Raising parking prices? That doesn’t make sense
There have been lots of stories recently about downtown Victoria businesses struggling with vandalism, homelessness, and increased costs, plus still trying to get customers back through their doors.
City Hall must be listening and worried about the downtown core becoming a vacant area unsuitable to most people – hence they are considering raising parking rates to help.
Does this make sense to somebody? Anybody?
As a customer who still goes downtown on occasion I don’t see this making sense. With inflation, every cent counts to my wife and I.
We used to go downtown more often just to enjoy the area. Now we try to group errands with shopping and only go when necessary, but if there is a parking increase we will certainly rethink going and likely visit the downtown core even less.
Malls such as Tillicum, Mayfair and Hillside, which have free parking, is where the competition for downtown businesses reside.
More and more of these businesses are likely to move out of the downtown core to malls. The downtown could become a void area where there are few businesses or reasons to go to and therefore no customers for the parking, much less the businesses.
How much does Victoria council think businesses can take before the grass on the other side of the fence becomes the business’s own front lawn?
Leslie Leyh
Saanichton
Reducing downtown parking is wrong
The decision to reduce parking at Harris Green is not Starlight’s decision, it’s the decision of Victoria council. Just because you cut down on parking doesn’t mean it’s not needed and wanted.
It strikes me that council want to be the cool people: “Look how council has improved the carbon footprint.”
Does Victoria council not want families to live there?
“Hi honey, I’m off to Costco with the two kids today. It should only take me three bus trips to get everything home. Sure wish we could have a parking spot so we could have a car.”
“Hi, I won’t be coming to work for a few days, I was mugged and injured by one of those poor lovely street persons. What’s that? Oh you’ve had to close the store for a few days anyway because it was badly vandalized by one of those marginalized sweethearts?”
How idiotic. Victoria has catch and release vandals and thieves, human feces and used drug paraphernalia everywhere. And now council is cutting parking there.
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
Julia Pollard
Victoria
We need parking spaces, not pandemic patios
Rather than raising parking fees, perhaps Victoria should first consider returning to parking inventory, all those spaces currently occupied by restaurant “pandemic patios.”
The need for these patios has passed. They sit unused for most of the year and are an eyesore that often more resemble livestock pens than charming patios. (See the 1000 block of Broad Street.)
These patios are grossly inequitable to taxpaying businesses and residents. They rob other businesses and residents of needed parking while gifting some lucky restaurants valuable increased space and capacity, on public property, that is neither taxed or charged rent at commercial rates.
This has been further exacerbated by these restaurants being allowed to turn these “patios” into full blown structures complete with walls, windows and roofs.
Did I mention this is on public property that would otherwise be generating parking revenue? Other businesses can’t do this. Homeowners can’t do this.
Most of these patios occupy multiple parking spaces. At current parking rates, two spaces are able to generate between $13,000 to $20,000 annually.
Just returning these spaces to their original intended parking use could obviate raising rates on everyone to subsidize the conversion of limited parking to commercial use for a few restaurants that no longer require them.
Michael Theil
Victoria
Focus on community is lacking in Victoria
When you consider the extent that tourism and industry have pushed aside Victorians from their own downtown in recent years, is it really a surprise to see the area suffer the long slide of social bankruptcy?
Just in the past five years, its been a steady decline and it’s all because of downtown players who have their way over the community, thanks to a city administration that have consistently failed to represent community interests in the core.
You hand over the keys to those whose focus is not community and you reap what you sow.
You could see it coming.
John Vickers
Miramichi, New Brunswick
We will still have vehicles for many more years
I am appalled at the ignorance of Victoria city council as to motor vehicles. Apparently they are not aware that the vast majority of car manufacturers will have all-electric or hydrogen vehicles by 2035.
Victoria also has the highest promotion of electric car in the province.
Yes, there will still be gasoline/diesel vehicles around, but don’t use environmental comments that will not apply to the future. There will be just as many, if not more, stalls required in the future.
Ed Iddins
Victoria
Evolution doesn’t stop, even for spotted owls
Re: “Endangered owl found injured two months after release in sa国际传媒,” Feb. 18.
Is “endangered” the right word to describe the situation of the northern spotted owl? Maybe not. Evolution science states that the fittest survive. The other side of that coin is that the less fit do not survive.
The spotted owl and the barred owl are almost identical. Most of us could not tell them apart in the field. The principal difference relates to the relative efficiency of the two species in using land.
Spotted owls are terribly inefficient. As the article states, “a single pair of [spotted] owls requires 30 square kilometres of old-growth forest” to feed and breed.
By contrast, 30 square kilometres could support about 30 breeding pairs of barred owls at about 240 acres each. This demonstrates that the barred owl is a vastly superior design for essentially the same bird. The spotted owl is evolving into the barred owl right before our eyes.
According to legend, the English King Canute commanded the tide to stop coming in over a beach. Mother Nature ignored the king. Now, some people seem to be trying to stop evolution.
