Stand at the corner of Kimta Road and Catherine Street in Vic West, on the western edge of Victoria’s Inner Harbour, and look south across the Bayview lands. On a clear day, and in Victoria, most days are clear, you can see the Olympic Mountains beyond the water. The Songhees waterfront stretches along the harbour to the east. To the south, across twenty acres of former industrial land, sits a low brick building with a distinctive curved form, its walls still carrying the patina of a century of railway service.

That building is the E&N Railway Roundhouse. It is a National Historic Site of Canada. It is, by Parks Canada’s own assessment, “the most intact facility associated with the servicing of steam locomotives in western Canada.” It was built in 1912, when this part of the waterfront was the terminus of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway, the line that connected Victoria to the rest of Vancouver Island and, through the ferry crossing at Nanaimo, to the mainland.

It has no alterations since the date of its construction. None. In over a hundred years, the roundhouse has not been modified. The brick, the proportions, the turntable in the yard, the spatial relationship between the roundhouse and the machine shop and the approach tracks, these are exactly as they were when the last steam locomotives were serviced here.

This is what is being built over.

What a Roundhouse Is

A railway roundhouse is not just an interesting shape. It is a specific and functional industrial form: a semicircular or fully circular building arranged around a central turntable, with stalls radiating outward from the hub, each one capable of receiving a locomotive for servicing and repair. The turntable rotates to align with each stall. The locomotive enters, is serviced, and exits. The spatial logic is the architecture.

The E&N Roundhouse complex at Bayview includes not only the roundhouse structure itself but the associated machine shop, the stores building, the car shop, the turntable, and the approach tracks. The ensemble is what Parks Canada designated. Not the building alone, the place: the spatial relationships between structures, the open yard, the industrial horizontality, the functional logic that remains legible in the layout even a century after steam locomotives last used the facility.

This is what cultural landscape conservation means. The heritage of the Roundhouse is not embodied in a facade. It is embodied in the relationship between things, in the way the site communicates its history to anyone who stands in it and pays attention.

The 2008 Promise

In 2008, the City of Victoria entered into a Master Development Agreement with Focus Equities, the developer that had controlled the Roundhouse lands since the late 1990s. The agreement was, in principle, a reasonable bargain: Focus Equities would receive permission to build residential towers on the southern portion of the site, in exchange for restoring and preserving the heritage structures and developing in accordance with design guidelines crafted specifically for this site.

The developer would get density. The city would get heritage. The design guidelines incorporated, by explicit reference, the Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada, the national framework for heritage conservation practice. This was not aspirational language. It was a covenanted commitment, registered on title.

Focus Equities did not build. For more than a decade, the heritage structures sat unrestored while the developer held the land and its escalating value.

The 2021 Return

In 2021, Focus Equities returned, not to fulfil the original agreement, but to ask for substantially more.

The new application sought to rezone the site to permit additional high-rise towers. The proposed density more than doubled the original agreement’s 2.0:1 floor space ratio. Individual development areas would go higher still. Where the original agreement had contemplated a modest urban neighbourhood integrated around restored heritage structures, the new application proposed nine towers ranging from ten to thirty-two storeys.

The city’s own planning staff noted the problem in careful but unmistakable language: “The proposed density represents a significant amount of new building mass which is challenging to fit on the site in a comfortable manner.” Staff expressed concerns about “the scale of the tall towers and large podiums adjacent to the heritage structures, which may feel out of scale with the one storey historic buildings and could detract and overwhelm the historic site.”

The Heritage Advisory Panel, after reviewing the application, recommended it be declined.

Council still approved it and the rezoning.

What the Compliance Assessment Found

Steve Barber was the Senior Heritage Planner for the City of Victoria when the Roundhouse was first designated. He knows the site, the designation, the conservation standards, and the history of the commitments the city made to protect it more intimately than almost anyone.

Barber prepared a detailed heritage impact compliance matrix assessing the proposed development against the Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada, the Burra Charter, and UNESCO’s Historic Urban Landscape recommendations.

What he found was systematic non-compliance across every principal dimension of heritage conservation.

The towers’ massing visually overwhelms the low, horizontal industrial forms of the Roundhouse complex, destroying the ability to read the working railway ensemble in direct contravention of Standards 1 and 11 of the national guidelines, which require new work to be physically and visually compatible, subordinate, and distinguishable from existing heritage fabric.

Encroaching podium buildings erase the spatial organisation linking the roundhouse to the turntable to the approach tracks, a character-defining element specifically identified in the federal designation.

Blocked sightlines eliminate the visual relationships that conveyed the site’s function and meaning, contrary to UNESCO’s requirement to maintain visual corridors in historic urban landscapes.

New construction that imitates or overpowers the industrial fabric creates pastiche or dominates the heritage core, in violation of Standard 4, which prohibits creating a false sense of historical development.

The replacement of functional yard space with dense mixed-use plazas breaks the integrated assemblage value, the functional relationships among buildings, tracks, and turntable that constitute the site’s cultural significance.

The assessment of a later tower application against seven cultural landscape standards, evidence of historic land use, land patterns, visual relationships, circulation, ecological features, built-form compatibility, and public access, found zero full compliance, one partial compliance, and six findings of non-compliance.

Zero out of seven criteria fully met. On a National Historic Site.

The Experts’ Verdict

At the public hearing, Victoria’s heritage establishment appeared in force — not to celebrate the development, but to oppose it.

Steve Barber. Martin Segger, retired Director of Government and Community Relations at the University of Victoria. John R. Basey KC, former Director of Planning and City Solicitor. Jennifer Nell Barr, retired Executive Director of the Victoria Heritage Foundation. Architects Jim Kerr, Christopher Gower, Marilyn Palmer, Ray Hunt, and John Keay. Heritage developer Ian Sutherland. Michael Elcock, former CEO of Tourism Victoria. Retired councillor Pamela Madoff.

They told council the same things, in different professional registers. The density was enormous. The scale was wrong. The proposal failed to comply with the OCP. It failed to comply with the national conservation standards that the developer’s own agreement required. Visitors come to Victoria because of its historic charm and modest scale. This development would destroy the setting that gave the heritage structures their meaning.

Councillor Caradonna acknowledged it openly: “These towers are out of keeping with the scale and character of Victoria.”

He voted yes.

What Will Remain

The Roundhouse brick structure itself will likely survive, physically. That is the form of heritage protection Victoria has chosen: preservation of the object, destruction of the context.

When nine towers of ten to thirty-two storeys rise around and over a single-storey industrial complex, the complex ceases to be a place. It becomes a display. A heritage structure preserved in amber while the landscape that gave it meaning, the open yard, the sightlines, the spatial organisation that makes a railway precinct comprehensible as a functioning system, is erased. The Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada capture this risk in a sentence of devastating simplicity: “A tall building in a low-rise heritage district may be perceived as out of scale.” It describes exactly what Victoria approved.

The Roundhouse will be there. It will have an interpretive plaque, almost certainly. There will be sepia photographs in the lobby of one of the towers, showing what the site looked like before. There will be language in the developer’s marketing materials about honouring the heritage of the Songhees waterfront.

And the place, the actual, irreplaceable, nationally designated cultural landscape of the E&N Railway Roundhouse, will be gone.

Why This Matters Beyond Bayview

The Roundhouse is not an isolated case. It is a demonstration of what Victoria’s heritage protection system produces when it is fully engaged: advisory panels overridden, conservation standards acknowledged and ignored, covenanted obligations reinterpreted through successive amendments, expert advice dismissed by unanimous vote.

If this is what happens to a National Historic Site, the highest level of heritage recognition available in Canada, then what protection does any other heritage property in Victoria actually have?

The answer the Roundhouse suggests: less than the documentation implies.

Heritage protection that survives only until a politically connected developer asks for more is not protection. It is a delay mechanism. And delay, in the context of an irreplaceable cultural landscape, is only ever a prelude to loss.

Arthur McInnis is a candidate for Victoria City Council in 2026. He is campaigning to defend the qualities that made Victoria one of the world’s most admired small cities in the first place.

Recent discussion around the Roundhouse redevelopment has revealed a troublingly narrow conception of heritage review by the city, one that risks reducing nationally and municipally significant heritage protections to matters of internal routing and administrative convenience. At the centre of this debate is an assertion, increasingly relied upon in practice, that because current development applications are processed within a non-heritage Development Permit Area and focus on "form and character," they fall outside meaningful heritage scrutiny and beyond the scope of national conservation standards.

That position does not withstand closer examination.

"Not Required" Is Not the Same as "Not Applicable"

Heritage governance in British Columbia is not limited to Heritage Conservation Areas alone. The Local Government Act establishes multiple, independent heritage tools: designation of property, heritage alteration permits, and heritage revitalisation agreements, all of which operate regardless of whether a site is mapped within a heritage DPA.

The absence of a heritage overlay on a Development Permit Area does not, by itself, negate the applicability of heritage standards or prevent a municipality from engaging its heritage advisory bodies. Treating heritage review as optional simply because it is not expressly mandated by a particular procedural pathway conflates internal administrative practice with legal or policy necessity.

