Robertrandall’s Weblog

Come on down Saturday to the Moss Street Paint In and say hi. I’ll be setting my easel near the art gallery. Here’s the schedule:

TD Canada Trust Moss Street Paint-In
The Art Gallery’s 21st Annual - Saturday, July 19, 2008
Paint-In: 12noon - 4:00 pm
Free Gallery admission: 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Food & Beverage Garden: 12noon - 9:00 pm
Dancing to Kumbia: 4:00pm - 9:00 pm

While Victoria’s plan to install pop-up urinals remains clogged up with problems related to European plumbing and warranty issues, Seattle has given up on its automated toilet experiment and will sell the expensive units on eBay:

New York Times: Seattle to Remove Automated Toilets

The dismal outcome coincides with plans by New York, Los Angeles and Boston, among other cities, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for expansion this fall in their installation of automated toilets — stand-alone structures with metal doors that open at the press of a button and stay closed for up to 20 minutes. The units clean themselves after each use, disinfecting the seats and power-washing the floors.

Seattle officials say the project here failed because the toilets, which are to close on Aug. 1, were placed in neighborhoods that already had many drug users and transients. Then there was the matter of cost: $1 million apiece over five years, which because of a local ordinance had to be borne entirely by taxpayers instead of advertisers.

It’s odd that it was deemed a failure to place toilets in the area they are needed the most. I think the only workable solution is what Vancouver has–clean, no-frills underground washrooms staffed with attendants. Sure, it’s expensive, but so is selling a white elephant on eBay.

Meanwhile, here in Victoria, City Hall will still continue experimenting with placing portable urinals in various high-traffic locations that are tolerated by business owners.

The Victoria News’ Keith Vass on the Community Association’s letter to Solicitor General Van Dongen. It’s good to see this issue getting the front page treatment:

Community groups back police amalgamation

John Weaver, a member of the Rockland Neighbourhood Association, volunteered to write a first draft, which was amended after being circulated once among the associations. A revised version should be sent to Van Dongen’s office this week after the final two signatures are received.

“We are paying police for a region of 350,000 where most of the crime is committed in the downtown area,” said Weaver.
“And as a result we pay more taxes and yet we don’t get the community policing as somewhere like Oak Bay gets, where they can rescue your cat from a tree and deal with a beach party.”

What a great quote. That ought to get the houndstooth crowd’s knickers in a knot.

Downtown Residents’ Association chairman Robert Randall said the issue goes beyond making more officers available for downtown duty.

“I think the cheap solution is just more cops on the beat,” he said.

“I think if we really want to get a hold of some of these issues that are troubling us it’s more sophisticated than that, looking at things like undercover cops. I’m hearing they’re so much more efficient at getting criminals off the street than a beat cop is.”

It stands to reason that an undercover operation works better when you draw your cops from a wider pool of talent. Of course, any police operation, no matter how successful in generating arrests, can truly be considered a success if the Crown refuses to lay charges on non-violent crimes. That’s why the Community Court program is so badly needed here.

It’s not often that Victoria’s community associations (13 in all) agree on a simple issue. But the issue of police amalgamation has galvanized the associations into urging the Province to implement it. All the associations that took part in a recent “meet the police board” event agreed that writing a letter to the Solicitor General was a good first step, and a way to let the Province know how important police amalgamation is to the health and safety of the region. Here is the letter, drafted by Rockland’s John Weaver based on thoughts and stats given at last month’s police board meet and greet. If you feel strongly you can write a letter too.

The Honourable John van Dongan PO Box 5276, STN B
Solicitor General of British Columbia Victoria, BC
PO Box 9053, STN PROV GOVT V8R 6N2
Victoria, BC, V8W 9E2
June 2008
Dear Mr. van Dongan,

As representatives of the Neighbourhood Associations of the City of Victoria, we are writing to express our deep concern about the effectiveness of the multiplicity of disparate police forces in the Capital Region, and to inform you in particular of our unanimous belief that the current structure is both unfair and unsustainable.

At present the financial burden of providing police services in the downtown core, where serious crime, rowdy behaviour associated with bars and nightclubs, homelessness and drug dealing are concentrated, falls disproportionately on the taxpayers of Victoria and Esquimalt alone. Although the combined population of these two municipalities is only 95,000 (2006 figures) the police department they are supporting is effectively providing services for a regional population of nearly 350,000 which uses Victoria as its downtown. As a result the Victoria Police Department has the highest case-load per officer in the entire Province while in the neighbouring municipalities the corresponding case-loads are below the Provincial average. Over 50% of crimes processed by Victoria police are committed by residents of other municipalities in the Capital Region.

