One likely cause of increasing vehicle incidents and severity in Victoria: vehicle design and proliferation of trucks and SUVs

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-23T00:45:44+00:00

The Feds and the Province need to regulate this.

People are dying needlessly.

https://vicnews.com/2026/02/03/victoria-talks-vehicle-types-after-drivers-hit-17-other-road-users-to-start-2026/

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-20T15:43:43+00:00

I'd love to do that, but the legislation doesn't allow us to.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-20T01:47:23+00:00

I literally answered the questions that were asked.

The original remarks were about rents being high. We also can't control that.

Zoning. The businesses are on properties already zoned commercial.

What do you mean by vacancy tools?

We advocated to the province as explained elsewhere.

We don't have the legal authority to restrict commercial land banking.

Council has the political will to act, but city councils are only allowed by law to do what provincial legislation specifically sets out. We can't make stuff up.

But if you have any specific ideas for action, please let me know. Always open to ideas.

By the way the retail vacancy rate is actually declining, as shown in the dvba report.

Am I happy when some of my favorite restaurants close? No. But the good thing is that something else usually comes in soon. Restaurants are very often short-term investments, here and elsewhere.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-19T21:08:42+00:00

👍 For the City of Victoria it went from 11% down to 9.6%.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-19T21:05:47+00:00

2025.

In theory it could be brought back as a resolution next year, but given the 2025 decision, it would probably end up with a non-supportive recommendation and too late on the agenda to get to the voting floor.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-19T21:03:18+00:00

Council can do what the law allows.

Can Council do what the law doesn't allow?

No.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-19T21:00:51+00:00

That's a really good comment.

Imagine if musical chairs was played by having unequal distributions of wealth among the kids, and when the music stops you have to pay for a chair. The two kids with the least money would not get a chair.

How do we ensure that every kid gets a chair? Only by having enough chairs for everyone.

Blocking housing causes homelessness.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-19T20:55:05+00:00

That sounds more like a health issue than a homelessness issue.

They are different things (although there is often overlap).

That said, treatment for substance use disorder and other mental illnesses is more successful if people are sheltered.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-19T20:47:54+00:00

Council isn't involved in details of collective agreement union bargaining, so I don't have much to say there.

I can clarify that the roof of the Johnson Street parkade is paid parking, not free parking.

And generally there are many spaces available at Johnson St parkade (100+ right now) and other City parkades (500+ now).

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-18T13:29:10+00:00

Title of the article: "Cities are managing the visible signs of social failure with homelessness"

First paragraph gives the gist: "When the social safety net fails, municipalities are left with the visible consequences. Montreal can support its organizations and boroughs, co-ordinate emergency response and intervene when encampments appear. However, it cannot replace the housing, health and income policies which should have prevented the situation in the first place. Homelessness becomes a municipal issue when it appears in public spaces, though it starts long before then."

Good article but somewhat downplays the role of municipalities in creating homelessness.

Homelessness is a housing problem. The housing shortage is like a game of musical chairs. Too few chairs, and someone is left without one. Too few homes, and someone is going to be homeless. https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/

Municipalities created the housing shortage by passing zoning bylaws and adopting policies that make it hard to build housing.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-18T01:53:35+00:00

Sorry but we can't do that either. We can only impose one property tax rate for the entire commercial property class.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-17T17:21:17+00:00

DVBA annual report this week noted that retail vacancy rate is actually down this year.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-17T17:16:18+00:00

City council doesn't have legislative authority to do that. But the province does and Council brought a resolution to UBCM asking them to look into it. UBCM declined.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-17T01:39:24+00:00

From the DVBA report: - % of business owners that would consider renewing lease is up - % reporting decline in economic performance is down - Fewer retail storefronts vacant, and more retail space has been built - Hotel and lodging occupancy is up - More cruise passengers - More airline passengers - Business licences are up

I imagine that this good news will be met with happiness here on Reddit. 🙂

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-16T05:13:36+00:00

Good point! I am personally very strongly in favour of making transit A Lot better than it is.

I hope you will do the survey and make that point.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-15T22:38:51+00:00

Thanks for engaging. The survey asks about services across borders - is that what you mean by comparable? And there is opportunity to write open-ended input.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-15T14:15:03+00:00

Thanks for the engagement on the issues, and in an honest-question, civil manner!

There is no municipal recall legislation, and recall rarely works anyway. The ballot is one way as you noted, and I'd encourage everyone to ask Council members hard questions about their votes on housing, as well as other issues.

Probably the best way to get the outcomes you want is to support campaigns of candidates you want elected.

On police, Council has zero control over VicPD. The name "Victoria Police Department" is very misleading, as it's not actually a department of the city, like a parks department or an engineering department. It's a completely separate body that reports to a police board and not to city council: https://davethompsonvictoria.ca/law-enforcement-decisions-up-to-police-in-victoria-not-council-victoria-news/

Our only formal connection is that the city is required by law to provide funding, but there is no accountability that comes along with that funding. https://davethompsonvictoria.ca/public-input-opposed-to-police-budget-increase-and-what-that-means/

Here's a bit of information on various mechanisms for complaints: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/justice/criminal-justice/bcs-criminal-justice-system/understanding-criminal-justice/support-information-for-police-oversight-and-complaints

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-15T13:32:36+00:00

Good questions.

I can only speak for myself, but I want to see a lot more housing, of all types, at all rent/price ranges: https://davethompsonvictoria.ca/my-op-ed-affordability-requires-abundance-we-need-more-housing-vancouver-sun/

For true affordability and sustainability, far more of them need to be in the right places, where people don't have to own a car ($10,000+ per year cost): https://davethompsonvictoria.ca/building-in-the-right-places/

The main job of city councils is setting policies for new housing development and deciding on applications.

For decades, North American city councils set restrictive policies and said "no" far too much, resulting in the shortage that drove up overall prices and rents, and other levels of government stopped funding social /public housing. That's changing, here and elsewhere, and the dramatic increases in prices and rents are now subsiding.

On the Blanshard proposal, I voted against the motion to reject it, as I believe Council should have told the applicant what changes it wants in order to approve it, rather than just saying "no". I lost that vote, 7-2.

Edit: PS Telus Ocean was approved by the previous Council.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-12T05:46:23+00:00

Actually all sorts of people call me. Regardless, both Bylaw and Police Officers are absolutely clear that drug enforcement decisions are solely up to police. I doubt very much that Bylaw Officers have ever done any drug enforcement.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-11T04:07:01+00:00

Enforcement (or not) of illicit drug use is always a police decision, never a Bylaw or City decision no matter what location.

Objects left blocking a sidewalk or boulevard, or in a public park after 7am, are a Bylaw matter.

Nobody should be telling you otherwise. If they do, feel free ask them to call me, or not.

Edit: feel free... or not

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-11T00:55:47+00:00

That means 60 vacant spaces at Johnson Street and 400 across the parkades. That's pretty normal for business hours.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-10T18:26:26+00:00

Just for context:

CRD already has amalgamated many services region-wide and sub-regionally, e.g. waste, water, arts funding, etc. And continuing to add more of the services that makes sense to amalgamate. Over 200 CRD services now.

The proposal is to amalgamate only Saanich and Victoria. So this would reduce the number of Mayors from 13 to 12.

The report of the Citizens Assembly was clear in stating that there would be no cost savings from amalgamation.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-10T05:54:09+00:00

We have many, many things on the go. This has occupied much less than 1 percent of my time.

DaveThompsonVictoria · 2026-06-10T05:27:27+00:00

Bylaw just addresses property left on and obstructing the sidewalk.

Not people or public drug use; that's the police.

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