At Victoria’s Community Forum this weekend, the chief item for deliberation is to choose one of four growth plans:

Waterfront and Green Spaces

More of what we have now: condos with great views and no jobs or shops in sight. This scenario should only appeal to developers and rich people with SUVs. I’m worried that people will support this because “hey, everybody likes trees and dolphins!”

Transit Corridors

This sounds good at first glance, but it results in long tracts of medium density development. They’re too long for walking and too busy for biking. Everybody spends all their time on the bus. I think of West Broadway in Vancouver as representative of this.

Diverse Villages

I’m tempted by this option. I think villages that have, as the poster lists, supermarkets, heavy transit access, services and cute shops are good for both residents and tourists. If all the jobs are in the core, then transit from villages is easy to arrange (but intervillage transit would suck). I doubt Victoria’s ability to pull this off properly: density outside the existing “town centre villages” must be strictly capped and office space must be forced downtown.

Core Area

I think ultimately this would result in the best city, but the “Core” on the map is way too big. Bay Street and the Roundhouse are not within walking distance of downtown. For this to work, the Downtown Core Area Plan needs to allow nearly unrestricted development in the “core core”.

My goal at the forum is to argue against the first two and raise my concerns about implementation of the last two. If you can’t make it to the forum, fill out the online survey.