In order to maintain these services, the Victoria Department has recently recruited nineteen new officers although it needs a total of sixty-six to bring its workload down to the Provincial average. The cost of this minimal recruitment has already been reflected in the tax assessments on Victoria and Esquimalt residents, but funding of the total number of officers required would clearly impose an unacceptably heavy burden on these same taxpayers. Moreover, since the under-staffed and overworked Victoria police department must concentrate its efforts on dealing with downtown crime on behalf of the whole region, it is impossible for it to provide the same level of community policing that is enjoyed by other municipalities. With the population of the Capital Region expected to increase by 11.3% before 2010, most of it in the outlying municipalities, this unsatisfactory situation will rapidly deteriorate unless radical measures are taken now.

By an Order in Council authorised by former Solicitor General, Rich Coleman, the police division of the former Esquimalt Police & Fire Department was amalgamated with the Victoria Police Department on 1 January, 2003. The integration of the two departments has worked well, although Esquimalt residents might well ask why only they among all the neighbouring municipalities have been called upon to help Victoria shoulder the cost of downtown policing. At the time of this amalgamation we were led to believe it would serve as a trial for the eventual integration of other police departments in Greater Victoria into a regional force. In fact we understand that a model for further amalgamation was drawn up and was ready to be implemented, but has since been quietly shelved. The need for this to be reactivated was never more obvious than at the time of the tragic multiple murder/suicide in Oak Bay last year when a bizarre series of events involving three separate police departments, misdirected emergency calls and unreliable communications revealed a complete lack of central authority and direction and the inability of a small, ill-equipped police department to respond to a major crime of this nature when it occurs within the boundaries of its jurisdiction. Lives might have been saved had a regional police force been in place.

Although there can be no other metropolitan region in Canada with so many different police departments serving a population of 350,000, parochialism and self-interest will, unfortunately, prevent amalgamation from being initiated by the other municipalities of Greater Victoria. Only courageous and decisive action by the Provincial Government can rectify this anomalous and unsustainable situation. In the interests of fairness, equity, sustainability and efficiency, we urge you and the Government to recognise that this urgent problem needs immediate attention.

Yours respectfully,

Burnside Gorge Community Association
Downtown Residents Association
Fairfield Community Association
Fernwood Community Association
James Bay Neighbourhood Association
North Jubilee Neighbourhood Association
North Park Neighbourhood Association
Oaklands Community Association
Rockland Neighbourhood Association
South Jubilee Neighbourhood Association
Victoria West Community Association

CBC British Columbia reports on the recently announced finalists of the RBC Canadian Painting Competition. A look at the list reveals no Victoria artists on the list of candidates from Western Canada; in fact, all five finalists from the West call Vancouver home.

However, at least two of the artists have strong Victoria connections. Patrick Howlett is a recent UVic Fine Arts grad now working out of Fredericton. I got to meet Patrick a couple of years ago but he and many of his MFA classmates have left Victoria to pursue opportunities in Eastern Canada.

Toronto-based Martin Golland, a finalist representing Central Canada is another former Victorian. Martin and I were part of a three-person group show back in 2006 at Victoria’s Open Space Gallery entitled “Domestic Bliss“.

In addition, in the last month artist and former DRA board member Ingrid Percy has recently taken up residency in Newfoundland, while my former upstairs neighbour, painter Neil MacCormick now calls Montreal home in order to be closer to North America’s cultural capitals.

None of this is terribly unusual for a full-time professional artist. Part of the job requires chasing down essential artist residencies, teaching opportunities and visiting artist sessions. Being close to a major gallery that can consistently show your work is another big plus.

In today’s global society, artists will increasingly be calling many cities “home” as they flit across the globe building their careers. One thing that surprised me when visiting Berlin in the summer of 2005 was seeing the number of Western Canadian artists living and working there. Our challenge as Victorians will not only be persuading the grads of the local art schools to stick around for a while, but convincing artists from other cities to come to Victoria to pursue their careers. Housing affordability, lack of large studio spaces, a flat art market and isolation from the art hubs of New York, Toronto and Los Angeles further challenge local artists.

Paying the price for heritage
Vancouver’s wildly successful restoration program raises questions about trade in ‘density bonuses’

Under the program, the city hands out the right to increase density on a site to a developer who restores a heritage building.

The developer can sell that right to another developer who could use it elsewhere, possibly by adding more floors to a condominium tower or hotel.

But city planners did not foresee the full impact of allowing the sale of density bonuses from heritage projects to condominium developers.

