August 15th Newsletter
It is important that Oak Bay residents understand that the newly announced Council Resident Satisfaction Survey is not only premature but the motivation is unclear and suspect. There is little doubt most of us would agree that our existing Oak Bay is desirable, a great place to live and has a high service level. So what’s to bb gained from using a lot of tax dollars to get our self-evident opinion. It’s a given.
Our pre-2014, very solid Official Community Plan went a long way to maintain our present livability status, with density, development and growth being adequately controlled. Our present housing stock is balanced with almost 40% multi-family according to the new Official Community Plan (OCP): the latest valid Canadian census places this higher. The new Community Plan however can change all this as it is much more open ended towards growth and much too developer friendly. To this end and for their own reasons, Council has made one development aspect the primary objective of the new Community Plan’s implementation.
To accomplish this development priority, Council has allocated a significant amount of the Municipality’s staff and resources, hired expensive new staff, and contracted with a number of consultants. A Residential Infill Strategy and Project has been developed with the singular goal of introducing a wide range of Infill Development into Oak Bay’s SingleFamily Neighbourhoods.
This Council’s Development Strategy includes basement suites, laneway houses, garden suites, duplexes, triplexes, subdivisions etc. So the questions that residents must be asked are:
* Why has this initiative reached this stage, without public consultation?
* Why no analysis of Oak Bay’s aging, frail infrastructure sustainability in the face of all this development?
* Why no recognition of the many unsolved infill problems other communities are suffering?
* Why no public information about the required infill taxation, e.g. who will pay for the expensive
enforcement and associated infrastructure costs?
* Why no information on how vacation rental by owner will be controlled: what will the impact be on the
inherent loss of trees and green space?
As important is how will Council satisfy its community commitment stated in the Official Community Plan and a previous resident survey? That is to deal with issues such as: infill noise, nuisance, privacy and view loss, increased traffic congestion and commuting time, parking, etc., when no other community has been able to accomplish this?
Would it not have made much more sense firstly, to sit down and collaborate with the community, lay out all the facts, and then discuss the above questions and negative impacts? Instead, Council is using significant staff time, precious funds and considerable effort, holding meetings and day long, closed marketing workshops with developers at taxpayer expense, and hiring so many consultants (12 and counting). Other communities have followed this method of poor planning: legislating first (calling them bylaw updates), then attempting to deal with major disruptive issues with after-the-fact damage control.
As designed so far, this Council’s development formula will change Oak Bay into James Bay in a hurry - the only difference will be Council will add a “Colwood Crawl”.
It is important that Oak Bay residents understand that the newly announced Council Resident Satisfaction Survey is not only premature but the motivation is unclear and suspect. There is little doubt most of us would agree that our existing Oak Bay is desirable, a great place to live and has a high service level. So what’s to bb gained from using a lot of tax dollars to get our self-evident opinion. It’s a given.
Our pre-2014, very solid Official Community Plan went a long way to maintain our present livability status, with density, development and growth being adequately controlled. Our present housing stock is balanced with almost 40% multi-family according to the new Official Community Plan (OCP): the latest valid Canadian census places this higher. The new Community Plan however can change all this as it is much more open ended towards growth and much too developer friendly. To this end and for their own reasons, Council has made one development aspect the primary objective of the new Community Plan’s implementation.
To accomplish this development priority, Council has allocated a significant amount of the Municipality’s staff and resources, hired expensive new staff, and contracted with a number of consultants. A Residential Infill Strategy and Project has been developed with the singular goal of introducing a wide range of Infill Development into Oak Bay’s SingleFamily Neighbourhoods.
This Council’s Development Strategy includes basement suites, laneway houses, garden suites, duplexes, triplexes, subdivisions etc. So the questions that residents must be asked are:
* Why has this initiative reached this stage, without public consultation?
* Why no analysis of Oak Bay’s aging, frail infrastructure sustainability in the face of all this development?
* Why no recognition of the many unsolved infill problems other communities are suffering?
* Why no public information about the required infill taxation, e.g. who will pay for the expensive
enforcement and associated infrastructure costs?
* Why no information on how vacation rental by owner will be controlled: what will the impact be on the
inherent loss of trees and green space?
As important is how will Council satisfy its community commitment stated in the Official Community Plan and a previous resident survey? That is to deal with issues such as: infill noise, nuisance, privacy and view loss, increased traffic congestion and commuting time, parking, etc., when no other community has been able to accomplish this?
Would it not have made much more sense firstly, to sit down and collaborate with the community, lay out all the facts, and then discuss the above questions and negative impacts? Instead, Council is using significant staff time, precious funds and considerable effort, holding meetings and day long, closed marketing workshops with developers at taxpayer expense, and hiring so many consultants (12 and counting). Other communities have followed this method of poor planning: legislating first (calling them bylaw updates), then attempting to deal with major disruptive issues with after-the-fact damage control.
As designed so far, this Council’s development formula will change Oak Bay into James Bay in a hurry - the only difference will be Council will add a “Colwood Crawl”.