In other words, a decision not to refer a matter for heritage review may reflect a discretionary choice but it should not be mistaken for a statutory constraint.

Design Guidelines Are Not a Substitute for Heritage Standards

Urban design guidelines and design-panel review serve an important purpose, particularly in relation to form, massing, and architectural expression. But they are not heritage conservation instruments, nor are they designed to assess compliance with national conservation standards.

Heritage conservation requires methodologies that address cultural landscapes, character-defining elements, setting, materials, spatial relationships, and cumulative impact. These considerations lie at the heart of the “Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada”. A process that relies exclusively on design guidelines and design-panel input risks sidelining those broader heritage questions entirely.

Substituting urban design review for heritage analysis does not answer the heritage question; it avoids it.

The False Divide Between "Buildings" and "Place"

A recurring theme in the current approach is the suggestion that heritage protections attach only to specific designated buildings, not to the surrounding site. That distinction is artificial and inconsistent with both heritage theory and the way the Roundhouse has historically been treated.

The Roundhouse is recognized, federally, municipally, and in planning documentation, as a heritage “place”, not a collection of isolated façades. Its significance lies in the ensemble: the relationship between structures, open yards, tracks, turntable, spatial hierarchy, and industrial horizontality. Municipal heritage designation and any associated heritage revitalisation agreement in general are expressly concerned with these broader character-defining elements.

Reducing heritage review to interventions that physically touch a designated structure misunderstands the nature of cultural landscape conservation and materially understates the scope of existing heritage protections. That misunderstanding toward Bayview is widespread and profound.

Development Permit Labels Do Not Displace Heritage Obligations

It is true that the Roundhouse lands fall within a mixed-use Development Permit Area that is not designated as a Heritage Conservation Area. But that zoning label does not displace other heritage instruments that continue to bind the land.

Heritage revitalisation agreements registered on title prevail over conflicting zoning and land-use bylaws unless and until they are lawfully amended or repealed. Federal recognition as a National Historic Site further reinforces the applicability of national conservation standards. None of these obligations evaporate simply because a project is processed under a particular DPA category.

The regulatory landscape governing the Roundhouse is layered and cumulative, not singular or mutually exclusive.

Mandate Without Engagement

Municipal heritage advisory panels are typically mandated to advise on the preservation, alteration, and management of heritage buildings, structures, and lands. Where a nationally significant, municipally designated heritage place is undergoing intensive redevelopment, the exclusion of that advisory function requires explanation.

Absent a clear statutory prohibition, removing such projects from heritage advisory consideration represents a policy choice, one that should be openly acknowledged and justified, not quietly normalised through process.

Discretion Presented as Inevitability

Taken together, the current framing presents a discretionary administrative approach as though it were an inevitable legal outcome. By focusing narrowly on procedural categories while omitting the broader heritage framework, designation, heritage agreements, national standards, and advisory mandates, the result is an incomplete picture of the obligations that continue to govern the site.

This is not merely a technical concern. How heritage oversight is framed determines whether heritage values are meaningfully protected or gradually eroded through omission. On a site as significant as the Roundhouse, narrowing heritage review in this way risks weakening public confidence, distorting advisory processes, and undermining the integrity of heritage governance.

What We’re Left With

The “Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada” apply to the Roundhouse not because a particular process demands them, but because the site's status demands them. Heritage obligations arise from designation, agreements, and recognition not from internal routing decisions.

A transparent, defensible heritage process would acknowledge the full regulatory context, engage appropriate heritage expertise, and treat national conservation standards as foundational, not optional. Anything less risks turning heritage protection into a matter of administrative discretion rather than public trust.

Arthur McInnis is a law professor and construction law specialist campaigning for City Council in 2026. He led the opposition to the Bayview rezoning for over two years.

Recent discussion around the Roundhouse redevelopment has revealed a troublingly narrow conception of heritage review by the city, one that risks reducing nationally and municipally significant heritage protections to matters of internal routing and administrative convenience. At the centre of this debate is an assertion, increasingly relied upon in practice, that because current development applications are processed within a non-heritage Development Permit Area and focus on "form and character," they fall outside meaningful heritage scrutiny and beyond the scope of national conservation standards.

That position does not withstand closer examination.

"Not Required" Is Not the Same as "Not Applicable"

Heritage governance in British Columbia is not limited to Heritage Conservation Areas alone. The Local Government Act establishes multiple, independent heritage tools: designation of property, heritage alteration permits, and heritage revitalisation agreements, all of which operate regardless of whether a site is mapped within a heritage DPA.

The absence of a heritage overlay on a Development Permit Area does not, by itself, negate the applicability of heritage standards or prevent a municipality from engaging its heritage advisory bodies. Treating heritage review as optional simply because it is not expressly mandated by a particular procedural pathway conflates internal administrative practice with legal or policy necessity.

In other words, a decision not to refer a matter for heritage review may reflect a discretionary choice but it should not be mistaken for a statutory constraint.

Design Guidelines Are Not a Substitute for Heritage Standards

Urban design guidelines and design-panel review serve an important purpose, particularly in relation to form, massing, and architectural expression. But they are not heritage conservation instruments, nor are they designed to assess compliance with national conservation standards.

Heritage conservation requires methodologies that address cultural landscapes, character-defining elements, setting, materials, spatial relationships, and cumulative impact. These considerations lie at the heart of the “Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada”. A process that relies exclusively on design guidelines and design-panel input risks sidelining those broader heritage questions entirely.

Substituting urban design review for heritage analysis does not answer the heritage question; it avoids it.

The False Divide Between "Buildings" and "Place"

A recurring theme in the current approach is the suggestion that heritage protections attach only to specific designated buildings, not to the surrounding site. That distinction is artificial and inconsistent with both heritage theory and the way the Roundhouse has historically been treated.

The Roundhouse is recognized, federally, municipally, and in planning documentation, as a heritage “place”, not a collection of isolated façades. Its significance lies in the ensemble: the relationship between structures, open yards, tracks, turntable, spatial hierarchy, and industrial horizontality. Municipal heritage designation and any associated heritage revitalisation agreement in general are expressly concerned with these broader character-defining elements.

Reducing heritage review to interventions that physically touch a designated structure misunderstands the nature of cultural landscape conservation and materially understates the scope of existing heritage protections. That misunderstanding toward Bayview is widespread and profound.

Development Permit Labels Do Not Displace Heritage Obligations

It is true that the Roundhouse lands fall within a mixed-use Development Permit Area that is not designated as a Heritage Conservation Area. But that zoning label does not displace other heritage instruments that continue to bind the land.

Heritage revitalisation agreements registered on title prevail over conflicting zoning and land-use bylaws unless and until they are lawfully amended or repealed. Federal recognition as a National Historic Site further reinforces the applicability of national conservation standards. None of these obligations evaporate simply because a project is processed under a particular DPA category.

The regulatory landscape governing the Roundhouse is layered and cumulative, not singular or mutually exclusive.

Mandate Without Engagement

Municipal heritage advisory panels are typically mandated to advise on the preservation, alteration, and management of heritage buildings, structures, and lands. Where a nationally significant, municipally designated heritage place is undergoing intensive redevelopment, the exclusion of that advisory function requires explanation.

Absent a clear statutory prohibition, removing such projects from heritage advisory consideration represents a policy choice, one that should be openly acknowledged and justified, not quietly normalised through process.

Discretion Presented as Inevitability

Taken together, the current framing presents a discretionary administrative approach as though it were an inevitable legal outcome. By focusing narrowly on procedural categories while omitting the broader heritage framework, designation, heritage agreements, national standards, and advisory mandates, the result is an incomplete picture of the obligations that continue to govern the site.

This is not merely a technical concern. How heritage oversight is framed determines whether heritage values are meaningfully protected or gradually eroded through omission. On a site as significant as the Roundhouse, narrowing heritage review in this way risks weakening public confidence, distorting advisory processes, and undermining the integrity of heritage governance.

What We’re Left With

The “Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada” apply to the Roundhouse not because a particular process demands them, but because the site's status demands them. Heritage obligations arise from designation, agreements, and recognition not from internal routing decisions.

A transparent, defensible heritage process would acknowledge the full regulatory context, engage appropriate heritage expertise, and treat national conservation standards as foundational, not optional. Anything less risks turning heritage protection into a matter of administrative discretion rather than public trust.

Arthur McInnis is a law professor and construction law specialist campaigning for City Council in 2026. He led the opposition to the Bayview rezoning for over two years.

Bayview should have been about heritage. Everything at the site should have been in service of E & N heritage. Heritage after all is Victoria’s biggest selling point. Council knew this.

“Much of Victoria's charm and character stems from its unique and well-preserved historic buildings. Victoria's turn-of-the-century architecture creates a sense of pride among residents and throughout the community. These heritage buildings are symbols of permanence and stability in an ever-changing world.” (City of Victoria website)

And yet, Council (specifically the Gang of Five plus Coleman and the Mayor) forgot this. Jeremy Caradonna and Matt Dell forgot this despite that it should be front of mind for them.

