Tenants in shopping malls need to become part of the solution for affordable housing in the greater Victoria area.
In response to my suggestion that large, single-use parking areas at malls be converted to multi-use by building housing units above the parking stalls, a mall owner indicated interest, but noted a major hurdle: Several tenant leases have no-build restrictions on parking areas 鈥渢hat prohibit our ability to redevelop the parking areas from their current configuration.鈥�
Retail leaseholders can only benefit from having people live in housing over the mall's parking lot, providing a captive audience, so to speak, particularly for the mall鈥檚 food court, and perhaps even residences for their employees who will not need to commute to work.
Also, shoppers will come to the mall, rather than shopping online, because the covered parking lots will provide more needed conveniences, such as cover from our 148 days of rain per year, and the parking lots will be free from snow. (Also, no snow removal costs.)
Ben Pires
Victoria
