Victoria News
Oak Bay News
Saanich News
Goldstream Gazette
Peninsula News Review
Monday Magazine
I find that these papers are a REAL pain in the ass to read through when delivered to the door, but I am much happier with the online versions. Online I can quickly look and see what the stories are that they are covering and read the interesting ones.
I do have an issue with the areas the papers cover. The core was once served by five papers but the Esquimalt News has been amalgamated with the Victoria News. But still have four local papers covering things based on municipal boundaries and not our neighbourhoods.
Ideally if one were change things a bit to the following:
Eastside News - focuses on news from Blanshard eastwards
Downtown News - focuses on the business core but also out to Town and Country - could include Vic West and Esquimalt, it could also include Fernwood
Westside News - focuses on Douglas westwards from Bay St northwards
These three papers would reflect the larger communities we have in our region and not the fictions that are our municipal governments.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Sale of the Western Forest Products lands
Western Forest Products has put on the market about 28000 hectares of land on Vancouver Island, including some interesting waterfront properties out near Jordan River.
The scale of the sales are still not a huge and dramatic amount of lands. 28 000 ha is 280 sq km or an area 14 km by 20 km. When looking at the size of Vancouver Island this is not much. The sale of the land near Jordan River is 1800ha, I suspect that this is about 40 to 50 individual pieces of land. Without zoning permission and subdivision, these properties are not really that useful to anyone.
The individual properties do not have access to them, they do not have electrical power, and they are limited by the existing restrictions of rural areas. Within the current rules, the most one could do with this land is create about 50 saleable properties, but at a huge cost because of the basic infrastructure that needs to be built. Without local government approval, these lands are not really worth much to a developer. As a single private estate they are something amazing and unique, but that is not what I expect the developer bought them for.
One impact that no one is looking with these lands is the impact on the AAC (annual allowable cut) of WFP. I do not know what the MAI (mean annual increase) is for the lands, but let us assume it is about 2 cubic metres per ha. The sale of these lands will decrease the WFP AAC by somewhere around 50 000 cubic metres per year. This is enough of a drop to put one logging crew out of work and the amount of wood a typical coastal mill for about a month.
The sale will also add a lot of property tax income to local governments. Right now for property tax purposes the WFP lands are taxed as managed forest lands. Property tax is paid based on the value of timber harvested in a given year. No harvesting, no property tax.
With the sale of the land, the property becomes liable for property tax based on the value of the land if it were sold on the open market. Each individual lot is about an average size of 40ha and has a value of about $300 000 each and have a tax value of about $1500 a year. The sale of the 1800 ha near Jordan River should result in a property tax windfall of about $70 000 a year.
The scale of the sales are still not a huge and dramatic amount of lands. 28 000 ha is 280 sq km or an area 14 km by 20 km. When looking at the size of Vancouver Island this is not much. The sale of the land near Jordan River is 1800ha, I suspect that this is about 40 to 50 individual pieces of land. Without zoning permission and subdivision, these properties are not really that useful to anyone.
The individual properties do not have access to them, they do not have electrical power, and they are limited by the existing restrictions of rural areas. Within the current rules, the most one could do with this land is create about 50 saleable properties, but at a huge cost because of the basic infrastructure that needs to be built. Without local government approval, these lands are not really worth much to a developer. As a single private estate they are something amazing and unique, but that is not what I expect the developer bought them for.
One impact that no one is looking with these lands is the impact on the AAC (annual allowable cut) of WFP. I do not know what the MAI (mean annual increase) is for the lands, but let us assume it is about 2 cubic metres per ha. The sale of these lands will decrease the WFP AAC by somewhere around 50 000 cubic metres per year. This is enough of a drop to put one logging crew out of work and the amount of wood a typical coastal mill for about a month.
The sale will also add a lot of property tax income to local governments. Right now for property tax purposes the WFP lands are taxed as managed forest lands. Property tax is paid based on the value of timber harvested in a given year. No harvesting, no property tax.
With the sale of the land, the property becomes liable for property tax based on the value of the land if it were sold on the open market. Each individual lot is about an average size of 40ha and has a value of about $300 000 each and have a tax value of about $1500 a year. The sale of the 1800 ha near Jordan River should result in a property tax windfall of about $70 000 a year.
Monday, October 22, 2007
The Times Colonist series on commuting
The series was moderately interesting. The one thing that I note above else out of the series is the scale with which people are out of touch with want is realistic.
Can we really expect people to get out of their cars when more and more of the jobs in the region are not at the hub of transit?
As an example, there are a lot of offices on Chatterton Way, on the south side of Broadmead. There is no easy way for most people to get to this location with a bus unless they live on the route of the number 6. With the nice access to highway 17, I suspect that there are almost no transit users for this location.
The same sort of thing applies for the Vancouver Island Technology Park. Only the #39 gets you there, though the #8 and #21 get you to Camosun Interurban. Frankly, Camosun interurban is not well served at all given the number of people out there each and every day.
And then we have all the high tech/light industrial out in Central Saanich. Only the #75 services the area.