Victoria Civic Heritage Trust

The Victoria Civic Heritage Trust was established in 1989 to support the enhancement, interpretation and preservation of Victoria's heritage. The Trust aids in the rehabilitation of downtown heritage buildings through cost-share restoration grant programs and promotes the conservation of Victoria's heritage through various interpretation programs.

Victoria Heritage Foundation

The Victoria Heritage Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, created in 1983 by the city to manage its funding program for Heritage-Designated houses. Grants assist owners with rehabilitating and maintaining their house exteriors. The Foundation has been involved in a variety of research and interpretation projects to promote awareness and conservation of Victoria's heritage homes and residential neighbourhoods.

These are not obscure advocacy groups or casual community associations. Both the Victoria Civic Heritage Trust and the Victoria Heritage Foundation are long-established heritage institutions created with direct city involvement and connected to the administration, funding, interpretation, and preservation of Victoria’s built heritage. Both bodies exist fundamentally to advance the protection, rehabilitation, and long-term stewardship of Victoria’s heritage fabric. As a result, association with either organisation carries a public implication of support for heritage conservation principles and sensitivity to the impacts of major redevelopment on historically significant sites.

These would be worthwhile bodies for Councillors to sit on.

Here is what those truly supportive of heritage in Victoria have said about Bayview 2.

The Experts*

In a letter opposing the rezoning at Bayview Place a group of local Experts told the Council that Victoria’s historic character was under assault with Bayview 2.

The Experts told the Council that the rezoning proposal and massive scale of the Bayview 2 rezoning threatened to overwhelm the modest scale of the nationally significant E & N Roundhouse, its associated industrial heritage structures, and the Vic West neighbourhood.

The Experts told the Council that Bayview 2 far exceeded what was appropriate for conservation and redevelopment of a relatively small parcel of land.

The Experts told the Council that Bayview 2 did not comply with either the Official Community Plan or the Vic West Neighbourhood Plan.

The Experts told Council the density was “enormous.”

The Experts told Council that visitors from around the world come to Victoria because of its historic charm, character, and modest scale.

The Heritage Advisory Panel

Others have weighed in. The Heritage Advisory Panel told Council it was concerned about the impact of Bayview 2 on the heritage value of the E & N railway depot.

The Panel told Council about the importance of preserving the historical integrity and character of the site, which they said would be compromised by the proposed changes.

The Panel told Council that development should be in harmony with the existing heritage structures and the historical significance of the area. Bayview 2 was not. Therefore, the Panel rejected the rezoning.

Parks Canada

Parks Canada said:

“This imposing brick roundhouse is a particularly fine example of an industrial structure associated with the steam railway era in Canada. This site is an important reminder of Canada's rich railway heritage.  The Esquimalt and Nanaimo roundhouse complex is the most intact facility associated with the servicing of steam locomotives in western Canada.”

City Planning Staff

The City Planning Staff said:

“The proposed density, which is more than double the currently approved 2.0:1 FSR (Foor Space Ratio), represents a significant amount of new building mass which is challenging to fit on the site in a comfortable manner.”

“Concerns exist around the scale of the tall towers and large podiums adjacent to the heritage structures, which may feel out of scale with the one storey historic buildings and could detract and overwhelm the historic site.”

Jeremy Caradonna

Even Jeremy Caradonna himself said:

“These towers… are out of keeping with the scale and character of Victoria.”

Heritage, Camouflage, Sabotage

The deeper issue exposed by Bayview is notwithstanding Victoria possessing an extensive heritage governance structure of advisory panels, conservation bodies, heritage planners, architects, grant programs, and nationally recognized experts all of them and their warnings ultimately proved insufficient when they came up against sufficiently large redevelopment proposal. Parks Canada, the Heritage Advisory Panel, former heritage planners, architects, and city staff all raised concerns about scale, compatibility, density, and the impact on the nationally significant E & N Roundhouse precinct. Council proceeded anyway.

That raises a larger question about how heritage governance functions in Victoria. If heritage advice, heritage policy, and heritage institutions can be acknowledged publicly yet overridden in the city’s most consequential redevelopment decisions, then heritage conservation risks becoming symbolic rather than operative something celebrated rhetorically, funded institutionally, and consulted procedurally, but not ultimately decisive when it conflicts with political redevelopment priorities. A new Council has to confront this or suffer the unavoidable consequences.

*The Experts: Steve Barber, the former Senior Heritage Planner, City of Victoria; Michael J. Prince, Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy; John R. Basey KC, former Director of Planning & City Solicitor. City Of Victoria; Wendy Zink, former Manager of Social Planning & Housing, Retired; Martin Segger, Director, Government & Community Relations, University of Victoria -Retired; Jim Kerr, AIBC Architect; Ray Hunt, AIBC Retired Architect; John Keay, AIBC Architect; Jennifer Nell Barr, Retired Executive Director, Victoria Heritage Foundation; Ian Sutherland, Heritage Building Developer; Christopher Gower, AIBC Architect; Pamela Madoff, Retired City Councillor; Michael Elcock, Former CEO, Tourism Victoria; John Dam, B.A.Sc., M.Sc., P.Eng., CAHP; Marilyn Palmer, Architect; Marilyn Bowering, Author; and Martin Golder, Retired Architect.

Arthur McInnis is a law professor and construction law specialist campaigning for City Council in 2026. His work has focused on ensuring that public benefit promises in major developments remain legally enforceable after approval.

Design Guidelines are, in theory, meant to ensure that new development respects the scale, materials, massing, and character of its context. In the City of Victoria's own framing, they are described as tools to help guide change within special heritage areas. But the key words are help and guide. These guidelines are advisory, interpretive, and malleable, not mandatory. Developers and architects can, and routinely do, reinterpret them creatively with staff support to justify design departures that defeat the original purpose of the guideline.

At Bayview, the original Roundhouse Design Guidelines (2008) were supposed to preserve sightlines to the heritage Roundhouse buildings, maintain a pedestrian-scaled industrial character, integrate new development sympathetically around retained structures, use a materials palette consistent with historic rail architecture, and ensure that tower massing would not dominate the heritage core. Yet, after rezoning and a new edition of the Roundhouse Design Guidelines (2023) they have been weaponised as aesthetic cover for doing exactly the opposite to the original. The guidelines became a narrative tool for compliance storytelling, with design rationales written to appear consistent with policy while the underlying forms exploded in scale and density.

Bayview as a Case Study in "Guideline Capture"

The Roundhouse site is the clearest demonstration of how heritage design guidelines can be co-opted and hollowed out. The pattern reveals itself in five distinct ways.

First, the developer invoked the industrial vocabulary of steel, brick, and warehouse motifs to legitimise high-rise residential towers that obliterated the very scale they were meant to protect. Heritage character was mimicked, not preserved. Form was prioritised over substance, and the appearance of compatibility became a substitute for actual preservation.

Second, each successive application working toward the 2023 guidelines stretched the design intent further through what might be described as incremental interpretation drift. Once a precedent was approved, the next proposal cited it as justification for more height, more density, and greater deviation. This process of gradual erosion was hidden under the banner of design evolution or modernisation with each step away from the original intent normalised by the one before it.

Third, city planning staff, perhaps under political pressure to deliver housing and investment, began to read compatibility in purely visual terms. If the renderings looked cohesive, then heritage integration was deemed achieved, regardless of proportion, material authenticity, or setting impact. Visual coherence became the sole measure of success, displacing any meaningful assessment of scale, context, or character.

Fourth, the city's enforcement tools proved weak. The guidelines were not codified as binding design controls, and deviations could be approved by staff without further scrutiny. In future, once a Development Permit or Development Variance Permit is issued, the heritage vocabulary will serve merely as décor, with no mechanism to ensure that the spirit of the guidelines is honoured in the built result.

Fifth, and perhaps most troubling, when community groups objected that the new towers dwarfed the heritage core, Council and staff could point back to the guidelines themselves, insisting they were following the plan. In effect, the guidelines became a shield against criticism rather than a constraint on excess. Accountability was displaced, and the very tool meant to protect heritage became the instrument of its erasure.

The James Bay Heritage "Exploration" Déjà Vu in Motion

Now fast-forward to the present. The city claims that its ongoing heritage review will consider heritage objectives in the context of the change and growth anticipated in the Official Community Plan. That language is nearly identical to what was used at Bayview: heritage in the context of growth. The risk is clear and immediate.

A potential new heritage conservation area for James Bay may be framed as a design exercise, an “exploration”, not a preservation one. Developers could be invited to propose compatible towers that reference historic styles while overwhelming historic scale. Compatibility will again be interpreted visually, with the same materials and the same façade rhythm deployed as evidence of sensitivity, while the substantive heritage value of low scale, walkable form, and coherent streetscape evaporates. The city will claim that heritage was considered because the renderings look “pretty”, or “historic”, or something like that, and residents will be left with nothing but aesthetic appeasement.

