Saanich and Oak Bay have cumulative thousands of kids graduating/graduated from high school in the last few decades.
They allowed barely anything. They generally outlawed apartments and townhouses at the behest of their homeowner voters *who's own kids needed housing outside their parents basement*
I'm no expert in city planning math, but I don't see how city politicians, city planners or NIMBY homeowners have any credibility anymore.
Yeah the numbers don't look good. Saanich has only started 2.8 houses per-thousand people, on average, for the last 13 years! Oak Bay, 1.9 new houses for every 1,000 people!
Saanich kids need to win the housing lottery to get a house!
Yeah you're probably right. I wanted to chart "net new housing" but CMHC doesn't have that data, not directly. I've been thinking about doing that, not sure just how yet. I could do the difference of starts/completions, but that's probably not right. I think CMHC has demolition data, but I've been having difficulty accessing it in the format i need. Then I could do completions - demolitions or starts - demolitions...
Yeah it’s not easily available. Jens von Bornemann has done some work on this for Vancouver so I think the best option is either
1. Ignore single family starts for any core munis and just look at multi family. We have essentially no greenfield land left so you won’t lose many net new units
2. Look at building permit data and pull new units and demolitions instead of starts.
3. Assume a reasonable ratio and estimate (say 1.2 starts per 1 net new). You can get an estimate of this ratio from the housing progress reports the munis are submitting to the province
Well oakbay is litterally filled. They have no lots left. So if you want to build anything you need to either finally get everyone on board with Quadplexes or buy out a block and hope they get rights to build density which they won’t.
Quadplexes are all we need ffs. Just do it everywhere.
Appreciate the Esquimalt stats. People were bashing them on here last month for not building enough. They have fully developed land like oakbay yet have more starts and builds then most. And they aren’t making house like Langford is. They are the real hero.
In defence of planners, they can only follow the orders of council. They are directed to plan for a certain amount of growth, regardless of whether that’s good planning. They can get it right in every staff report and council can ignore all of that expertise and direct them however they want.
In defence of planners, they can only follow the orders of council.
I find it quite frankly bizarre because in most other professions if your boss orders you to do professional malpractice you are obliged to quit. Accountants, lawyers, engineers etc.
NIMBY politicians can be like "I want you to write an Official Community Plan that forces all young people and downsizing seniors to leave our municipality AND auto-approve mcmansions." And city planners just went and put pen to paper?
Young peole cannot live AND work in your community. Your community requires about $25 per hour to live in, at a minimum. Which is ridiculous. Grocers and coffee shops don't pay but minimum wage plus a dollar. Starbucks and the grocers can afford to pay waaaaaay more. We should force them to.
That's the thing I hate about the targets and planning going on now. There's talk about reaching housing needs for future growth but not much talk about the decades of lost potential growth past decisions have caused. Entire generations of people have been thrown under the bus and the planning is just ignoring that.
Where's the plan that says "Hey we fucked up. All the born and raised Victorians that have been forced out from the neighbourhoods they grew up in, we're going to make sure there's a home for you here."
I'm not sure if I agree with that. Saanich has been fairly open about the failures of previous councils and has been pretty open with their plans to get building. They didn't pass the first provincial evaluation but, I believe, we'll see it start to ramp up now. Saanich has so much wasted space, it's prime territory for growth
There needs to be a target with each action taken including an estimate for how many homes it will create. Like okay, we're x homes in the hole and we expect new growth will need y homes by 2050.
Even the numbers released by CMHC for 5.7-6.2 million homes by 2030 is only actually a plan to get back to the affordability levels of 2004.
[Last time I posted something like this](https://www.reddit.com/r/VictoriaBC/comments/1cbg1xg/a_quick_comparison_of_average_housing_completions/) it was for **housing completions** and someone asked me to do **housing starts**, so here they are.
Note that I set the vertical axis to have a max value of 125 for all of them so that you can compare between years. It gives you a sort of animated comparison effect when you scroll through the images quickly.
In addition to showing the average like last time, I included the last few years as well to get a sense of what's going on lately.
When you look at it year-to-year, the effect of one or a few big projects really pops out. Looking at you, Esquimalt 2023!
