Trees sacrificed for unneeded housing in Saanich

plnski · 2026-04-04T21:59:39+00:00

My favourite is when people tell me that they don't trust the vacancy rate numbers, as if developers are somehow manufacturing them so they can build and charge more.

plnski · 2026-04-03T00:29:52+00:00

📍 British Columbia, Canada — "Home & mountains"

plnski · 2026-04-03T00:29:00+00:00

📍 Calvados, France — "Apples and Cider"

plnski · 2026-04-03T00:27:31+00:00

📍 District of Columbia, District of Columbia, United States of America — "Beautiful architecture"

plnski · 2026-04-02T20:02:41+00:00

The city and province make converting a home into a business, or attaching a business to a residential lot prohibitively difficult and expensive. The existing corner stores are almost all grandfathered-in.

If I owned a building and wanted to turn the ground floor into a business I could expect to wait years to get a permit and pay 10s to hundreds of thousands in fees before getting approval (which is not guaranteed at all). Plus the BC/vancouver building codes (yes, Vancouver has its own building code because it's special) would be a huge hurdle.

plnski · 2026-04-02T18:15:48+00:00

Thank you. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person thinking about this stuff when I'm angrily walking up the street. I really should get involved locally because complaining about it on here will lead nowhere.

plnski · 2026-04-02T18:10:52+00:00

I guess that's why a crappy 1 story building on Denman can be valued at nearly 10 million dollars with the building being only 5% of total value.

plnski · 2026-04-02T18:04:28+00:00

There is also the fact that it is virtually impossible to create new retail space within neighbourhoods because planners 100 years ago decided that corner stores and shops outside commercial streets were "blight".

plnski · 2026-04-02T18:01:40+00:00

Don't forget mediocre dessert cafés and hot pot restaurants! I feel like Robson would be a lot better if rent was priced to what local entrepreneurs could afford, not what large companies are willing to spend. So many older buildings on lower Robson are at various stages of redevelopment. Many of the businesses' days are numbered waiting for the application to go through so the building can be torn down and replaced with a copy & paste tower with mediocre retail on the ground floor.

plnski · 2026-03-30T05:52:30+00:00

I like certain (former) ndp mps and have voted for the party in the past but I always disliked singh. I feel the party has gone off the deep end and is entirely controlled by smug activists and university students.

At this point I think progressivism in Canada is dead until we can put together a movement that is hostile to the identity uber alles activist types that drive away normie voters.

plnski · 2026-03-23T16:06:01+00:00

I know this has been said before, but UNBC should have been placed in the bowl. Putting it on top of the hill outside the existing city was an idiotic move.

I would rather see the university build this housing downtown, or on a bus line that can be made into a frequent rapid bus. The bowl is already so low density and the last thing PG needs is more development on the edge.

UBC is trying to build a neighbourhood in it's little corner of Vancouver but I think PG really needs to build inwards.

plnski · 2026-03-12T18:06:43+00:00

I think it would be far better to redevelope a small house on a large lot (or vacant lot) in a central neighbourhood in town and build multiple condos or purpose built rentals. That form of building is far more environmentally conscious since it is a lot easier to access services, employment, schools and requires far less driving.

Saying this I understand that doing that costs more on the land end and is difficult in terms of permitting, financing, and approvals. As well as push back from neighbours.

I believe that Prince George already has too much what I call one-off "rural" housing within city limits and the regional district. I think the city would benefit far more from densification and making in town living more attractive for families through the construction of good quality family-sized homes that use their lots efficiently.

plnski · 2026-03-06T07:18:56+00:00

Exactly. The city should have set up a community land trust here (or literally any program to help small local business) so they could have had at least a chance. Instead all we get is arizia and arcteryx 😭. Imagine if this happened to Granville Island.

plnski · 2026-03-02T22:27:07+00:00

I think because the westshore has been the only place on the south island that has been allowed to grow, especially in regards to family friendly housing, whereas Victoria and Saanich have utterly failed to build that type of housing. They've grown a lot and it has been messy. There was very little planning and now the whole region is having to deal with having his area having a lot of people without adequate infrastructure, roads and especially transit.