What we are left with is this. The James Bay heritage “review” could reproduce the Bayview pattern of aesthetic appeasement. This would be a system where design guidelines become an optical compromise between heritage and growth, with real conservation sacrificed to symbolism. The process will be consultative, the language will be reassuring, and the outcome will be the same:- managed destruction that Bayview has already demonstrated.

The Broader Structural Flaw

Victoria's planning framework relies almost entirely on design guidelines rather than on true regulatory instruments such as binding form-and-character bylaws, enforceable height caps, or zoning overlays tied to heritage covenants. This ensures for the city that heritage remains a negotiated value. Every application reopens the debate, and every negotiation tilts toward the party with more resources, consultants, and time: typically developers.

The result is predictable and profound. Heritage becomes an aesthetic variable, not a legal boundary. Council can claim to balance growth and character while approving projects that obliterate both. Staff can claim procedural compliance without delivering substantive protection. The system is designed not to preserve, but to manage the appearance of preservation while enabling densification.

Symbolic Protection, Real Risk

If the Bayview experience is any guide, the James Bay heritage review will end with a glossy Design Guidelines booklet full of sepia sketches, material palettes, and comforting language about compatible massing. But without enforceable controls, that document will serve the same function as the Roundhouse Design Guidelines (2023); namely, a political instrument to show responsiveness, a planning instrument to manage dissent, and a development instrument to justify ongoing densification.

In other words, the overall heritage review risks becoming the city's latest example of Heritage-as-Performance, a civic ritual of consultation, design talk, and visual reassurance, carefully calibrated to obscure the reality of accelerated densification. The process will satisfy the demand for action without constraining the forces driving change and without the constraints needed on this Council. It will be heritage protection in name only.

The Upshot

Victoria's chronic failure is mistaking process for protection. Heritage reviews, design guidelines, and public consultations create the appearance of stewardship while enabling the very transformation they claim to restrain. The rituals are elaborate, the documentation is extensive, and the outcome is predictable. That predictability involves heritage character being sacrificed to development pressure, with the city claiming compliance every step of the way.

Unless Council is prepared to replace symbolic design language with enforceable form-and-character controls, including explicit height caps, density limits, and legally binding covenants, the new heritage review for James Bay will be nothing more than a reprise of the Bayview charade:-aesthetic compliance masking substantive loss.

Until heritage protection is written in metres, not metaphors, Victoria will keep producing design guidelines for heritage conservation areas and the like that guide nothing and preserve even less. The choice is clear. Victoria must adopt real limits or accept that heritage will continue only to be performative rather than a priority.

Arthur McInnis is a law professor and construction law specialist campaigning for City Council in 2026. He has taught administrative law and has examined how discretionary planning systems can undermine neighbourhood trust and housing accountability.

On the City of Victoria’s own website, you will find a statement that reads like a love letter to the past.

“Much of Victoria’s charm and character stems from its unique and well-preserved historic buildings. Victoria’s turn-of-the-century architecture creates a sense of pride among residents and throughout the community. These heritage buildings are symbols of permanence and stability in an ever-changing world.”

That statement is on the city’s website today. It appears in tourist brochures, in investment pitch decks, in economic development presentations designed to explain why Victoria is worth visiting, worth living in, worth the premium that residents pay for the privilege of being here. Heritage is Victoria’s civic identity. It is the brand.

It is also the city’s most consistently betrayed promise.

The Apparatus

The infrastructure of heritage protection in Victoria is, on paper, impressive.

The Victoria Heritage Foundation, created in 1983, manages a grant program for heritage-designated houses. The Victoria Civic Heritage Trust, established in 1989, supports rehabilitation of downtown heritage buildings through cost-share restoration grants. Parks Canada maintains designations at the federal level. The Official Community Plan contains heritage provisions spanning multiple sections and policies. A Heritage Advisory Panel of Lands — HAPL — composed of professionals with expertise in heritage, architecture, planning, and conservation provides independent advisory review. A heritage register lists properties of significance. Design guidelines govern development in designated areas.

The apparatus is elaborate, well-staffed, and extensively documented.

It is also, in practice, almost entirely advisory.

That single word — advisory — is the key to understanding how Victoria produces such thorough-looking heritage governance and such poor heritage outcomes. Advisory bodies advise. Advisory guidelines guide. Advisory recommendations are entered into the public record and then, when they conflict with development applications that the governing council majority has decided to approve, noted and set aside.

The critical distinction — the one that separates a city that actually protects its heritage from a city that performs the appearance of protecting it — is the difference between advisory design guidelines and enforceable regulatory controls. Victoria relies almost exclusively on the former. And the consequences of that choice are visible across every neighbourhood where development pressure meets historic fabric.

Guidelines vs. Controls: The Structural Problem

Design guidelines, in theory, ensure that new development respects the scale, materials, massing, and character of its context. In Victoria’s own framing, they are described as tools to “help guide change within special heritage areas.” Note the language: help, and guide.

An enforceable height cap says: you cannot build above this line. A design guideline says: we would prefer you did not, but let us talk about it. One is a boundary. The other is a negotiation. And in a negotiation between a city with limited planning resources and a developer with sophisticated consultants, extensive precedent research, and years of institutional experience — the developer wins.

The result is a planning framework in which heritage is a negotiated value rather than a protected one. Every application reopens the debate. Every negotiation tilts toward development. Council can claim to balance growth and character while approving projects that undermine both. Staff can claim procedural compliance without delivering substantive protection. Design guidelines are reinterpreted, creatively, to legitimate the development proposal rather than constrain it. What began as a conservation instrument becomes, in the hands of a skilled applicant, a justification document for doing the opposite of what the instrument intended.

Until heritage protection in Victoria is written in metres rather than metaphors, in binding controls rather than advisory suggestions, the gap between the promise and the reality will remain.

What Victoria Has Preserved — and What It Has Lost

The heritage Victoria is known for — the Inner Harbour, the Empress Hotel, the legislature buildings, the Chinatown gates, the residential streetscapes of James Bay and Fernwood and Fairfield — was not saved by the current system. It was saved by an earlier civic culture, by the decision of a different generation to treat certain things as non-negotiable before the pressure to do otherwise became overwhelming.

What the current system has been doing, over the past decade and a half, is managing the erosion of what that earlier generation preserved.

The losses accumulate gradually enough to be invisible year to year and dramatic enough to be irreversible in aggregate. A heritage building disappears with no public notice because it was not on the formal register. A streetscape is altered incrementally — a porch removed, a facade replaced, a roofline raised — until the character that made it distinctive has quietly evaporated. The space around a heritage building is filled with towers that reduce the structure from a landmark to a curiosity wedged between glass walls. Former Councillor Pamela Madoff, who served for decades as one of Victoria’s most consistent heritage advocates, has publicly warned that the pressures of densification and the weakness of existing protections are creating a trajectory toward irreversible loss.

She is right. The mechanism is not vandalism. It is process — a system of advisory guidelines, discretionary decisions, and procedural manoeuvres that produces the same result as demolition while maintaining the appearance of stewardship.

The buildings are preserved. The place is being lost.

The Specific Test: A National Historic Site

The clearest test of Victoria’s heritage protection system is the one it has already failed.

The E&N Railway Roundhouse at Bayview Place is a National Historic Site of Canada — recognised by Parks Canada as “the most intact facility associated with the servicing of steam locomotives in western Canada.” Its significance lies not only in the structures themselves but in the ensemble: the relationship between the roundhouse, the machine shop, the turntable, the approach tracks, and the spatial organisation that makes a functioning railway precinct legible as a place. This is what cultural landscape conservation protects. Not isolated buildings. Places.

The Heritage Advisory Panel reviewed the rezoning application for Bayview Place. It identified the heritage concerns, the incompatibility of the proposed scale with the heritage core, the contradictions between the proposal and the national conservation standards covenanted into the developer’s agreement with the city. It recommended the application be declined.

Council approved it unanimously.

The details of that approval — how heritage review was procedurally sidelined, how the design guidelines were rewritten to accommodate the proposal rather than constrain it, how expert testimony from architects, planners, former heritage officials, and the retired head of the Victoria Heritage Foundation was acknowledged and overridden — are documented in separate articles in this archive and in Chapter 4 of Who Runs This City? The short version: every protection mechanism the system had was engaged, and none of them worked.

This is not an anomaly. It is the system functioning as designed.

What Real Protection Requires

Heritage protection that actually protects requires two things that Victoria currently lacks: enforcement mechanisms and accountability.

Enforcement means that heritage provisions are written into binding bylaws rather than advisory guidelines. It means that height limits near heritage sites are expressed in metres and enforced as conditions of approval, not negotiated case by case. It means that Heritage Impact Assessments — prepared before approval, not after the fact by critics — are required for any development affecting a designated heritage property or its setting. It means that conservation agreements registered on title are monitored and enforced, not allowed to erode through successive interpretive amendments.

