The James Bay Coalition contends that if the City of Victoria’s proposed Official Community Plan (OCP) is implemented as-is, the oldest residential neighbourhood on the West Coast north of San Francisco will lose affordable and heritage housing and too many trees.

“If you're looking at heritage [designation], there is nothing in the OCP that explicitly protects heritage,” coalition spokesperson Mariann Burka tells Capital Daily.

“Same with protecting existing trees, it's not covered.”

The group will hold a rally outside City Hall today from noon to 1pm. It’s calling on the city to strengthen renter and greenspace/tree protections, make affordability a priority, and protect James Bay’s heritage buildings.

The city’s OCP, currently being shaped and debated, will determine where to locate housing and businesses and set out transportation and climate-action priorities. The group says that as it’s drawn up right now, the OCP puts too much pressure on James Bay.

“We have the largest group of 65+ residents in Victoria,” the group says on its Change.org petition urging “Victoria City Council to Save What We Love About James Bay.”

As of last night, the petition had received 1,074 signatures.

The coalition says the neighbourhood with a population of roughly 13K+ is made up of a mixed bag of income levels and that “approximately 70% of residents" rent their homes.

"Many of them are long-term tenants with affordable rents,” who don't want to be displaced, the group says on its petition. 

The James Bay Coalition says its neighbourhood contains a multitude of housing types and densities, including heritage houses and lush green streets and it worries some of that will disappear under the proposed OCP. 

The proposed housing project near Thrifty Foods

Burka points to three old homes on Menzies across from Thrifty Foods—including one she asserts could be designated heritage—slated to be bulldozed to make way for a four-storey, 43-unit building.

The group says adding more expensive housing in James Bay isn’t helping the overall affordable housing shortage and that the OCP doesn’t include any affordability requirements in new rental housing, such as the 20% requirement required in Burnaby, for example.

“They're boasting about how they have overachieved and exceeded the targets (4,902 homes over five years), but all the targets that they have achieved are all market price,” Burka said.

In an email to Capital Daily, the city said, unlike the CRD or BC Housing, it does not build affordable housing. 

“The role of the municipality is to guide and regulate land use to enable needed housing to be developed,” it said.

“Providing more opportunities for four- to six-storey development throughout the city will make it easier for affordable housing providers to find appropriate sites and leverage funding from other levels of government for new affordable housing, including James Bay.”

Burka said James Bay has the highest number of development applications compared with any other neighbourhood in Victoria and that the council hasn’t seen a James Bay proposal it hasn’t liked.

“Council has approved every application that has come before them,” she said.

High-density James Bay

“This, in combination with our being 40% denser than any other neighbourhood, means that James Bay has already contributed more than its fair share of density without having to absorb even more with the new OCP plan,” Burka said.

“We want balanced development that protects affordable housing, preserves our heritage, and maintains our green spaces.” 

The city acknowledges the struggle with a lack of secured, affordable housing options and says that struggle is related to the lack of purpose-built rental development over many decades, which has not kept pace with population growth and demand. 

“Victoria, like many cities,” it said, “needs to catch up.”

In an email to Capital Daily, the city called its existing heritage program “nationally renowned,” and says the update directs a renewal of that program, which would “include examining ways to recognize the full diversity of heritage in Victoria” and consider “opportunities to improve incentives for heritage retention and conservation.”

As far as trees are concerned, the city said growing the urban forest is a major objective of the OCP, and that the OCP includes a target of 40% tree canopy cover citywide. 

The group said the council was flooded with letters from residents about what is wrong with the OCP and demanding changes, but the council refused to budge.

City defends engagement process

The city calls the OCP engagement process “very robust” because it “spanned approximately six months and included diverse events and ways to participate, including three large open houses, five virtual sessions, and 15 pop-up events across the city, as well as meetings with diverse stakeholders.”

It said it received nearly 1,500 online survey responses, in addition to hundreds of emails.

In an April 2 op-ed in the Times Colonist, Burka wrote that at "six months of 'public engagement,'" James Bay didn't get enough air time.

"Past OCPs had two years of public consultation and each neighbourhood had its own local area plan (LAP)," she wrote.

"Now, James Bay, whose LAP is from the 1990s, had a mere two-hour workshop to identify residents’ priorities."

Simply put, she concluded, "this plan is bad news."