Imagine a scientist of today giving a stern lecture to Mother Nature: “Mom, this evolution stuff has got to stop! The biodiversity of the world was perfect when I was born. Stop making changes!”
No doubt the people behind the Northern Spotted Owl Breeding Program are sincerely trying to help those lovely owls. However, as King Canute discovered, natural processes like tides and evolution will not stop.
David Stocks
Saanich
Wild salmon decision is an act of reconciliation
Re: “15 farms off Island to shut in bid to save wild salmon,” Feb. 18.
Kudos to federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray for considering the seventh generation by refusing to renew the licenses for 15 salmon feedlots.
For many Indigenous communities, wild salmon are their lifeblood and I see this as an act of reconciliation.
Jim Pine
Victoria
Murray’s salmon decision was brave and necessary
Three cheers for Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray and her government for shutting down 15 open-net Atlantic salmon farms in the Discovery Islands area off Vancouver Island.
A brave and singular political decision.
This area is a highway for salmon and must be protected to rebuild dwindling stocks of wild coho and chinook. Mandatory.
Alex Rose
Author, Who Killed the Grand Banks
Oak Bay
Hey, Victoria, get rid of that planning staff
I think Victoria’a mayor and council have found a way to reduce the budget.
As per the sa国际传媒, the mayor thanked the staff for their “excellent advice” but told them that council would go “in a different direction because we have different priorities now.”
If they don’t need staff, just think of the savings in salaries, office space etc.
That way they could maybe offer free parking downtown.
John Barnes
Victoria
Don’t ignore city plans, learn from the experts
I have difficulty understanding why any Victoria resident or business would waste their time in the city planning processes. When it comes right down to it, the mayor and council can ignore the results.
These plans are not just guides, but expert ones informed by the knowledge, experience and desires of the community. They should not be ignored or overridden because a small group of politicians feel like doing so.
Whether it is Missing Middle or Harris Green, the nature of our city will not be so green and pretty.
Tourism Victoria will no longer be able to use the term “the City of Gardens.”
John Binsted
Victoria
Parking revenue? Pretend it doesn’t exist
I note with amusement that articles on both the Harris Green development and Victoria city council’s efforts to trim upcoming property tax hikes share the same page in the Feb. 18 edition.
First we have the news that the allowed number of parking spaces in the Harris Green project is to be reduced, with the implication that future projects can expect demands for even less parking spaces.
Then we have the newly elected and re-elected bright lights of council, apparently the best minds Victoria (and surrounding municipalities) can muster, pondering raising parking rates to support their endless spending on items not part of their core mandate.
I would suggest that they direct staff to pretend that parking revenues don’t exist at all, and make do without them, as clearly the intent is drive the hated automobile from city limits once and for all.
“You will own nothing and be happy” as the kids say.
Mark Taylor
Cowichan Valley
Attack the root causes of downtown’s issues
I am so tired of all the negative news regarding vandalism downtown, homelessness, drug overdoses, mental health issues.
What more is it going to take for local and provincial governments to start financing housing, support, drug and alcohol treatment and recovery programs, mental health treatment programs rather than offering business more money to replace broken windows.
Vandalism is a cry for help.
Everybody is someone’s family member, child, husband, mother, aunt, uncle and deserves to receive the treatment and long term support they require to become a contributing member of society.
Get on with it.
Ann Maffey
Saanich
Stop the vandalism to help save downtown
I was appalled to learn of the continuing spate of vandalism being visited on downtown Victoria businesses, government buildings and the central library. Several businesses have had their windows smashed multiple times.
The library has been vandalized six or seven times within the past several weeks.
Not surprisingly, some businesses are seriously considering pulling out of downtown.
That would be a serious blow to downtown Victoria.
These persistent window smashing episodes seem to be targeted and purposeful, especially the repeat attacks on the library.
This begs the questions: Who is doing this? To what end? Driving business out of downtown, intimidating staff and customers, forcing the library closure?
These attacks on downtown must be stopped before it’s too late.
John R. Paterson
Victoria
Solution to break-ins: Target the offenders
There could be only a small amount of people doing the break-ins downtown, so why not assist downtown businesses to install cameras and deal with possibly the handful of violators and try to move forward.
David Reimer
Victoria
Please, no horror movies about our old friends
Decades ago, when I was a little girl, I remember my mom reading me stories about Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. Those are lovely memories.
My mom was an excellent reader, and in my head, I can still hear her taking on the voices of all those loveable characters.
I read the same stories to my own kids. Now they’ve grown up, and they are reading them to their kids. Gentle, warm, loving, trustworthy, traditional stories that help keep the world feeling like a caring and dependable place.
If my grandkids come to visit, I would like to think I could feed them homemade cookies and happily read them some of the sweet old stories the rest of us grew up on.
But now somebody’s made a horror movie about my dependable old friends: Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.
Why? Why is it absolutely necessary to destroy stories that mean so much to so many folks? It’s just sad and un-called-for.
Go make a grocky old movie with your own distorted ideas and leave my happy memories alone.
Jean Jenkins
Saanich
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