Accountability means that when the Heritage Advisory Panel recommends against a development, overriding that recommendation requires a documented, publicly stated justification — not simply a council vote. It means that heritage outcomes are measured and reported: how many designated properties were altered last year, in what ways, by what variance to applicable guidelines, with what recorded justification? The city currently cannot answer those questions from published data.

None of this requires Victoria to stop growing, stop building housing, or preserve every building from every era. What it requires is that the commitment printed on the city’s own website — that Victoria’s heritage is a source of community pride, a symbol of permanence and stability — be treated as a commitment rather than a marketing line.

The city’s heritage is genuine. Its protection, currently, is not.

On the City of Victoria’s own website, you will find a statement that reads like a love letter to the past.

“Much of Victoria’s charm and character stems from its unique and well-preserved historic buildings. Victoria’s turn-of-the-century architecture creates a sense of pride among residents and throughout the community. These heritage buildings are symbols of permanence and stability in an ever-changing world.”

That statement is on the city’s website today. It appears in tourist brochures, in investment pitch decks, in economic development presentations designed to explain why Victoria is worth visiting, worth living in, worth the premium that residents pay for the privilege of being here. Heritage is Victoria’s civic identity. It is the brand.

It is also the city’s most consistently betrayed promise.

The Apparatus

The infrastructure of heritage protection in Victoria is, on paper, impressive.

The Victoria Heritage Foundation, created in 1983, manages a grant program for heritage-designated houses. The Victoria Civic Heritage Trust, established in 1989, supports rehabilitation of downtown heritage buildings through cost-share restoration grants. Parks Canada maintains designations at the federal level. The Official Community Plan contains heritage provisions spanning multiple sections and policies. A Heritage Advisory Panel (HAP, or HAPL) composed of professionals with expertise in heritage, architecture, planning, and conservation provides independent advisory review. A heritage register lists properties of significance. Design guidelines govern development in designated areas.

The apparatus is elaborate, well-staffed, and extensively documented.

It is also, in practice, almost entirely advisory.

That single word, “advisory”, is the key to understanding how Victoria produces such thorough-looking heritage governance and such poor heritage outcomes. Advisory bodies advise. Advisory guidelines guide. Advisory recommendations are entered into the public record and then, when they conflict with development applications that the governing Council majority has decided to approve, noted and set aside.

The critical distinction, the one that separates a city that actually protects its heritage from a city that performs the appearance of protecting it, is the difference between advisory design guidelines and enforceable regulatory controls. Victoria relies almost exclusively on the former. And the consequences of that choice are visible across every neighbourhood where development pressure meets historic fabric.

Guidelines vs. Controls or The Structural Problem

Design guidelines, in theory, ensure that new development respects the scale, materials, massing, and character of its context. In Victoria’s own framing, they are described as tools to “help guide change within special heritage areas.” Note the language: help, and guide.

An enforceable height cap says e.g. you cannot build above this line. A design guideline says e.g. we would prefer you did not but let us talk about it. One is a boundary. The other is a negotiation. And in a negotiation between a city with limited planning resources and a developer with sophisticated consultants, extensive precedent research, and years of institutional experience, the developer wins.

The result is a planning framework in which heritage is a negotiated value rather than a protected one. Every application reopens the debate. Every negotiation tilts toward development. Council can claim to balance growth and character while approving projects that undermine both. Staff can claim procedural compliance without delivering substantive protection. Design guidelines are reinterpreted, creatively, to legitimate the development proposal rather than constrain it. What began as a conservation instrument becomes, in the hands of a skilled applicant, a justification document for doing the opposite of what the instrument intended.

Until heritage protection in Victoria is written in metres rather than metaphors, in binding controls rather than advisory suggestions, the gap between the promise and the reality will remain.

What Victoria Has Preserved and What It Has Lost

The heritage Victoria is known for, the Inner Harbour, the Empress Hotel, the legislature buildings, the Chinatown gates, the residential streetscapes of James Bay and Fernwood and Fairfield , was not saved by the current system. It was saved by an earlier civic culture, by the decision of a different generation to treat certain things as non-negotiable before the pressure to do otherwise became overwhelming.

What the current system has been doing, over the past decade and a half, is managing the erosion of what that earlier generation preserved.

The losses accumulate gradually enough to be invisible year to year and dramatic enough to be irreversible in aggregate. A heritage building disappears with no public notice because it was not on the formal register. A streetscape is altered incrementally, a porch removed, a facade replaced, a roofline raised until the character that made it distinctive has quietly evaporated. The space around a heritage building is filled with towers that reduce the structure from a landmark to a curiosity wedged between glass walls. Former Councillor Pamela Madoff, who served for decades as one of Victoria’s most consistent heritage advocates, has publicly warned that the pressures of densification and the weakness of existing protections are creating a trajectory toward irreversible loss.

She is right. The mechanism is not vandalism. It is process, a system of advisory guidelines, discretionary decisions, and procedural manoeuvres that produces the same result as demolition while maintaining the appearance of stewardship.

The buildings are preserved. The place is being lost.

The Specific Test for a National Historic Site

The clearest test of Victoria’s heritage protection system is the one it has already failed.

The E&N Railway Roundhouse at Bayview Place is a National Historic Site of Canada, recognised by Parks Canada as “the most intact facility associated with the servicing of steam locomotives in western Canada.” Its significance lies not only in the structures themselves but in the ensemble: the relationship between the roundhouse, the machine shop, the turntable, the approach tracks, and the spatial organisation that makes a functioning railway precinct legible as a place. This is what cultural landscape conservation protects. Not isolated buildings. Places.

The Heritage Advisory Panel reviewed the rezoning application for Bayview Place. It identified the heritage concerns, the incompatibility of the proposed scale with the heritage core, the contradictions between the proposal and the national conservation standards covenanted into the developer’s agreement with the city. It recommended the application be declined.

Council approved the rezoning unanimously.

The details of that approval, how heritage review was procedurally sidelined, how the design guidelines were rewritten to accommodate the proposal rather than constrain it, and the expert testimony from architects, planners, former heritage officials was overridden. This is not an anomaly though but rather the system functioning as designed.

What Real Protection Requires

Heritage protection that actually protects requires two things that Victoria currently lacks: enforcement mechanisms and accountability.

Enforcement means that heritage provisions are written into binding bylaws rather than advisory guidelines. It means that height limits near heritage sites are expressed in metres and enforced as conditions of approval, not negotiated case by case. It means that Heritage Impact Assessments, prepared before approval, not after the fact by critics, are required for any development affecting a designated heritage property or its setting. It means that conservation agreements registered on title are monitored and enforced, not allowed to erode through successive interpretive amendments.

Accountability means that when the Heritage Advisory Panel recommends against a development, overriding that recommendation requires a documented, publicly stated justification, not simply a Council vote. It means that heritage outcomes are measured and reported: how many designated properties were altered last year, in what ways, by what variance to applicable guidelines, with what recorded justification? The city currently cannot answer those questions from published data.

None of this requires Victoria to stop growing, stop building housing, or preserve every building from every era. What it requires is that the commitment printed on the city’s own website that Victoria’s heritage is a source of community pride, a symbol of permanence and stability be treated as a commitment rather than a marketing line.

The city’s heritage is genuine. Its protection, currently, is not.

Arthur McInnis is a candidate for Victoria City Council in 2026. He is campaigning for a stronger civic culture built around accountability, institutional integrity, and serious public debate.

Victoria has a Heritage Advisory Panel. It is composed of professionals, architects, planners, heritage conservationists, community members with documented expertise in heritage practice. It is appointed by Council. Its mandate is unambiguous: to provide informed, independent advice on matters relating to heritage conservation and policy, the interpretation and application of heritage standards and guidelines, the protection of designated heritage resources and their settings, and the broader heritage implications of development proposals.

It is, in design, precisely the body a city serious about heritage would create.

The problem is what happens after HAP advises.

“Advisory” Means Optional

HAP’s recommendations are not binding. Council is free to receive the panel’s advice, note it in the public record, and then do the opposite.

This is not a theoretical vulnerability. It is a documented pattern. The HAP reviews a proposal. It identifies heritage concerns, e.g. impacts on character-defining elements, conflicts with national conservation standards, incompatibility with the scale and setting of designated heritage structures. It recommends changes, or in significant cases, recommends that the proposal be declined. Its advice is entered into the record. Staff prepare a report that acknowledges the panel’s concerns. Council can vote to approve anyway.

The panel provides legitimacy to the process without influencing its outcome. The experts speak. Their expertise is noted. And then the development proceeds as though the advice had never been given.

This dynamic has a name in institutional governance: advisory capture in reverse. Normally, advisory capture occurs when an advisory body is colonised by the interests it is supposed to regulate. What happens at HAP is stranger. The panel retains its integrity, provides genuinely independent advice, and is systemically ignored. The institution that was supposed to check development pressure becomes a ritual that provides the appearance of checking it while the pressure proceeds unimpeded.

