Our Crumbling Foundation by Gregor Craigie

Author:Gregor Craigie [Craigie, Gregor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2024-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

15

SQUEEZED OUT BY SINGLE-FAMILY ZONING

Victoria

The sun is shining, the concrete trucks are pouring, and construction workers are busy framing his company’s newest apartment building, but Victoria developer Luke Mari isn’t smiling. Though building is booming and construction cranes are a common sight on the skyline, Luke knows the frenetic activity in British Columbia’s capital city isn’t enough to keep up with demand. Luke is an urban planner by training who now works for a private home building company called Aryze Developments. The company has been going gangbusters over the last few years, designing and building a wide range of new homes, including houseplexes, townhouses, and both low- and mid-rise apartment buildings. But Aryze has tried, unsuccessfully, to build many more, and that’s the reason for the weary expression on Luke Mari’s bearded face.

Victoria has the lowest vacancy rate in Canada, some of the highest house costs, and rents that are rising steeply. It’s simply too expensive for a lot of people to think about moving here from more affordable cities. Even people with high-paying jobs, like family doctors coming out of medical school, say Victoria is just too expensive for them. In 2023, the BC government announced it would now hire civil servants in any city or town across the province that has a provincial government office, rather than insisting they move to the capital. Meanwhile, homeless camps have become a regular sight in parks and on city streets, and many renters in old buildings worry they might be next. There are several reasons for this perfect storm of housing unaffordability. The mildest climate in Canada attracts wealthy retirees, universities and colleges here bring in thousands of students, and many people who live elsewhere own vacation properties in Victoria that sit vacant most of the year. But the most obvious reason is that Victoria doesn’t have enough homes to keep up with a rapidly growing population. Housing advocates blame the federal government’s decision thirty years ago to stop building public housing in large quantities. Some developers scoff at this, but not Luke Mari. He grew up in Greater Victoria and lived in public housing as a child. He now sits on the board of the Greater Victoria Housing Society, a non-profit dedicated to providing affordable housing to low- and moderate-income people, which believes “safe and affordable housing is essential to a person’s well-being and a foundation for success in life.” But Luke also believes private companies like Aryze can build a lot of new housing if the conditions are right.

A visit to the Aryze Developments office offers a quick view of what he sees as Victoria’s major problem. The old two-storey building stands in the Fairfield-Gonzales neighbourhood, a leafy expanse of single-family homes intermingling with colourful rhododendrons and shiny Teslas charging in driveways. Though it sits less than a ten-minute drive from downtown Victoria even with the 30-kph speed limit along Fairfield Road, there’s little to hint that the neighbourhood is in the middle of a city that needs a lot more housing.

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