DRA & DV2020 Election Questions
for a Better Downtown Victoria
Submitted by Simon Nattrass
www.voteforsimon.com
Park planning/green space – Green space is important in any city, especially in high density areas. We must work to ensure that our parks and green spaces are functional, well-used facilities and are tailored to the surrounding area. I am in favour of creating a parks zone to regulate all parks in the city, provided that zoning still allows for parks to be used to their full potential and possibly be taken out of the inventory. I believe the first action needed is an analysis of how our green spaces are zoned, followed by an assessment of how well the spaces are used and how they can be improved to avoid loss due to neglect.Late night downtown issues – I believe that the majority of the bar crowd is not the problem, but rather the few rowdies who are likely to cause trouble regardless of where they are in the city. I would like to see bars open later to allow patron to leave more slowly. This will allow police to be more effective as well as reducing the overall noise/annoyance for downtown residents. I would like to see the city continue to provide toilets for late-night public use and work to provide late night public transit either with LRT or select bus service.
Policing and safety – Police are necessary but are not the answer to all of our problems downtown. We will need to work with all levels of government, police, and communities to solve social problems in the downtown. Increasing the number of people living, working, and having fun downtown both during the day and night will also go a long way to providing safer streets. Recognizing that these things will take time, I would like to see the City approach the other core municipalities with a mutually beneficial proposition for police amalgamation.
Continuing residential development – I would like to see the city encourage more mixed-use development in the downtown, and support increasing density in the immediate vicinity of the core. I would like to see the city formally commit to a community plan for downtown and follow it, delegating as much routine work as possible to planning staff.
Additional cultural/social amenities – I believe Victoria must increase our support for the arts community, and as a first step would like to see funding pursued for a downtown arts centre which would be designed in cooperation with the arts community to meet any needs that are not currently served by existing facilities.
Commercial prosperity – Improving the social situation downtown will greatly benefit businesses in the area, but due to the economic climate we will be looking at a decline in tourism over the next few years. While on council I would like to work with planning staff and other levels of government to encourage new local business to serve local needs. In order to grow, we must diversify our economy, and downtown will certainly prosper as a result of this activity. The issues we will need to address will be affordable housing and zoning regulations around industry.
Transportation planning – Public transit is a benefit for numerous reasons from environmental benefits to the price of gas, and we will need to improve our regional infrastructure sooner rather than later. The first step in this is to work with the CRD to develop a regional transit plan, and I will do my best on council to ensure that this plan includes LRT, increased community service, and cycling infrastructure.
Infrastructure improvements – There are some pressing issues as far as our utility infrastructure is concerned, and as such I believe most of council's time and budget in this area will be taken up by sewage lines and treatment upgrades. I support publicly owned sewage treatment which prioritizes the removal of man made chemicals and incorporates resource recovery systems. The action I would recommend at this point is simply beginning the process of negotiation with the province and the federal government to ensure that the CRD is not left with a disproportionate amount of expense.
Budget priorities – There are three fairly dominant issue in this election which reflect my major budget priorities, and they are of course homelessness, affordable housing, and sewage treatment. LRT and other transit improvements will also be top priority. The city is also overdue for an internal audit, and we must work to ensure that our administration is running smoothly and that taxpayer's money is never wasted.
Property taxes – Will be increasing over the next few years with the addition of sewage treatment, LRT, and various housing services. That said, I will always treat increasing property taxes as a last resort for funding, looking instead to regional cooperation and higher levels of government for most of our social services and mandated infrastructure improvements.
Please explain your plan to ensure that an effective Good Neighbour Agreement with respect to social service providers is put in place to avoid negative effects in the surrounding area.
The city must be careful about relying solely on Good Neighbour Agreements, particularly with respect to shelters and other facilities that are notoriously difficult to manage. We must ensure that the organizations who manage these facilities have the ability (through staff, type of service, or previous experience) to do so effectively. We must also ensure that services are not concentrated in one place but spread out over the entire city, preferably in developments that offer a range of services.