The Roundhouse Test

The most consequential recent example is the Bayview Place / Roundhouse rezoning, the most significant heritage decision Victoria has made in a generation, involving a National Historic Site of Canada.

The HAP reviewed the application. It expressed concern about the impact on the heritage value of the E&N railway depot, the importance of preserving the historical integrity and character of the site, and the incompatibility of the proposed development with the existing heritage structures and the historical significance of the area.

It recommended that the application be declined.

Separate from the views of HAP, a distinguished group of heritage experts opposed to the development made their opposition known to Council in a letter that was signed by them and submitted. Among the signatories were Steve Barber, former Senior Heritage Planner for the City of Victoria; Martin Segger, retired Director of Government and Community Relations at the University of Victoria; John R. Basey KC, former Director of Planning and City Solicitor for the City of Victoria; Jennifer Nell Barr, retired Executive Director of the Victoria Heritage Foundation; Jim Kerr, Christopher Gower, Marilyn Palmer, Ray Hunt, and John Keay, all registered architects; Ian Sutherland, a heritage building developer; Michael Elcock, former CEO of Tourism Victoria; Pamela Madoff, a retired city Councillor; and others.

Their combined expertise represented decades of heritage practice in Victoria. They were unanimous. And their advice was overridden by every member of Council present.

Councillor Jeremy Caradonna, before voting yes, said this on the public record: “[t]hese towers are out of keeping with the scale and character of Victoria.”

He voted yes anyway.

The Bureaucratic Manoeuvre: Form and Character vs. Heritage

What is wrong with using this classification technique?

The core problem is that the city controlled the outcome by controlling the process category. Once an application is streamed into form-and-character review, the entire evaluative apparatus that follows, the criteria applied, the panels consulted, the standards referenced, is calibrated for urban design, not conservation. The heritage question is not answered at that stage; it is simply not asked.

The technique is procedurally circular. The city designated the Roundhouse lands within a mixed-use Development Permit Area rather than a Heritage Conservation Area. That classification decision was itself a discretionary act by the same municipal government that then relied on the classification to justify routing the application away from heritage review. The city effectively appointed itself gatekeeper and then used its gatekeeping power to determine that no heritage gate needed opening.

The substitution of design panel review for HAP review compounds this. Design panels are competent to assess massing, fenestration, materiality, and streetscape. They are not constituted, mandated, or equipped to assess whether proposed interventions on a National Historic Site comply with conservation principles. Using one as a functional stand-in for the other is not merely imprecise, it is categorically wrong. The two processes answer different questions, and only one of those questions is the right one for a site of this character.

There is also a bad-faith dimension. The developer's agreement with the city incorporated the Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada by covenant. If those standards were contractually binding, then the city's own review process was obliged to assess compliance with them. Routing the application through a track that does not engage with those standards does not discharge that obligation, it evades it while maintaining the appearance of due process.

Finally, the technique is institutionally corrosive. The HAP exists precisely because heritage assessment requires specialist knowledge that general planning and design review do not provide. Marginalising it by administrative classification, not by any finding that its input was unnecessary, but simply by labelling the application as something other than a heritage matter, undermines the structural reason the panel was established. If classification is all it takes to bypass heritage review, the panel's advisory function becomes contingent on the city's willingness to invoke it, which is no protection at all.

Why Heritage Planning Standards Should Still Apply Regardless of the City's Procedural Manoeuvre

The Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada do not derive their authority from the municipal classification of a Development Permit Area. They apply because of the nature of the site. Parks Canada designated the Roundhouse a National Historic Site of Canada. That designation reflects a federal determination of cultural, historical, and architectural significance that sits entirely outside the City of Victoria's zoning and permit-area framework. Municipal administrative categories cannot alter what the site is.

The covenant incorporating the Standards and Guidelines into the development agreement is itself a recognition that conservation obligations attached to the site independently of whatever permit-area stream the city chose to apply. A covenant runs with the land and binds the parties regardless of subsequent process decisions. The city cannot covenant to apply a standard and then design a review process that does not apply it.

The character-defining elements of the Roundhouse, the roundhouse structure itself, its industrial spatial logic, its relationship to the rail heritage of the E&N corridor are physical and historical facts. They do not cease to be character-defining elements because an application has been classified as a form-and-character matter. The question of whether a 32-storey tower materially affects those elements is a real question with a determinable answer. Form-and-character review does not produce that answer. It produces a different answer to a different question.

There is also a proportionality argument. The scale of the Roundhouse development, nine towers, up to 37 storeys by my calculation, on a 20-acre site immediately surrounding heritage structures is precisely the kind of intervention that the Standards and Guidelines were designed to regulate. The degree of risk to character-defining elements scales directly with the mass and proximity of new construction. The larger and closer the development, the more urgent the need for rigorous heritage analysis, not less. The city's classification technique produced the opposite result: the more significant the application, the more completely heritage review was displaced.

Taken together, these points establish that the city's procedural manoeuvre was effective as a matter of internal municipal process management, but it did not and cannot extinguish the substantive conservation obligations that attach to the site. Those obligations arise from the site's federal designation, from the contractual covenant, and from the plain meaning of the standards themselves. A municipality cannot reclassify its way out of them.

The HAP Accountability Gap

When the HAP’s advice is overridden, two things do not happen that should.

First, Council is not required to justify the override in writing, on the record, with specific reference to the heritage arguments the panel raised. A simple vote is sufficient. There is no requirement that the majority explain, in specific and documented terms, why the heritage concerns identified by expert advisers do not apply to this application, or why the council is satisfied that the development is consistent with the heritage standards the city claims to uphold.

Second, there is no independent review mechanism. When a court overrides an expert tribunal’s finding, it provides written reasons. When a City Council overrides a professional heritage panel’s recommendation, it provides a vote. These are not equivalent processes. The absence of written reasons means there is no record by which the override can be evaluated, no basis for future accountability, and no signal to subsequent applicants about the standards the city actually applies.

The result is that each HAP engagement is a closed loop; e.g. advice given, vote taken, development approved, process documented as having occurred. The documentation of process becomes a substitute for accountability for outcomes. Heritage governance that produces this kind of record can always point to the record as evidence that heritage was considered. It cannot answer whether the consideration made any difference.

What Would Change Things

Two reforms would transform the HAP from a legitimacy-providing ritual into a genuine protection mechanism.

The first is a supermajority requirement. If overriding a HAP recommendation required six votes rather than five, a simple majority of Council, the political cost of ignoring expert advice would rise. Developers would know that a HAP rejection carries real weight, not merely advisory weight, and would design applications accordingly. This is not an extreme requirement. Many planning jurisdictions require supermajorities for variances that depart significantly from established standards.

The second is mandatory written justification. When Council overrides a HAP recommendation, it should be required to produce a written decision explaining, with specific reference to the heritage arguments the panel raised, why the development is nevertheless consistent with the city’s heritage obligations. This record would be publicly available. It would allow residents, journalists, and future councils to evaluate the reasoning. It would create accountability for the choice rather than allowing the choice to disappear into a vote total.

Neither reform requires changing provincial legislation. Both are within the city’s existing authority over its own procedures.

Arthur McInnis is a law professor and construction law specialist campaigning for City Council in 2026. His work focuses on measurable governance, enforceable planning conditions, and practical approaches to development.

In July 2023, sixteen of Victoria’s most credentialed heritage and planning professionals signed a letter addressed to City Council. They wrote it because they were alarmed. They sent it to the Times Colonist because they wanted the public to know what they were alarmed about.

The Times Colonist declined to publish it.

I published it on the Stop Bayview Rezoning Forum instead, on July 22, 2023. It is reproduced in full below, as it was written and as it was signed.

Why This Letter Matters

The people who signed it are not activists or outsiders. They are the people who built Victoria’s heritage governance framework. Steve Barber was the City of Victoria’s first full-time Senior Heritage Planner, the person who designed the systems the city now uses to identify, designate, and protect heritage buildings. John R. Basey KC was the City’s Director of Planning and City Solicitor. Jennifer Nell Barr ran the Victoria Heritage Foundation. Pamela Madoff was a City Councillor. Michael Elcock was CEO of Tourism Victoria. Jim Kerr, Christopher Gower, Ray Hunt, John Keay, and Marilyn Palmer are registered architects. Martin Segger, Wendy Zink, Ian Sutherland, John Dam, and Marilyn Bowering between them represent decades of heritage, social planning, and conservation work in this city.

When this group speaks with one voice, it means something. They are not easily dismissed as NIMBY opposition or uninformed objectors. They are, collectively, the people the city itself has relied upon to define what heritage protection means in Victoria.

They said the Bayview rezoning should be declined.

Council approved it with three opposed: Marg Gardiner and Stephen Hammond.

The Parks Canada Standard

The letter raises a specific legal framework that received almost no attention in Victoria’s planning process: the Parks Canada standard of commemorative integrity.

The Roundhouse site is not just a heritage building. It is a designated National Historic Site of Canada. Parks Canada’s framework for assessing the health of a national historic site requires that three conditions be met. The resources that relate to the reasons for the site’s national designation must not be impaired or under threat. The reasons for the site’s national significance must be effectively communicated to the public. And the site’s heritage values must be respected by all whose decisions or actions affect the site.

