higher fares - the easiest to do and the one that puts the burden on the users.  If we are to have an LRT, I support this is a the primary source of funding.   It will not impact me because my transit use will drop to almost zero after the LRT is built - I lose all the direct buses running to downtown and would have a longer trip with the LRT
• Station rents - revenue from renting out space at stations.   There is very limited opportunity for this on the line - maybe at Six Mile and Station Ave.  You would be looking at a small amount of income, though I support this as an approach.
• Sell station air rights - not sure how this will work as it could mean one of two different things.   I need to know more commenting.
• Advertising - BC Transit already has advertising, I fail to see how they will collect more from the LRT.

Property/Household Based Options

• Higher property taxes - BC Transit has been raising property taxes well beyond the rate of inflation for a number of years now, an extra increase due to the LRT is not on.   Property taxes are high enough in this region to have an impact on business viability and on housing affordability
• Higher vehicle registration fees - I am not sure the region can collect one at the moment.   This tax would hit non transit users hardest and as a flat fee would hit poorer people harder than the well off.  The bottom 20% may no own a car, by the next 20% due and they are barely making ends meet.
• Utility levy - this is a round about property tax  increase.
• Development cost charges - an extra fee on building new developments will slow the construction of housing and commercial space in the region.   It gives you some money up front but depresses increases in total taxable properties values in the region.   It will harm the budgets of local governments.
• Land value capture - this is based on the theory that land values will increase from rapid transit.  The co-relation for large scale systems like SkyTrain are weak and for small systems like the one proposed here are non-existent.   I do not know how you would measure this and apply it fairly.  It would also discourage development in the areas close to the line, the exact opposite of what is wanted.

Options needing a change of Provincial laws

• Increase local sales tax - this means getting the provincial government to allow the CRD to levy a sales tax.   The province would also have to collect it.   With the return of the PST and the significant harm it will do to retail sales, adding another few points on top of that will make retailers scream.  Think of the reaction to the HST, which was an improvement in consumption taxation and a benefit to the majority
• Take a portion of the Carbon Tax - this means getting BC to agree to give it to local government.  If we get it here, all local governments will want their share.  This would create a $1,000,000,000 hole in the provincial budget.
• Road tolls - not only will this be wildly unpopular, it needs the province to enact.  How would you collect it?  Something like the Golden Ears Bridge?
• Vehicle-km tax - you are charged based on how far you drive.   The province would have to enact and it would mean if you take a long trip outside of the CRD you would pay more in the CRD for the LRT.

Higher costs on road users

• Increase fuel taxes - I think people think the taxes on gasoline are high enough already
• Parking taxes - I am not sure if this can be done, but if it were to be done it places the costs on the non-transit users.  Honestly, this is one I could get behind but only if the fee is the same for all parking spaces for all commercial and retail spaces in the CRD from Sooke to Sidney - no free parking at Costco or the corner store in your neighbourhood

What should be being asked is how to make the current system more cost effective and minimize the burden on the non-transit using public.

Craigflower Bridge - June start date

Not quite how the bridge will look

The design has been chosen and it is a combination of some of the stuff in the picture and the 5 span curved bridge - the curve allowing a large platform for the public on the eastern side.  The picture comes from  Herold Engineering of Nanaimo via the Goldstream Gazzette.

View Royal approved the design, Saanich gives their nod on January 23rd.

The Saanich website has a fair amount of detail on the project.

This month there is going to be another open house to consider the design.  I am not sure what they will do if there is a large negative reaction.

February to April is getting the permits in place.

Catchment area of Craigflower Elementary

May will be the tendering of the work - with an expectation of the work to start in June.   This means the bridge will then be closed for six months from that date.

Here comes my question about the whole project, how will pedestrians get across the bridge?   There are no concrete plans in place to deal with pedestrians needing to cross the bridge.

One the south bank there is Shoreline Middle School, on the north bank there is Craigflower elementary.  Kids cross the bridge all the time in both directions to get to school.  

For about half the kids going to Craigflower Elementary, there will be no bridge anywhere nearby. How will they get to school?  

Catchment area of Shoreline Middle School

Shoreline Middle School is the French immersion middle school for the west side of the Greater Victoria School District.  The early French immersion is at Marigold and most of the kids live closer to that school which means they need to be able to come over the Craigflower bridge to get to Shoreline, though they might be able to go via Helmcken

My son Ben went to Shoreline for late French Immersion and I can tell you the bridge is very busy in the morning and afternoons.   There was a constant stream of kids crossing over the bridge.   My quick estimate is that between 3:00 and 3:30 200-300 people walked over the bridge.   I waited to pick up Ben on our side of the bridge because it sucks getting in and out of Shoreline, especially during the peak pick-up and drop-off times.

So what will all these kids do?   I have heard some mention of a water taxi, but nothing firm.   The summer months will help as the school demand will not exist for 67 days.