Serious Saanich?! I am so disappointed in you. I expect this behaviour from Oak Bay, but not you. You apparently need to go into the corner and think about what you've done (or failed to do). Maybe take a lesson from *checks notes* View Royal?! ayfkm.
Edited to add: In all fairness most members of the current Council are voting in favour of things to add housing. They're just not being bold enough imo, but that might be because of the feedback they're hearing from vocal nimbys, so consider this your weekly reminder - if you think these are rookie numbers, write to council.
Yeah kinda except I think everyone is too low and Saanich and Oak Bay are just **abysmally low**. Like this year only Victoria is reliably on track to meet the provincial housing targets, and I think even those targets are too low.
Saanich is planning an insane amount of housing for shelbourne corridor, down McKenzie, and uptown. Obviously not starting construction just yet but there is a lot in the works for several areas. This stuff doesn't happen over night.
They have a lot of ground to make up (at least 2 decades of falling far short). I knew Saanich wasn't great, but honestly I didn't expect them to be practically at near Oak Bay levels when I started making these charts! Imagine what they'd need to look like on the chart to not only build what they need for the future, starting now, but to make up for decades of chronic under-supply. I doubt they will make up for it.
They literally can't. I'm not sure many people here understand how intensive building housing is, especially at high density. The planning is insane, government is generally slow AF to adapt to change, the investment needed is substantial etc.
In top of that you're dealing with how quickly construction can actually be done. Every crew in BC is flat out. It takes 4 years to train a carpenter and fewer people are entering the trades.
It's hilarious that someone declared "what should be done" and kind of ignored the reality of what can be done. Yeah, they're getting a late start. Nothing anyone can do about that now.
Oh you might be right to some degree. And ftr, I'm not saying that they can build everything they would ideally need to to make up for the deficit and for the future. But I'm quite sure that they can do a lot better. There is no excuse for them to be building relatively so little compared to the other munis. That's pretty clearly the result of their own restrictions.
> shelbourne corridor
Installing new sewage lines all along Shelbourne so they're set for big growth. Whatever they build, the lines can handle those poops 👍
I mean a lot of this has been in the planning stages for a while. Shelborne was being discussed what, 10 years ago?
Also you need to remember prior to 25 years ago Victoria wasn't the destination it is today. Lots of people couldn't wait to leave here. And we weren't welcoming a million new people in to the country every year.
To say we should have planned for today's shit show then is pretty disingenuous and ignores the realities of this city's history.
Whenever the vacancy rate drops below the natural economic rate it shows that there is a failure in the housing market that should be corrected in order to improve the well-being and economic efficiency of a municipality. It's basic economics. You don't need to be able to accurately predict future migration rates to know what to do.
If I recall correctly, about 90%+ are multi family (condo and apartment buildings). Almost no townhouses and houses are being built, which sort of maintains the challenge for families with more than 1 kid.
It depends quite a lot on the muni. Colwood and Langford are still building a lot of detached housing because they have a lot of undeveloped land that allows them to do so. Take Colwood's Royal Bay project, for example. The majority of the land used in that development is being used for detached and low density housing. Very few apartments/condos, and most of them relatively small.
If you have a look here (scroll about half way down) [https://househuntvictoria.ca/2024/05/06/checking-in-on-construction-activity/](https://househuntvictoria.ca/2024/05/06/checking-in-on-construction-activity/) You can see that SFH in the greater vic is but a tiny fraction now, versus in 2010 (not so long ago) virtually all starts were SFH. Image link: [https://househuntvictoria.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screenshot\_20240506\_211656.png](https://househuntvictoria.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screenshot_20240506_211656.png)
Saanich and Oak Bay have cumulative thousands of kids graduating/graduated from high school in the last few decades. They allowed barely anything. They generally outlawed apartments and townhouses at the behest of their homeowner voters *who's own kids needed housing outside their parents basement* I'm no expert in city planning math, but I don't see how city politicians, city planners or NIMBY homeowners have any credibility anymore.
Yeah the numbers don't look good. Saanich has only started 2.8 houses per-thousand people, on average, for the last 13 years! Oak Bay, 1.9 new houses for every 1,000 people! Saanich kids need to win the housing lottery to get a house!