The letter’s signatories were unequivocal: the Bayview rezoning threatened all three. A 29-storey tower adjacent to a one-storey historic building does not respect the heritage values of a site designated for its modest industrial character. It does not preserve the resources that gave the site its national significance. And it makes a mockery of communicating that significance to visitors and residents who will look up at towers and look down at the Roundhouse.

City Council heard this argument. It had the Parks Canada framework in front of it. It voted yes.

The Times Colonist Question

The decision not to publish this letter was not made in a vacuum. Leslie Campbell, writing in Focus on Victoria, had documented the Times Colonist’s relationship with Ken Mariash: three pages of puff pieces, a regular golf tournament the paper co-sponsored with Bayview Place, an advertorial for the development published in the paper. The TC had declined to publish a previous op-ed critical of the Bayview application.

The letter from sixteen heritage professionals, with its specific, credentialed, publicly verifiable arguments against the rezoning, would have been newsworthy by any standard applied to comparable content in other files. It was not published. Residents who relied on the Times Colonist for information about the Bayview hearing did not know it existed.

The Discussion Group existed to fill that gap. This letter is why.

What It Means for 2026

The Bayview decision is made. The towers will be built, or they won’t for reasons that are no longer within Council’s hands in the same way.

But the pattern it represents is not over. The same governance structure that allowed Council to override its Heritage Advisory Panel, its planning staff, the Parks Canada framework, and sixteen credentialed professionals with a unanimous vote and no written justification is still in place. The same techniques, routing heritage decisions through form-and-character review, treating a heritage advisory panel’s rejection as a formality to be noted and set aside can be applied to the next application, and the one after that.

The question for 2026 is whether Victoria elects a Council that will govern differently. One that requires written justification when expert advice is overridden. One that treats the Parks Canada standard as a real constraint, not a planning-speak reference point. One that does not need to be told by sixteen professionals that a 29-storey tower next to a one-storey heritage building is inappropriate for a National Historic Site.

That should not require an expert consensus. It should require common sense. But since common sense was insufficient in January 2024, the expert consensus stands as the record.

Here is what it said.

Appendix: The Letter, July 2023

The following letter was signed by sixteen heritage and planning professionals and submitted to the Times Colonist in July 2023. It was not published. It was subsequently published on the StopBayviewRezoning Discussion Group on July 22, 2023.

“Much of Victoria’s charm and character stems from its unique and well-preserved historic buildings. Victoria’s turn-of-the-century architecture creates a sense of pride among residents and throughout the community. These heritage buildings are symbols of permanence and stability in an ever-changing world.” (City of Victoria website)

Sadly, our city’s historic character is under assault. A rezoning proposal currently before City Council for the E & N Roundhouse in the Victoria West neighbourhood envisions 9 towers at heights ranging from 10 to 32 storeys. The scale and height of these massive towers threatens to overwhelm the modest scale of the nationally significant E & N Roundhouse, its associated industrial heritage structures, and the Vic West neighbourhood. The original master plan for this site does contain some exciting ideas to rejuvenate these heritage structures through adaptive re-use, and we support these concepts. However, the current application far exceeds what is appropriate for conservation and redevelopment of a relatively small parcel of land.

Further, the new proposal does not comply with either the Official Community Plan or the Vic West Neighbourhood Plan. Despite the lack of compliance with these plans, most City Councillors seem inclined to advance this proposal at the enormous density proposed. Planning staff have stated “The proposed density, which is more than double the currently approved 2.0:1 FSR (Floor Space Ratio), represents a significant amount of new building mass which is challenging to fit on the site in a comfortable manner.”

We need to remember that this site has been recognized as being of national historic significance as, according to the description from Parks Canada: This imposing brick roundhouse is a particularly fine example of an industrial structure associated with the steam railway era in Canada. This site is an important reminder of Canada’s rich railway heritage. The Esquimalt and Nanaimo roundhouse complex is the most intact facility associated with the servicing of steam locomotives in western Canada. Planning staff have identified the threat in their report as follows: Concerns exist around the scale of the tall towers and large podiums adjacent to the heritage structures, which may feel out of scale with the one storey historic buildings and could detract and overwhelm the historic site.

According to Parks Canada, commemorative integrity describes the health and wholeness of a national historic site. A national historic site possesses commemorative integrity:

• when the resources that relate to the reasons for designation of the national historic site or symbolize or represent its importance are not impaired or under threat,
• when the reasons for the site’s national historic significance are effectively communicated to the public, and
• when the site’s heritage values including those not related to national significance are respected by all whose decisions or actions affect the site.

This rezoning proposal clearly threatens the commemorative integrity of this site of national heritage significance. A 29-storey tower and a 10-storey tower adjacent to a one-storey historic building completely overpowers the modest scale and character of this historic place. We certainly recognize the need for additional housing, and we do support the scaled-down version of this project. In addition, we note that Victoria does already have several new developments built at a modest scale in keeping with historic character, including the Selkirk Waterfront, Dockside Green, Capital Park and The Railyards. There are numerous underdeveloped sites such as the parking lots along north Douglas Street which could accommodate more housing for Victoria. Visitors from around the world come to Victoria due to its historic charm and character, and its modest scale. It may not last much longer. Perhaps the visitors won’t either.

WE, the undersigned urge City Council to reject this massive redevelopment which is not in keeping with the modest scale and historic character of Victoria.

Signed:

• Steve Barber, former Senior Heritage Planner, City of Victoria
• Michael J. Prince, Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy
• John R. Basey KC, former Director of Planning & City Solicitor, Victoria
• Wendy Zink, former Manager of Social Planning & Housing, Retired
• Martin Segger, Director, Government & Community Relations, University of Victoria, Retired
• Jim Kerr, AIBC Architect
• Ray Hunt, AIBC Architect, Retired
• John Keay, AIBC Architect
• Jennifer Nell Barr, Executive Director, Victoria Heritage Foundation, Retired
• Ian Sutherland, Heritage Building Developer
• Christopher Gower, AIBC Architect
• Pamela Madoff, City Councillor, Retired
• Michael Elcock, former CEO, Tourism Victoria
• John Dam, B.A.Sc., M.Sc., P.Eng., CAHP
• Marilyn Palmer, Architect
• Marilyn Bowering, Author

Sometimes it is worth pausing to consider: if the reasoning by Councillors in support of amending the Official Community Plan represents the pinnacle of our City Council's capabilities, what does that signify for Victoria lauded as the "world's best small city" in the annual Condé Nast Traveler readers’ survey for the third year in a row.

Regarding Bayview, six Councillors aligned to justify a fundamental rewrite of our Official Community Plan (OCP) with just one paragraph in the original amending bylaw! At the Public Hearing each Councillor offered their rationale. Each attempted to reconcile the evident contradictions. Yet, examining their statements collectively reveals a concerning pattern.

Let's be unambiguous: the OCP is not merely a suggestion. It constitutes the city's governing framework, designed to guide development in a manner that harmonises housing needs, heritage preservation, quality of life, and environmental sustainability. It exists precisely to shield our community from shortsighted deals and developer-driven agendas. It binds City Council. But how did our Councillors respond?

They reduced the OCP to a mere formality

Caradonna acknowledged Bayview as an "aberration" and "outlier" then proceeded to vote affirmatively. Dell claimed the housing crisis left him no choice but to approve, as if emergencies suspend established regulations. Thompson went further still, suggesting Council's role is merely to vote on proposals presented to them rather than actively shape our "perfect city" effectively surrendering municipal authority.

They postponed the critical issues

Caradonna relegated heritage protections and density controls to a future Master Development Agreement. Kim dismissed Transport Canada's safety concerns over the flight path for planes using the harbour as matters for subsequent resolution. Loughton celebrated a supposedly "unique arrangement" for affordable housing which amounted to nothing more than a non-binding memorandum of understanding, unenforceable under law at the time.

They substituted emotional appeals for substantive analysis

Dell offered sentimental reflections and generational futures. Caradonna painted apocalyptic visions of "wastelands" should Bayview fail to proceed. Loughton reduced public hearings to simplistic tallies of support versus opposition. Kim claimed 40% green space despite the developer's documentation specifying 35%. Thompson even suggested tower shadows represented an environmental benefit during "heat domes," conveniently overlooking Victoria's predominantly cool, overcast climate for much of the year.

They marginalised heritage considerations

Coleman conceded a "diminishment of heritage values" before dismissing its significance. Thompson reduced heritage preservation to buildings merely "continue to exist," ignoring contextual integrity. Loughton drew inappropriate comparisons between Victoria and substantially larger cities like Halifax and Montreal, implying our historic Roundhouse district should be developed comparably, while Coleman referenced Vancouver, Seattle and Toronto for “context” conceding “perhaps that will lose charm for some people.”

