I would like to host this evening on Friday June 4th at my home, starting at 7:00 pm and going till we finish.
I would like to focus on the following:
- Visions for a great Victoria
- Building a City that works for residential, commercial, industry and social sectors - you hopefully remember I have a passion for protecting industrial lands.
- Making the city financially sustainable
- Integrating the City of Victoria more closely with the other local governments
I am open to any other ideas people may have. I am just interested in an interesting and wide range debate.
I will have my vision for an OCP on hand in a draft form for people to rip and shred if they would like to, I will be posting bits and pieces of it on here as I finish them.
If you are interested in coming, please drop me a line via the comments here, my email, my facebook profile, Vibrant Victoria, or whatever other place you can find me, I am easy enough to find.
2 comments:
Great idea Bernard. I'll be away and won't attend, but I hope you get a good turn out. Please give us a recap after the event via your blog!
Hi Bernard,
Thanks for the invite. I'm glad you're organizing this. I know you've been doing a lot of thinking about Burnside-Gorge since you moved there a few years ago and i'd be pleased to share my thoughts with you, unfortunately i'm not likely to be there on June 4th. It's hard to believe that only 15 yrs ago, Burnside was barely recognized as an official community at City Hall. Now they have a LEED gold community centre, among the City's best recreation and family programming, well-planned and phased Selkirk revitalization and commercial revitalization in the retail disticts. The benefit of the Galloping Goose trailway and Selkirk trestle connection to Vic West can't be underestimated. It lends to discussion about rebuilding foot bridge connections further up the arm of the inner harbour/gorge waterway, perhaps where historically others existed.
I can recall from City Council days doing a walkabout from Rock Bay to Selkirk with residents and planners. There were some excellent ideas from this mini-charette (circa 2002?) including Gorge Road beautification, streetscape improvements and pedestrianization. Great opportunities here for visual branding of neighbourhood identity as people enter the area along this and also the Burnside Road corridor. Perhaps that document is available as a resource for your meeting? Basically the vision was in place of that stretch of auto parts, car lots, and end-of-lifescycle motels to have more flexible, development-friendly zoning (above-retail level, 3 or 4 storey residential density). After Burnside elementary closed, a group of parents also did some mapping of safe walking routes to Tillicum elementary and it created some ideas about neighbourhood shared greenways and pedestrian controlled crossings on Harriet and other streets. I must say, i've always been interested in looking at how Douglas Street can be aesthetically improved and made more people-friendly. With direct proximity to an eventual LRT system, the area calls out for new and much denser zoning like you see in parts of Yaletown (which could also help capture some of the enhanced value and pay for stations and transit infrastructure). Then of course there is VIHA and the Gorge Road Hospital lands. While bizarrely selling Oak Bay Lodge and Mt Tolmie residential care facilities (because apparently VIHA has no capital funds to add/replace sr's facilities), as far as i know the health authority is not actively reviewing the status of surplus lands at Gorge Road hospital for new uses, including protected public greenspace and redevelopment of some kind. Maybe file that one under "caution and careful what you wish for." nevertheless, the Gorge hospital lands are a tremendous asset that if deemed surplus can have great public purpose in the future.
Happy to talk further.
Very best regards,
Rob Fleming
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