Victoria is to evolve into a more walkable community of neighbourhood centres, according to a draft official community plan being circulated for public input.
The OCP is a statement of objectives and policies that provides a framework for community planning and land use.
Last updated 15 years ago, the new draft predicts 20,000 people will move into the city and 10,600 new jobs will be created by 2041.
About half of the new arrivals are expected to be housed in the downtown core and Songhees in Vic West, while 40 per cent will be focused in strengthened town centres and large urban villages. Ten per cent will go to small urban villages.
Housing an additional 10,000 people downtown means significant changes have to occur, said Mark Hornell, assistant director community planning.
That much housing is the equivalent of about 90 condo highrises the size of the new Juliet building at the corner of Blanshard and Johnson streets.
"You begin to get a sense if you extrapolate that kind of pattern of growth across the downtown core area that is a significant change even dealing with just the downtown area," he said.
The plan does not change the 24-storey height limit on buildings downtown but it anticipates a modest increase in the allowable height in neighbourhood villages and town centres, from four to six storeys.
The document anticipates about 8,000 new residents will find homes in expanded town centres and larger urban villages.
Focusing density in neighbourhood and village centres means that services and daily needs can be provided to people within a short walk from home so they can be less reliant on their cars.
Density and future commercial development is also tied to public transportation.
Hornell cited the example of Humbert Green, at the north end of downtown, which is identified in the plan as a large urban village.
"There really isn't much of an urban village there," Hornell said.
"There's bits and pieces of it. But with rapid transit coming down that corridor you would expect to see that area develop into a more mixed-use community with housing, higher density, taller buildings at that location.
"So wherever you see a town centre or a large urban village, you should anticipate some change.
"If you look at Hillside mall or Mayfair mall, for example, the notion of those areas becoming the nucleus of fairly major redevelopment schemes on those sites over the next 30 years, where the parking lots would be restructured with buildings on those sites, is part of what the vision of this plan anticipates."
Cameron Scott, a senior planner, said: "One of the key directions of the plan is looking to by 2041 have 90 per cent of our population within a 400-metre walking distance to a village centre."
Other broad objectives of the plan include:
- Focusing employment growth in the urban core, town centres, employment districts and along corridors serviced by rapid transit;
- The downtown core area remaining the region's primary economic, social, arts, cultural and entertainment centre;
- Rock Bay developing as an employment centre specializing in incubation, growth and retention of advanced clean technology and green enterprise;
- All city neighbourhoods having a range of housing types suitable to people with a mix of incomes.
The city is planning a range of public engagement on the draft including four open houses, coffee talks, a mail-out to every household, online surveys and workshops.
"This is a once in a decade [planning process] type of thing," Scott said.
"This is your chance to really proactively contribute to how the city is going to be managed over the next 30 years."