They presented inconsistent arguments

Caradonna labelled Bayview an "aberration" while voting to approve it. Kim asserted Indigenous land claims "will never supersede" housing needs, a statement both legally inaccurate and ethically problematic. Thompson declared that no individual owns a view then immediately conceded views remain "relevant" considerations.

Collectively, this does not represent deliberative governance, it exemplifies justification after the fact. It reveals Councillors grasping for whatever rationale might obscure the fundamental reality: Bayview, as approved, violates the established OCP and endangers Victoria's heritage character, reputation and liveability.

The implications could scarcely be more significant. Bayview is not a modest residential project. It represents some $2 billion in tower development on top of a National Historic Site, bordering an active harbour, in a city whose identity and economy centre on its architectural charm, heritage, and human scale. If Council cannot exercise rigour in this instance, if they cannot uphold their own planning framework for the city's largest private development what confidence can residents have that the OCP will protect any neighbourhood?

This situation transcends disappointment; it constitutes a governance failure. The Councillors' justifications fail to meet even minimal standards of coherent public administration. Victoria merits better than "official contradictions."

The time has come to hold these Councillors accountable for their decisions in this election. Vote them out.

Arthur McInnis is a law professor and construction law specialist campaigning for City Council in 2026. He has examined how cities can align growth with infrastructure, affordability, and democratic consent.

The City of Victoria's Missing Middle Housing Strategy, while well-intentioned, has faced significant challenges and criticism since its inception. This post examines the strategy's background, implementation, and shortcomings, drawing from various perspectives and updates on its progress.

Understanding Missing Middle Housing

Missing Middle Housing refers to a range of multi-unit or clustered housing types compatible in scale with single-family homes. These include duplexes, fourplexes, cottage courts, and courtyard buildings. The concept, popularized by Daniel Parolek, aims to address the shortage of diverse housing options in many urban areas.

Victoria introduced its Missing Middle Housing Initiative as part of a broader strategy to increase housing diversity and affordability. The initiative aimed to allow for greater density in traditionally single-family neighborhoods, responding to the growing housing crisis in the region. It led and was out front of the province on the initiative. The reasons for that and the ties between the government, former and current Mayor and numerous Councillors are all deserving of a closer examination one day.

Critique of the Strategy

1. Oversimplification of Housing Challenges

Critics argue that the Missing Middle approach oversimplifies the complex issues surrounding housing affordability. By focusing primarily on increasing density, it overlooks other crucial factors such as land costs, construction expenses, and market dynamics. Posts have been made here about just how daunting all of these are at present for developers in Victoria.

2. Potential for Gentrification

There are concerns that the strategy could lead to gentrification, as new developments may replace more affordable existing housing. This could potentially displace long-time residents and further exacerbate affordability issues.

3. Impact on Neighborhood Character

Opponents of the strategy worry about the potential loss of neighborhood character and heritage. The introduction of larger, multi-unit buildings in traditionally single-family areas could alter the aesthetic and social fabric of established communities particularly if historic. Neighbourhoods such as James Bay and Ferndale have led the opposition with good reason on this basis.

4. Infrastructure Strain

Increased density without corresponding improvements in infrastructure could lead to strain on existing services, including transportation, schools, and utilities. It has been a constant refrain from opponents of the Missing Middle that there will be too much strain on local infrastructure. Too often though these concerns have just been glossed over.

Implementation Challenges

Victoria's experience with implementing the Missing Middle strategy has been fraught with difficulties:

1. Low Uptake and Slow Progress

At the outset the uptake of the Missing Middle was embarrassing to say the least. How badly did the city misjudge what the effect of the policy would be when the applications under the original proposals totalled three in number! Despite the city’s easing of the requirements, it has still struggled to meet its goals for new Missing Middle developments.

2. Regulatory Hurdles

Part of the responsibility for the poor uptake, according to developers at least, is that they faced challenges navigating the regulatory landscape, with some arguing that the approval process remained (and remains) too cumbersome despite attempts at streamlining. Much of that streamlining was proposed by city staff and endorsed by Jeremy Caradonna. The Councillor had his usual band of supporters in Council to make the changes they deemed necessary.

3. Public Opposition

Looked at in the round there has been significant and widespread public opposition to Missing Middle projects. Residents have expressed concerns about increased traffic, parking issues, changes to neighborhood character etc. For the most part that opposition has been swept aside with only modest concessions to the opponents when projects came forward for approval or variances.

Revisions

In response to the slow uptake, as noted, Victoria took steps to revise and revive its Missing Middle strategy by:

• Easing restrictions to encourage more development
• Streamlining approval processes for Missing Middle projects
• Increasing public engagement to address community concerns

However, despite these efforts, progress today remains behind initial goals. Looking at the numbers for Missing Middle versus these the city’s other housing goals we see:

• Missing Middle Housing: Running behind target with 122 permits issued in 2023, falling short of the 150 annual goal.
• Other Housing Types: Significantly exceeding goals:
• Market rental homes: 573 permits (goal: 300)
• Condominium strata homes: 1,119 permits (goal: 150)
• Homes with 2+ bedrooms: 615 permits (goal: 250)

This disparity raises several points for consideration:

• Policy Effectiveness: The Missing Middle initiative may need further refinement.
• Market Demand: The data suggests stronger demand or easier implementation for larger-scale developments compared to middle-density housing with Bayview as a case in point. It also allows us to conclude that arguments in support of Bayview based on housing “needs” were grossly overstated.
• Regulatory Barriers: Despite revisions, Missing Middle regulations might still be too restrictive compared to other housing types.
• Economic Factors: Developers often find larger projects more financially viable, potentially due to economies of scale.
• Goal Setting: The significant overachievement in other categories suggests that these goals may have been set too conservatively, while the Missing Middle goal might be overly ambitious.

Taken together it is a mess. Where is the balance that one should expect in a housing strategy? In my view it calls for a comprehensive review of the goals that have been set.

A Need for Re-evaluation

To me anyway it's evident that the Missing Middle Housing Strategy, in its current form, may not be the comprehensive solution it was initially envisioned to be. The challenges and criticisms encountered during its implementation underscore the need for a more nuanced, multifaceted approach to urban housing policy. To move forward effectively, several key considerations must be addressed:

1. Comprehensive Policy Reform

Rather than over-relying on increasing density through Missing Middle housing, a more holistic approach to housing policy is necessary. This should include:

• Re-evaluating zoning laws to allow for more flexible land use
• Implementing inclusionary zoning policies to ensure a percentage of new developments are affordable
• Exploring innovative financing models to support affordable housing development
• Strengthening tenant protections to prevent displacement
• Ensuring that heritage is responsibly safeguarded

2. Enhanced Community Engagement

The opposition faced by many Missing Middle projects highlights the importance of meaningful community engagement. Despite the spin we have seen from the City it does not seem that the engagement was as meaningful as the community would have hoped. The fiasco over the survey is exhibit A in this regard. To build on the data collected thus far future strategies should incorporate:

• Fuller, earlier, and more ongoing consultation with residents and stakeholders
• Collaborative design processes that allow communities to shape development in their neighborhoods

3. Preservation of Neighborhood Character

To address concerns about the loss of neighborhood character, future policies should:

• Encourage design guidelines that ensure new developments complement existing architectural styles
• Promote adaptive reuse of existing structures where possible
• Implement heritage conservation strategies alongside densification efforts

4. Infrastructure Investment

Any strategy to increase housing density must be accompanied by corresponding investments in infrastructure:

• Upgrading transportation systems to support increased population density
• Enhancing public spaces and community amenities
• Ensuring adequate capacity for utilities and public services

5. Affordability Mechanisms

To truly address the housing crisis, future iterations of the Missing Middle strategy should incorporate stronger affordability mechanisms:

• Exploring community land trusts, co-ops and other models of non-market housing
• Implementing rent control or stabilization measures for new developments
• Creating incentives for developers to include affordable units in their projects

6. Adaptive Policy Framework

Given the complex and evolving nature of housing markets, Victoria should adopt an adaptive policy framework that:

• Regularly assesses the impacts of housing policies and adjusts strategies accordingly
• Incorporates feedback loops to quickly address unintended consequences
• Remains flexible to accommodate emerging housing models and technologies

A Call for Collaborative Innovation

The Missing Middle strategy, while a step in the right direction, requires refinement and adaptation to truly address Victoria's housing crisis. By fostering open dialogue, encouraging diverse perspectives, and implementing data-driven policies, the city can transform this initiative into a model of successful urban development. This collaborative approach not only has the potential to alleviate housing pressures but also to strengthen community bonds and create a more resilient, inclusive urban fabric.

As Victoria navigates these challenges, it is crucial to remain flexible and responsive to emerging needs and feedback. Regular evaluation of the Missing Middle's impact, coupled with a willingness to adjust course, when necessary, will be key to any long-term success. By embracing innovation, prioritizing sustainability, and maintaining a commitment to equitable housing solutions, Victoria can set a new standard for urban planning and development – one that other cities across North America and beyond can learn from and adapt to their own unique contexts.