***Mar 2006 Focus pg 1-32 - Focus Magazine

and energies. Finally: the City doesn’t seeitself as a partner in or facilitator of successfulbusiness outcomes, just as an administratorand regulator.As a citizen and taxpayer, I don’t like seeingmy city and my downtown at risk. And as aninvestor in real estate—essentially, my home—I don’t like chilly reminders that no law preventsVictoria real estate values from tumbling ifthis place loses its lustre. Addicted to the hoped-(and prayed-) for constancy of provincial civilservice presence in and around downtown (acrapshoot) and the sugar-high of seasonaltourism, Victoria coupon-clips as if these conditionswere ordained. As downtown retailvacancy and the City’s budget challengesdemonstrate, they’re not.I’ve noted in a recent column that if allthe central area condos and rental units underconstruction or somewhere in the pipeline hitthe market in the coming years, it will addto the central area about 2000 additional residentialunits trolling for roughly 3000 occupants.Take my word for it: 3000 additional residentsliving and shopping and, with luck and effort,working in and near downtown wouldprofoundly improve the economy and thestreet tone of the city.However, downtown commercial rentalvacancies are gradually rising, nudging 8percent. Suburban retail is eating downtown’slunch; and under current circumstances andtrends, a lot more downtown retail is at riskof falling below the threshold of businessviability—with all due respect to comic bookshops, tattoo joints and specialty tea stores,which are great but not exactly cornerstoneenterprises in today’s urban economy.To the extent that it’s possible to divine Citythinking on the subject, the only strategy operatingright now is to try to woo suburbanshoppers downtown by dangling the “specialness”of the place: Fizzy bribes like parades,festivals, fireworks, unique character, and soon. This will not work to any appreciabledegree. Car culture finds its own level and,trust me, the Market On Millstream makesthe Market On Yates look like a lemonadestand. My guess is that the Downtown publicrealm—streets and other public spaces—probablyneeds a serious $20-million fluff-up. Anda mobility strategy designed to whisk people(and their shopping dollars) Downtown costfreefrom James Bay, Fairfield, Fernwood,Gorge-Burnside and Vic West hasn’t even beenconceived, leave alone priced.Not surprisingly, a Downtown jobs/livingparadigm hasn’t been formulated either. Notby anyone. The vision of an emergingDowntown, as expressed in planning documentsand policies, as articulated and ratifiedby mayor and council, is un-dreaming, unsure,underwhelming, un-strategic.Years and years of inattention and neglect—the result of hubris, complacency, budgetarybotch and mis-investment—have taken us tothis place. It really is time for a local politicalrevolution, which is to say it’s time for public(voter) outrage and action. It’s also time for anew crop of political hopefuls who can articulatevision, intention, substance and a detailedplan—before this city goes smelly with rot.That said, changing the multifarious habits—the culture, really—of this place is going to beexhausting and nearly thankless. It starts withthe need to replace conceits about howDowntown is the “centre of it all” with amuscular plan to actually re-make the centreas the centre—on its own terms. The onlyshopping carts I see in and around Downtownare filled with beer and wine empties and thescant possessions of the marginal, not food ormerchandise. By contrast, Greater Victoria’ssuburbs are almost totally self-sufficient—economically, culturally, recreationally, socially;so the continuing effort to invite suburbanitesto live their economic lives Downtown mustbe acknowledged as an ever-more-threadyand pointless undertaking.Instead, how to ensure that an eventual10,000-15,000 new residents are able to live,work and function south of Bay Street, westof Cook is, in my view, the City’s job #1. Ourjob as citizens and voters is to send the Citythat message, as quickly as possible.Funny, but obscured by our dewy love ofthe old Victoria—mostly, the buildings downhillof Government Street—is the realizationthat they were shoulder-to-shoulder commercialstructures created largely by a bumptiousmerchant class—people who were confidentabout the city’s economic future and theiropportunity to make dough.The buildings weren’t an earlier generation’sidea of a legacy heritage project. Thestructures—and the merchant dreams thatfounded them—are at their centenary. Frankly,I can’t think of a better way to celebrate oldbricks than with new plans for economic regeneration.If you’ve got ideas, contact us.Gene Miller, founder of MondayMagazine and the GainingGround Conferences, is currentlywriting The Hundred-MileEconomy: Preparing For Local Life.Dispute resolution supportfor your parenting, yourfamily and your workplace.• MEDIATION• DECISIONMAKINGSUPPORT• PARENTINGCO-ORDINATIONPATRICIALANEC. Med, LL.BLawyer*/Mediator250.598.3992*denotes Law Corporationwww.focusonline.ca • April 201345