Will there be a couple of Victoria Harbour Ferries shuttling back and forth?  With a capacity of 12 people, there would be have to be 10 round trips in half an hour of peak time, minimum.   You would have to have two ferries to deal with the volumes of traffic at peak times.

I am rather surprised this has not looked at and a solution presented.

City of Victoria Jan 19th Council Meeting

The agenda is out for the next City of Victoria council meeting.  

Interesting issues I see coming up:

• 712 Queens Avenue - transition of that Travellers Inn from a hotel into a place with 36 residential units, council needs to approve the reduction in the required number of parking spaces from 47 to 20 - staff is recommending approval.
• 858 Yates Street - Sugar Nightclub.   Because the nightclub wants to increase their capcity to 600 people from 348, they would normally be required to provide off street parking, the nightclub is asking for that not to be required. The Planning and Land Use committee recommendation is that this be approved, thought that was done under the previous council.   More discussion on this issue during the closed part of the meeting.
• A new bylaw will come forward in relation to Garden Suites.

For those interested, the agenda for the January 19th Planning and Land Use committee agenda is also out.

How fast news came in 1862 and how it changed by 1866

A major event for anyone in the British Empire in 1862 was the death of the Prince Consort, Albert.   Queen Victoria's husband died on December 14th 1861 and the news arrived in Victoria on January 13th 1862.   One month for major news to come from London to Victoria.  Most news from elsewhere actually took much longer.   The British Colonist's regular letter from a London correspondent could be two months old when published.

This was actually pretty good time because ships of the 1860s were already had a dramatic improvement in speed.   News could only travel via sail power all the way from the UK to BC, nothing dramatic had changed in centuries.  In 1862 we are only years short of a major communications revolution.

1866 sees the first functional transatlantic cable put into operation on July 27th and by August 14th the Colonist was publishing news from Europe via telegraph that was only two days old.

The telegraph changes things dramatically.   The American Civil War was reported on in the Colonist weeks after the events occurred.  The Franco-Prussian war was reported in the Colonist very differently.

On July 19th 1870 the Franco-Prussian war started, the July 21st edition of the Daily British Colonist had news of the events of July 19th in Europe that were happening as the war started.   The delay between events happening in Europe and them being reported in the paper dropped to only two days.   It was now possible to read about the war blow by blow, each tiny event is detailed on a daily basis.  It may not have been real time, but it is only a day or so slower than news gets into the newspapers today.

People must have been reading the paper each day to see how things unfolded.   The newspaper suddenly changes from a advertising rag with a lot of opinion and some old news to the source with the most current news in the world.

If you look at the fifth column of page three for July 21st 1870, you can see the heading "By Electric Telegraph: Special to the Daily Colonist".   There is a heading most days on page three with that title.

I am trying to imagine how this changed how people viewed the world.  In the past everyone accepted that it was months to get news from Europe to Victoria, letters from friends were just as likely to inform you of world events than the newspapers.   Suddenly with the news via the telegraph people were connected in a way that no one could have conceived of.

Sandown Racetrack Site

North Saanich council met and considered new information from the staff.   I had commented on the project earlier about my concerns of too much risk being transferred to North Saanich and this risk should remain with the current landowner.

I am now looking at the report tabled at the January 9th the Committee of the Whole meeting.

The report estimates the cost to North Saanich to meet the costs involved with the MOU with the ALC on the land would be $693,000.  In the December report the estimated costs were $455,000 of which the landowner would cover some of the demolition, which in January shows up as a $100,000 contribution.  So from December to January the estimate of the costs to the municipality rose $338,000.

Several things have not yet been addressed yet that need to be before moving forward, most specifically the issue of soil contamination.   At the moment things are moving forward as if there is no hydro-carbon contamination on the site, which given the use of the site seems unlikely to me.  Even a small scale contamination can escalate the costs a lot.

I am also concerned the estimates of the costs are generally being low, a very typical thing that happens at the local government level when everyone assumes the best.    The estimates should be considering the worst case scenario to see how much risk there is.  I think it is more realistic to assume the costs will be between $800,000 and $1,000,000 with a potential of something much higher if there are major issues to be addressed.

Down the road North Saanich will gain in property taxes when the commercial property is developed.   At that time it will take several years of the taxes to cover the costs.   The question is if it is worth North Saanich to pay $800,000 to $1,000,000 now to be recovered through increased taxation in 10 to 15 years time?

Ultimately this is being done to allow the owner to develop part of the land as commercial land.   The re-zoning and removal of the land from the ALR provides a very large capital increase to the landowner, more than enough for the landowner to take the risk on costs of the land.

Given the gain of something on the order of $3.5 to $5.5 million to the current landowner from the change in zoning and getting some of the land out of the ALR, why is the current land owner not willing to shoulder all of the risks and costs?   It is a no brainer unless there is something we do not know.

All that I can think of is that the landowner may be concerned the remediation costs will be much higher, or the landowner is short on money and can not afford to cover the costs involved.