1. Victoria city council spends a fortune on open houses and surveys to involve the community regarding their wishes for future development in their areas.
2. They develop a community plan — known as the OCP — outlining the official plan for the community based on these consultations.
3. Developers buy land and develop plans that ignore the OCP, and submit them to our city planners.
4. Planners agree with the developers’ plans, ignore the OCP and submit it to council.
5. Council has meetings and discussions and public hearings at vast length, and somehow the developers’ plans — egregiously violating the OCP and requiring massive variances to the zoning bylaws — are miraculously passed by council.
It’s hard not to become cynical. Look at the forest of cranes downtown, where 4,000 condos are under construction. To me, it seems as if we are turning into New York and are definitely not retaining our neighbourhood character.
A question for city council: Why spend a fortune consulting the community and producing a community plan if you are just going to ignore the community’s wishes? Save the money and acknowledge that developers rule.
Paula McGahon
Victoria
