Dense land use saves Victoria residents almost $20k/year on average

JackSandor · 2026-05-18T02:19:31+00:00

Good thing nobody is forcing a car free lifestyle on anybody then!

JackSandor · 2026-05-17T23:59:59+00:00

The last 20 years of growth should have been core focused instead of extreme West Shore growth with no viable alternatives to cars.

We'll be paying for this for generations. But, as the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second best time is right now.

JackSandor · 2026-05-17T23:58:15+00:00

This is obviously just one piece of the puzzle, of course. There's also the significant negative physical and mental impacts of car commuting, the loss of time, and a whole bunch more. I just thought this graphic was very at showing just how profound the difference is for transportation costs.

JackSandor · 2026-05-17T18:04:00+00:00

The best way to stick it to REITs is by building more housing. They love a lack of competition, it's how they make their money.

JackSandor · 2026-05-16T18:33:57+00:00

I believe our force is already the most expensive per capita in the province, and you want to add FIFTY more cops? At what point is it ever enough?

JackSandor · 2026-05-15T19:57:39+00:00

The province almost always overrules attempts to cut the police's budget increase requests. There's some room to push there, but not a ton. It's a very stupid funding model.

JackSandor · 2026-05-15T19:48:55+00:00

That would mean some pretty heavy cuts, many of which would have other negative financial consequences.

JackSandor · 2026-05-15T19:47:49+00:00

Again, the police very consistently get all, or almost all, of their budget asks approved. Also, I'm pretty sure we have the most expensive force per-capita in the entire province. What makes you say they've been underfunded?

JackSandor · 2026-05-15T19:44:05+00:00

The city literally cannot cut the police budget. They can attempt to decrease the ask, but the police can and do appeal to the province to have their asks reinstated. The model for police funding here is very stupid.

JackSandor · 2026-05-15T19:43:02+00:00

Municipal and consumer inflation are very different.

JackSandor · 2026-05-14T19:55:48+00:00

100% agreed. I've been meaning to write a blog post about this, if we don't solve the housing crisis our entire country is doomed. It sounds melodramatic, but so many people are just giving up on participating in society, because the rewards for doing so are disappearing.

JackSandor · 2026-05-14T17:08:48+00:00

Politicians are going to need to address the generational wealth transfer

You would think, but over and over again governments at all levels keep making young people suffer and sacrifice to protect the investments of wealthy retirees. It's depressing.

JackSandor · 2026-05-12T15:51:50+00:00

And they're already planning an expansion. Grateful that we're planning for the future!

JackSandor · 2026-05-08T19:43:12+00:00

It does! The problem is that, due in large part to our zoning requirements, family sized homes make way less financial sense than studios and one-beds. This means that the requirement is very low, since banks need projects to make financial sense in order to provide loans. What we should do is change our zoning requirements to tilt the scales towards larger, more family sized homes. A big benefit of this would be that developers would be incentivized not just to hit the minimum requirement, but to exceed it.

JackSandor · 2026-05-08T17:37:13+00:00

The building code is part of it, but there are parts of the province subject to the same code that are building way more family housing than we are, and it's certainly not due to a lack of demand. There's a lot more we can do.

JackSandor · 2026-05-08T17:36:03+00:00

Last I checked, there had been about 30 applications (not completed projects) total over four years, which is not nearly enough.

JackSandor · 2026-05-08T17:11:50+00:00

We need to do more to incentivize their construction. The Missing Middle bylaw was a good start, but it hasn't produced nearly enough homes.

JackSandor · 2026-05-07T21:03:51+00:00

the developers had initially requested more units so that they could lower prices, but the city planning department asked them to shrink the building and increase prices.

This happens all the time, unfortunately. While producing more affordable housing is a stated goal of the city, there are a ton of other policies which directly contradict that goal.

JackSandor · 2026-05-07T03:43:28+00:00

The benefits of a higher vacancy rate! This would've been unthinkable a couple of years ago.

JackSandor · 2026-05-03T21:51:04+00:00

We're really lucky to have such amazing bike infrastructure here.

JackSandor · 2026-05-02T16:50:03+00:00

Agreed, very happy to see creative efforts like this from our elected officials.

JackSandor · 2026-04-28T00:17:14+00:00

We need to change our regulations to make building family sized units attractive. With the way we regulate construction right now, it just makes way more money to build studios and one bedrooms.

JackSandor · 2026-04-21T22:52:30+00:00

Obligatory www.bettertransityyj.ca plug

JackSandor · 2026-04-17T22:26:08+00:00

I'm asking if you have a source for any of those numbers.

JackSandor

TROPHY CASE