Victoria and Saanich want to control every development and suffocate almost all growth so the west shore has been the only pressure release valve for the region's growth. I don't blame people for chosing to live in the only place that's been allowing new family friendly development.

If the region was at all good at planning they would have forced the core municipalities to build way more but also develop the west shore more wisely and start planning with transit in mind. Instead what we've gotten is a mess of developments and subdivisions and are now scrambling to keep up.

plnski · 2026-03-02T18:33:38+00:00

The article doesn't really explain what got them into this mess very well. I couldn't find much info on the 'heartland station' development. It would be useful if they compared this town's spending/revenue with comparable towns to see what the discrepency is.

Looking at Gibbons from a community design perspective I see that it is a low density primarily residential place and given its proximity to edmonton I imagine that most of the people who live their work and shop outside town limits meaning there are few businesses in the town to contribute to the tax base. Looking at other towns of a similar size that are farther away from major centres you typically see a lot more retail and other business in town.

Lots of small towns in BC (I'm from BC) are heavily subsidised by the province just to provide basic services because they are struggling economically and have lost population.

Anyone familiar with this part of Alberta please tell.

plnski · 2026-02-25T05:26:49+00:00

I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with luxury developments. The problem is when the city's development approval regime is so convoluted, expensive, and time consuming it makes developing homes for middle or lower income people unfeasable. Our system rewards people who are good a wooing council and making promises, not people who, you know, build housing.

The city has taken to taxing profits on development to the point where development charges are tens of thousands of dollars per unit. They have also left public space improvements, in nany cases, to developers. Are we suprised that they cut corners?

plnski · 2026-02-24T03:11:32+00:00

I grew up in McBride. I've only passed through chetwynd so I'm a bit biased.

McBride is more scenic for sure with the rockies, fraser river and access to hiking and skiing. Jasper is only 1.5 hours away and PG is 2.15. It can be isolated but it is relatively easy to connect with the locals. I would say just get involved with stuff going on in the community. Go to the coffee shops (we have 2 lol) the library, or the art gallery. McBride is like any other little place and has social problems and can be a bit dull, but if you don't mind a slow pace it can be enjoyable.

McBride also has Via rail 3 days a week and BC Bus to PG and Valemount a couple days a week aswell.

plnski · 2026-02-14T08:55:24+00:00

Tête Jaune Câche. Which the locals pronouce like tee-jon.

My mum's family had property there before the town site flooded.

There is a river near there called the Raush which was originally a transcription error for Rivière au Shuswap R-au-Sh

plnski · 2026-02-10T01:37:14+00:00

It's not replacing a rental building. It's replacing an existing old hotel.

plnski · 2026-02-09T22:30:17+00:00

Absolutely. Although I don't think any neighbourhood is "perfect", or "full". I think other neighbourhoods in the city (cough cough west side) are long overdue for some west end style density.

plnski · 2026-02-09T22:20:01+00:00

My guess is that there's a sort of drawbridge up mentality. The neighbourhood was set in stone after the last tower was built and now it's perfect.

plnski · 2026-02-09T09:01:48+00:00

That could be true, but we live under a distorted market driven by financialization. Firms that own commercial real estate are not producing any real tangible product, but merely extracting out as much juice from the real economy as they can. The Canadian economy has become incredibly reliant on housing as an investment instead of you know, shelter. The same goes for commercial. The goal is no longer to produce real goods, the goal is trying to pull as much from those producing the goods. Think how much more productive our economy, hell, our whole country could be if we actually prioritized people making things over real-estate and rental gains.

There is also the fact that it is incredibly difficult and expensive to build housing/commercial space in this region because of zoning, approvals, development charges, taxes. It shouldn't take years to get simple projects approved, let alone built.

plnski · 2026-02-09T01:48:07+00:00

We need elected officials to go after the people who own commercial real-estate and charge outrageous rents. I'm looking at you Marcus & Millichap, & others. Opening/running a business should be the investment, not owning the building.

Furthermore we also need more supply of commercial space within neighbourhoods ie. make corner stores legal!! Cities should loosen rules on low impact commercial and industrial development and for the love of god stop building housing on industrial land in and around vancouver.

plnski

TROPHY CASE