As expected, the bonuses were used to build condos taller than would otherwise be allowed. But after contributing to restoration by buying density bonuses, developers were no longer required to put any more funds into public amenities.

City Councillor Suzanne Anton said the heritage program has distorted development in Vancouver.

The new condo community in the southern part of the city’s downtown peninsula does not have its own daycare centre, swimming pool or cultural facilities.

I don’t know a lot about about Victoria’s program although I do know that the grants are fairly modest. I think most grants are well under $100,000. The Hudson condos are an example of density transfer, where the potential density on the heritage Hudson site was transferred and combined on the tower site to the east.

I will be on Murray Langdon’s Newsline PM show on C-FAX for about 20 minutes sometime between 3 and 4 pm chatting about Downtown issues.

Today’s Times-Colonist has a worthwhile editorial on the Ellice Street homeless shelter controversy. Victoria City Council voted Thursday morning to send the Cool-Aid Society’s rezoning application for a new location for the Streetlink shelter to Public Hearing. The editorial has a lot to say about the problems in locating a shelter site, and the need for all neighbourhoods to step up to the plate in helping solve homelessness. As I often say to people who talk about “Downtown’s homeless problem”: do you think they were all born Downtown? Anyway, here’s a couple of good quotes:

A solution to a problem that affects a fellow human being, I believe, must be more than practical. It can’t be dealt with solely by bylaws and zoning.

It certainly can’t be dictated by community or “neighbourhood” concerns, especially when they’re based on assumptions and predictions that are probably less reasonable than they seem.

Some of those who would be neighbours of Cool Aid’s customers are upset at what this development would do to their neighbourhood. This is entirely understandable.

I don’t think these are grasping people concerned about lowered property values. I think they’re members of a neighbourhood where amenities like parks are in short supply, where the safety of children can’t be assumed as easily as it can in other parts of town or in other municipalities.

[...]

If we can accept low-income neighbours, can’t we accept those with none to speak of? If we can accept those with little, can’t we accept those with nothing?

And why is it that all the neighbourhoods between Sidney and Sooke aren’t lining up to offer accommodation to the homeless?

Have they no shame?

Next to Trixie Kramer, the most popular search term that brings people to this blog is Emaar Canada. I wrote about the DRA’s interaction with the Emaar development team and their acquisition of the option on the 819 Yates project here. The Times Colonist article detailing the project is here.

Emaar’s Vancouver office is only the second in North America, the other being in Newport Beach, California. Emaar has a larger presence in Africa, the Mid-East, Asia and of course, it’s home base, Dubai. Their website doesn’t even have a dedicated Canadian presence. However, they do have an office in Vancouver’s Guinness Tower and their representatives have been good at keeping us informed on the project and have been replying to our calls and e-mails promptly and candidly.

They do not wear robes and headdresses, nor do they ride around in solid gold Rolls-Royces. Brennan Cook and Maurice Ouellette are the Emaar reps that have been working with us and they are, of course, Canadian. Cook, (who studied at UBC) is Emaar Canada’s Development Manager. Ouellette is their VP of Development.

One Harris Green resident phoned me recently, enraged about this project, furious that Arab money was being used to build upon the parking lot next to the building he calls home. He was concerned that this new twin-tower project would become a target for terrorism. I expressed my sympathy by hanging up the phone.

Emaar Canada considers this the first of what could be more Victoria-era projects. I’m curious to see what else is on the agenda for them.

The Johnson Street Bridge has been a landmark on the Harbour for decades. I remember when it was painted black, and linked downtown Victoria to the railyards and industrial yards of Vic West.

Now, the media is reporting that the bridge is about to undergo an City-sponsored engineering inspection, with a mind to determining the future of the 84-year-old bascule bridge.

A replacement fixed bridge is probably out of the question. The revitalization of the Upper Harbour ship repair facilities means ship traffic will remain for decades to come. In fact, any type of replacement will probably be too expensive for the City. This type of project is likely to be unpopular as a public/private partnership so would have to be funded entirely by taxpayers to the tune of over $10 million.

The best solution, providing the bridge isn’t in disastrous condition, is to spend the money necessary to ensure it lasts for at least the next quarter century. It will still cost a lot, but it will be money well spent. It has paid for itself handsomely over the decades, and we should remind ourselves that there has been a lot of deferred maintenance on that bridge and we have only ourselves to blame for its present less-than-satisfactory state.

It will then be up to a future generation to determine if the Johnson St. Bridge will be suitable for bringing commuters into Downtown for the second half of the 21st century.