Another delay may kill Victoria’s missing middle initiative for good

After months of planning, meetings and discussions, there’s been another delay to the City of Victoria’s Missing Middle initiative to rezone single-family neighbourhood — and the latest delay may kill the proposal for good.

The average price of a single family home sold in Victoria since 2018 is not $1 million, but millions, according to research by developer Julian West.

“What the data shows is this year, the average price was $2.2 million per home. This is expensive, luxury housing. There is no way to do affordable single homes.”

His company, Urban Thrive, is poised to redevelop single family homes into multiple units, like one project in Vic West that would contain six homes.

West said the company’s waitlist now stands at 60 families.

“The demand far outstrips the supply available. And it provides a very badly needed housing option that we just don’t have.”

But all of his potential projects could be on hold because they’re dependent on the City of Victoria enacting its so called “Missing Middle” zoning that would effectively end single-family home zoned neighbourhoods.

But on Thursday, council voted to delay a decision in favour of more public input, meaning it may not be approved before October’s municipal election, according to councillor and mayoral candidate Marianne Alto.

“From a procedural perspective, we’re in a very challenging position. We’ve told our staff to do further public engagement,” said Alto on Friday.

Councillor and mayoral candidate Stephen Andrew was not available to comment, but voted in favour of delaying a vote.

In a statement he said: “I’m going to have the vote reconsidered at the next council meeting. My issue was always the amount of time between the open house and public hearing. It wasn’t sufficient.”

But Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps said council could have scheduled a public hearing this week.

“I’m frustrated because everyone is talking about the doctor crisis, and the nursing crisis, and the worker shortage, the labour shortage. Missing Middle housing is a key piece to that puzzle,” she said.

The concern is that the timeline to pass the missing middle initiative is too tight before Oct. 15’s election date.

WATCH: Rezoning single-family neighbourhoods on the table at Victoria council meeting Thursday

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