Places people work in the region are further and further dispersed. Making transit work will be harder all the time.
The best thing that could be done would be focus all work/education/entertainment expansion in the region in the following area:
Blanshard - Finlayson - Burnside - Tillicum - Mackenzie.
By using this as the core, there is a easy access to it from almost everywhere. It makes a perfect new hub for all transit in the region. Highway 17 and Highway 1 feed right into the area.
Already this area has buses going out to all the Western Communities and Saanich Penisula. It has bus connections to Gordon Head, Esquimalt, James Bay, Oak Bay, Fernwood, Broadmead and more.
The redevelopment of the Town and Country mall is a good start, as is all the work at Selkirk water. But there has to be a lot more done in this area. This is where the major arena should have gone for this region. Ideally there should be a lot more office buildings constructed in this area and move government further out from the current downtown.
Can we really expect people to get out of their cars when more and more of the jobs in the region are not at the hub of transit?
As an example, there are a lot of offices on Chatterton Way, on the south side of Broadmead. There is no easy way for most people to get to this location with a bus unless they live on the route of the number 6. With the nice access to highway 17, I suspect that there are almost no transit users for this location.
The same sort of thing applies for the Vancouver Island Technology Park. Only the #39 gets you there, though the #8 and #21 get you to Camosun Interurban. Frankly, Camosun interurban is not well served at all given the number of people out there each and every day.
And then we have all the high tech/light industrial out in Central Saanich. Only the #75 services the area.
Places people work in the region are further and further dispersed. Making transit work will be harder all the time.
The best thing that could be done would be focus all work/education/entertainment expansion in the region in the following area:
Blanshard - Finlayson - Burnside - Tillicum - Mackenzie.
By using this as the core, there is a easy access to it from almost everywhere. It makes a perfect new hub for all transit in the region. Highway 17 and Highway 1 feed right into the area.
Already this area has buses going out to all the Western Communities and Saanich Penisula. It has bus connections to Gordon Head, Esquimalt, James Bay, Oak Bay, Fernwood, Broadmead and more.
The redevelopment of the Town and Country mall is a good start, as is all the work at Selkirk water. But there has to be a lot more done in this area. This is where the major arena should have gone for this region. Ideally there should be a lot more office buildings constructed in this area and move government further out from the current downtown.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Traffic and Victoria
The Times Colonist running a series on traffic in the CRD this week.
After living in London and Vancouver, it is amusing to me think that people think that there are traffic issues in this city.
In London I worked just off of Oxford Street. Our office had about 50 staff. There were 2 parking spots for the whole company. You had to drive the car into an elevator to park it in the basement. At Elan Computing everyone commuted via public transit - everyone.
I also remember one very early morning having to drive my parents from North London to Heathrow. It was about 6 am in the morning and there was no traffic. It was amazing, the trip to the airport took 20 minutes instead of an hour to an hour and half.
The traffic in London was stunningly clogged. There was really no point in owning a car.
In Vancouver in the 1994/95 I spend some time working as a truck driver for a company. The traffic in the city is much less problematic than London, but still it had its moments.
Here in Victoria, I have seen almost nothing that I would call a traffic issue. Yes, there is a some backup along the number 1 during rush hour, but nothing very dramatic, nothing that takes any long time to get through. I do not see the issues of traffic here.
There are some changes that could be made to make things flow better.
1 - Make Mackenzie from #17 to #1 a freeway and make a proper freeway interchange at Mackenzie and #1
2 - look at how to deal with the traffic flow over the Bay Street bridge. Also look at the traffic flow along Craigflower
3 - Craigflower and Admirals - this needs help, but short of twinning the Old Island Highway and Admirals through to #1, I am not sure what one would do.
Really, all the issues are things people could live with.
After living in London and Vancouver, it is amusing to me think that people think that there are traffic issues in this city.
In London I worked just off of Oxford Street. Our office had about 50 staff. There were 2 parking spots for the whole company. You had to drive the car into an elevator to park it in the basement. At Elan Computing everyone commuted via public transit - everyone.
I also remember one very early morning having to drive my parents from North London to Heathrow. It was about 6 am in the morning and there was no traffic. It was amazing, the trip to the airport took 20 minutes instead of an hour to an hour and half.
The traffic in London was stunningly clogged. There was really no point in owning a car.
In Vancouver in the 1994/95 I spend some time working as a truck driver for a company. The traffic in the city is much less problematic than London, but still it had its moments.
Here in Victoria, I have seen almost nothing that I would call a traffic issue. Yes, there is a some backup along the number 1 during rush hour, but nothing very dramatic, nothing that takes any long time to get through. I do not see the issues of traffic here.
There are some changes that could be made to make things flow better.
1 - Make Mackenzie from #17 to #1 a freeway and make a proper freeway interchange at Mackenzie and #1
2 - look at how to deal with the traffic flow over the Bay Street bridge. Also look at the traffic flow along Craigflower
3 - Craigflower and Admirals - this needs help, but short of twinning the Old Island Highway and Admirals through to #1, I am not sure what one would do.
Really, all the issues are things people could live with.
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