Most of all, we will need to ensure that there are adequate services for the number of people who use them. If we cannot do this, it will be extremely difficult to uphold a Good Neighbour Agreement regardless of staffing, police presence, or even the type of service offered.
The Social Health of Downtown
How would you work to support Non Profits in the community, and what role do you see the City playing in helping keep this sector strong?
The biggest issue for non profits in the coming years will undoubtedly be funding. To deal with this issue, I would like to see the city assign staff specifically to assist non profits groups with funding applications, organization of services, and administrative efficiency.
How do you propose getting all 214 non-profits to come to the table and work together under the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness to provide a more seamless provision of services to those in need and stop providing a duplication of services and therefore a waste of valuable funding?
Apart from assigning staff to this task, Council must (together with the coalition) first set goals and priorities and commit to a budget for this new work. Once this is done, I believe getting most if not all non profits to work together will simply be a matter of bringing each one to the table and involving them in the creation and implementation of an organizational strategy to cover the core objectives of each type of social service.
Making Plans become Realities
The Downtown Plan – The City needs not just to adopt this plan but also to consider how to activate it, fund it, and make sure things come to pass.
I would like to see the city commit to its downtown plan, prezone accordingly, and delegate its implementation to staff. Council's job will then be to manage economic factors around housing an commerce to attract the type of development desired for downtown.
The Harbourfront Walkway Plan , which would connect the harbour from Ogden Point all the way up to the Selkirk trestle. Two key areas are the Belleville Terminal and the Blue Bridge.
To the best of my knowledge, work is still underway on the implementation of this plan. To address the progress of all current planning initiatives, I would suggest a yearly review of actions taken and potential problems or changes to be made.
An excellent plan adopted in 1992 entitled the Downtown Beautification Strategy which seems to have fallen into disuse.
I am unfamiliar with this plan and cannot seem to find any information on it, but I will say that the appearance of our downtown has been brought to my attention before, and I do believe that the core is in need of some aesthetic improvements. The implementation of either the existing Downtown Beautification Strategy or a new strategy will certainly be a worthy planning initiative.
The Greenways Plan which will make our city a more sustainable, walkable and liveable place.
The implementation of the greenways plan is based largely on the acquisition of new property as it becomes available, and as such will take some time to accomplish. Right now I believe the city can concentrate on improving our cycling infrastructure to make major commuter, recreation, and shopping areas more accessible.
6. Monitoring the Well-being of Downtown
How would you provide diligence in monitoring the health of downtown retail and services?
I will meet regularly with the representatives from the Chamber of Commerce and the DVBA, as well as individual business owners to ensure that my own knowledge of downtown's health is kept up to date, and will bring this knowledge with me to Council.
Are you willing to take a stand in supporting more residential density downtown as part of ensuring environmental, social and economic sustainability in our region?
Absolutely. While I would very much like to see the downtown core remain a low-lying heritage area, Victoria has ample opportunity for densification and mixed use development immediately to the north of downtown and in Harris Green/North Park.
Are you prepared to take leadership in ensuring that downtown provides the cultural and educational resources appropriate to it's role as the hub of the provincial capital?
Tourists come to our city to experience something different, and locals come downtown to live, work, and most of all play. Add to this the numerous colleges and universities in the Capital Region, and we have the prefect opportunity to make downtown a successful cultural and educational centre. Specific initiatives would be centred around improving funding programs and facilities for the arts, working with Tourism Victoria to promote the city's arts community, and supporting any necessary expansion of the downtown library, hopefully in conjunction with the creation of a new UVIC downtown campus.
What kind of priority will you give issues such as building a new and up-to-date Central Library, encouraging institutions such as the Art Gallery, or University to come downtown?
I would like to see downtown expand its cultural resources, and any suggestion to that end will be closely considered, including the expansion the the Library, Gallery, and University. The downtown is the centre of our region, and cultural improvements will be high on my list of priorities for the region. That said, Council as a whole must give a great portion of its attention to the pressing social issues in the core, and so I would suggest that one member of Council be assigned as an arts liaison.