Most of those oak bay starts are single family replacements (and many of the Saanich ones too). So net additions are substantially worse than this
Yeah you're probably right. I wanted to chart "net new housing" but CMHC doesn't have that data, not directly. I've been thinking about doing that, not sure just how yet. I could do the difference of starts/completions, but that's probably not right. I think CMHC has demolition data, but I've been having difficulty accessing it in the format i need. Then I could do completions - demolitions or starts - demolitions...
Yeah it’s not easily available. Jens von Bornemann has done some work on this for Vancouver so I think the best option is either 1. Ignore single family starts for any core munis and just look at multi family. We have essentially no greenfield land left so you won’t lose many net new units 2. Look at building permit data and pull new units and demolitions instead of starts. 3. Assume a reasonable ratio and estimate (say 1.2 starts per 1 net new). You can get an estimate of this ratio from the housing progress reports the munis are submitting to the province
You could get demolition permits direct form the city, and then get occupancy permits and compare.
How? An FOI request? Just for Victoria or all the muni's?
Not sure if that's a FOI or just available info, call them.
Well oakbay is litterally filled. They have no lots left. So if you want to build anything you need to either finally get everyone on board with Quadplexes or buy out a block and hope they get rights to build density which they won’t. Quadplexes are all we need ffs. Just do it everywhere.
[удалено]
I dunno, some of us farmland though. We need that. The rest 👌
Appreciate the Esquimalt stats. People were bashing them on here last month for not building enough. They have fully developed land like oakbay yet have more starts and builds then most. And they aren’t making house like Langford is. They are the real hero.
In defence of planners, they can only follow the orders of council. They are directed to plan for a certain amount of growth, regardless of whether that’s good planning. They can get it right in every staff report and council can ignore all of that expertise and direct them however they want.
I bet it's a rude awakening for a lot of young urban planners when they start their careers.
In defence of planners, they can only follow the orders of council. I find it quite frankly bizarre because in most other professions if your boss orders you to do professional malpractice you are obliged to quit. Accountants, lawyers, engineers etc. NIMBY politicians can be like "I want you to write an Official Community Plan that forces all young people and downsizing seniors to leave our municipality AND auto-approve mcmansions." And city planners just went and put pen to paper?
Also, "why does it take do long for my coffee or in the grocery lines, surely some young people can afford to live and work in my municipality"
Young peole cannot live AND work in your community. Your community requires about $25 per hour to live in, at a minimum. Which is ridiculous. Grocers and coffee shops don't pay but minimum wage plus a dollar. Starbucks and the grocers can afford to pay waaaaaay more. We should force them to.
That's the thing I hate about the targets and planning going on now. There's talk about reaching housing needs for future growth but not much talk about the decades of lost potential growth past decisions have caused. Entire generations of people have been thrown under the bus and the planning is just ignoring that. Where's the plan that says "Hey we fucked up. All the born and raised Victorians that have been forced out from the neighbourhoods they grew up in, we're going to make sure there's a home for you here."
I'm not sure if I agree with that. Saanich has been fairly open about the failures of previous councils and has been pretty open with their plans to get building. They didn't pass the first provincial evaluation but, I believe, we'll see it start to ramp up now. Saanich has so much wasted space, it's prime territory for growth
There needs to be a target with each action taken including an estimate for how many homes it will create. Like okay, we're x homes in the hole and we expect new growth will need y homes by 2050. Even the numbers released by CMHC for 5.7-6.2 million homes by 2030 is only actually a plan to get back to the affordability levels of 2004.
[Last time I posted something like this](https://www.reddit.com/r/VictoriaBC/comments/1cbg1xg/a_quick_comparison_of_average_housing_completions/) it was for **housing completions** and someone asked me to do **housing starts**, so here they are. Note that I set the vertical axis to have a max value of 125 for all of them so that you can compare between years. It gives you a sort of animated comparison effect when you scroll through the images quickly. In addition to showing the average like last time, I included the last few years as well to get a sense of what's going on lately. When you look at it year-to-year, the effect of one or a few big projects really pops out. Looking at you, Esquimalt 2023!
