Dockside Green and Good Neighbours
Dockside Green, the languishing development project across
the street from Point Hope Shipyards and likewise a stone’s throw from downtown
and the Johnson St. Bridge, has been an issue of late, and truth be told, for
much longer, as the second guessing continues in fits and starts. To be fair, this and other way stations in
the evolution of Victoria are targets of legitimate debate and discussion. But or what it’s worth, here are some of my
latest thoughts on the past and the present, and why Dockside still makes sense
and well-tended, a promising future, and why the critics are off base.
Dockside was sold to private developers more than a decade
ago, and with a grand vision to create a mixed use neighbourhood on what had
been a busy rail-yard and a hodgepodge of industrial properties, long ago
abandoned amid convoluted ownership arrangements. City, provincial and private owners faced the
challenge of contaminated soils needing millions in cleanup before it could be
rescued for new uses and once again contribute to a vibrant local economy (a
once again familiar issue as Transport Canada and BC Hydro struggle with more
costs and more delays with Rock Bay lands north of downtown) . As those issues were peeled away, with land
exchanges between the province and the city and strategies for reclamation
worked out, councils of the day and city staff began conversations with the
community about the future use of the land and the unique opportunities and the
now familiar challenges posed by its location.
The first fiction that continues to be promoted by more recent
arrivals aggrieved by the busy shipyard across the street is that “the city
should never have approved a residential development” on the site. The city, it needs to be remembered, did not
act alone in defiance of either good planning principles or contrary to the
wishes of its citizens. Whatever the
hiccups in the evolution of the development, the project still makes the most
sense for this particular corner of the city core.
The Dockside plan, the choice of developers, and the sale of
the lands were all the subject of one of the more extensive public engagement
processes in the city’s history. The
council of the day would have been pilloried by local neighbours and residents
from across the city had they not gone ahead with the chosen development. Everyone involved had a very clear picture of
what the existing site was and who their new neighbours were going to be. Point Hope Shipyards has been there since
1873 and nobody involved at the city, living in the residential Vic West
neighbourhood, or among the diverse stakeholder groups invited into the tent
had any misconceptions about the future of the shipyards and the ongoing
presence of industrial activity. They
well understood that, while the shipyard business was going through some
difficult times, it was not going away.
In fact, within the planning framework laid out on the table, Point Hope
showed they were ready to make some changes to their business operations that
would generate an increase in then current business activities; perhaps even
expand operations across the road and onto Dockside Green property. A paint shed planned for the Princess Mary
site (and owned outright by the shipyard) was eventually conceded to the
development in exchange for options on city land on harbour-side properties now
under attack by some councillors. Nice
gesture.
Today’s grievances point fingers at the city, but that’s at
best willful blindness on the part of those who bought into a development
knowing that an active shipyard was operating right across the street. Promotional materials and sales agreements spelled
that out pretty clearly. Good home
buyers do their homework – they explore locations, find out who their new
neighbours will be, get a feel for levels of noise and activity in the area,
and should take some measure of responsibility for understanding what local
zoning allows for. Farm and rural
communities get it all the time – people move in next door and start complaining
that agriculture is noisy and smelly.
The shipyard is no different. For
many Dockside residents, fortunately, the shipyard is an asset – an always
entertaining venue of industrial theatre with an ever changing flotilla of
ships dropping in and out for maintenance and repairs.
To be fair, some of those new residents probably thought
that the condos they bought would be a little more sheltered, and that is
indeed what the plan has called for. With
any luck, they’ll soon be exchanging shipyard noise for construction noise as
yet another development company takes the reins and starts again to grow the
new condos, townhouses, affordable housing and the rest of the commercial space
planned as part of the original development.
Many of those projects stalled in the world economic crisis that began
in 2008 and one can’t imagine that Victoria alone would be immune to the turmoil. The
city has the authority for zoning and development permits and the like, but
council cannot oblige owners to spend money they don’t have to build what they
can’t sell.
The tricky part now will be to ensure that today’s council
keeps an eye on the development agreements to make sure the original plan is
followed. That’s more likely than the
councils of the day when much of Songhees was built. Councils in the ‘80s and early ‘90s routinely
buckled to developer demands to zone out mixed use in favour of a mono-culture
of residential buildings that have created their own problems for residents and
the city. People living there like what
they have, but there are no services and the neighbourhood is devoid of street
life and commercial activity. The
quietude is so entrenched that existing marine dependent businesses now face
constant pressure from Songhees and residential owners across the harbour to
shut down the float plane industry and stand firm against the return of any marine
commercial activity. The prospect of a
marina on their doorstep, although envisioned in the original development plans
for the neighbourhood, fomented a small rebellion. The city got onside very quickly, though in part
because the new look marina was not the small pleasure craft moorage people
imagined, and more of a parking lot for oversize luxury yachts captained by
distant owners looking for cheap storage.
Dockside will have some distance to go before the neighbourhood
becomes what the city and the community envisioned when plans were first
unveiled. Hundreds of units need to be
sold, then built. The right market
conditions will be necessary to encourage timid investors to bulk up the built
presence along the barren length of Harbour Road with the commercial, office,
retail uses that the city must protect from rezoning pressures. Once in place, many of those buildings will
provide a buffer between the shipyard and the upland condos generating the
current complaints. Those projects too
should also help calm the runway traffic some drivers feel entitled to enjoy
along a straight, wide road without destinations, a mature tree canopy or other
elements of design that would otherwise close in the corridor. Equally unhelpful complaints emanate from those
in Vic West who wanted a more residential feel to the street. Harbour Road is still, in service to the
shipyard and other industrial neighbours,
and that has always meant a more generous design for the trucks and service
vehicles that come and go.
Ironically now, for some of the critics who were leaders in
the fight to preserve the old crumbling blue bridge, the way forward now with
the new bridge is one of the comforts the new development company has in hand
to convince them that their Dockside projects can go ahead too. Knowing well enough how badly the old bridge
was deteriorated and how problematic any rescue operation might have been, no
developer was keen to forge ahead and invest heavily in Dockside without the
assurance that a sensible project and robust, durable, and attractive gateway
crossing was going to complete to connect their market with the city’s
downtown.
Ultimately, Dockside is well designed to work as intended, and
both residents and the broader community need to understand again that change
is a process, not an event, and the neighbourhood evolution will unfold over
time. We don’t have the tools to force
development to satisfy every condo owner.
Neither can we, or should we, force a shutdown of the shipyard that some
residents have only recently discovered is across the street (and a more
counterproductive economic strategy would be hard to find in this city). For those looking for sustainable
communities, this is actually what it is all about – mixed use, workplaces and
housing, services and shops, all bunched up together to create more walkable,
affordable and accessible neighbourhoods.
It’s Victoria’s past come to life again.