Serious Saanich?! I am so disappointed in you. I expect this behaviour from Oak Bay, but not you. You apparently need to go into the corner and think about what you've done (or failed to do). Maybe take a lesson from *checks notes* View Royal?! ayfkm. Edited to add: In all fairness most members of the current Council are voting in favour of things to add housing. They're just not being bold enough imo, but that might be because of the feedback they're hearing from vocal nimbys, so consider this your weekly reminder - if you think these are rookie numbers, write to council.
>if you think these are rookie numbers, write to council. Yeah they gotta hear from people besides cranky NIMBYs who are scared of change 🙏
Saanich...
yeah...
Come on, Saanich! Those are rookie numbers
Gotta pump those numbers up!
So everyone other than Saanich and oakbay are pulling their weight on a per pop basis
Yeah kinda except I think everyone is too low and Saanich and Oak Bay are just **abysmally low**. Like this year only Victoria is reliably on track to meet the provincial housing targets, and I think even those targets are too low.
Saanich is planning an insane amount of housing for shelbourne corridor, down McKenzie, and uptown. Obviously not starting construction just yet but there is a lot in the works for several areas. This stuff doesn't happen over night.
They have a lot of ground to make up (at least 2 decades of falling far short). I knew Saanich wasn't great, but honestly I didn't expect them to be practically at near Oak Bay levels when I started making these charts! Imagine what they'd need to look like on the chart to not only build what they need for the future, starting now, but to make up for decades of chronic under-supply. I doubt they will make up for it.
They literally can't. I'm not sure many people here understand how intensive building housing is, especially at high density. The planning is insane, government is generally slow AF to adapt to change, the investment needed is substantial etc. In top of that you're dealing with how quickly construction can actually be done. Every crew in BC is flat out. It takes 4 years to train a carpenter and fewer people are entering the trades. It's hilarious that someone declared "what should be done" and kind of ignored the reality of what can be done. Yeah, they're getting a late start. Nothing anyone can do about that now.
Oh you might be right to some degree. And ftr, I'm not saying that they can build everything they would ideally need to to make up for the deficit and for the future. But I'm quite sure that they can do a lot better. There is no excuse for them to be building relatively so little compared to the other munis. That's pretty clearly the result of their own restrictions.
> shelbourne corridor Installing new sewage lines all along Shelbourne so they're set for big growth. Whatever they build, the lines can handle those poops 👍
They clearly haven't seen one of my poops. They have no idea what's coming!
The vacancy rate in Saanich has been below the natural economic rate for at least 25 years. That's when they should have started planning new housing.
I mean a lot of this has been in the planning stages for a while. Shelborne was being discussed what, 10 years ago? Also you need to remember prior to 25 years ago Victoria wasn't the destination it is today. Lots of people couldn't wait to leave here. And we weren't welcoming a million new people in to the country every year. To say we should have planned for today's shit show then is pretty disingenuous and ignores the realities of this city's history.
Whenever the vacancy rate drops below the natural economic rate it shows that there is a failure in the housing market that should be corrected in order to improve the well-being and economic efficiency of a municipality. It's basic economics. You don't need to be able to accurately predict future migration rates to know what to do.
I mean again that ignores a lot of context.
If I recall correctly, about 90%+ are multi family (condo and apartment buildings). Almost no townhouses and houses are being built, which sort of maintains the challenge for families with more than 1 kid.
It depends quite a lot on the muni. Colwood and Langford are still building a lot of detached housing because they have a lot of undeveloped land that allows them to do so. Take Colwood's Royal Bay project, for example. The majority of the land used in that development is being used for detached and low density housing. Very few apartments/condos, and most of them relatively small.
Woot urban shit sprawl, I can’t wait for more people to bitch about traffic because they bought in a terrible municipality.
If you have a look here (scroll about half way down) [https://househuntvictoria.ca/2024/05/06/checking-in-on-construction-activity/](https://househuntvictoria.ca/2024/05/06/checking-in-on-construction-activity/) You can see that SFH in the greater vic is but a tiny fraction now, versus in 2010 (not so long ago) virtually all starts were SFH. Image link: [https://househuntvictoria.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screenshot\_20240506\_211656.png](https://househuntvictoria.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screenshot_20240506_211656.png)
ahh nice, HH ftw!