City council approves 14-storey building for construction in James Bay

A 14-storey condo building has been approved by Victoria’s city council in James Bay, just down the road from Laurel Point Inn.

The building will occupy Montreal Street and stretch around onto Kingston Street where there will be new, three-storey townhouses. 

In a previous iteration of the plans for this building, the developer was proposing the townhouses be just two-storeys while the tower was going to be 17-storeys tall. 

City council sent this plan back to the applicant for revisions in July of last year and now those revisions have been approved.

This building will occupy a space which currently only holds three residential units as well as a parking lot, and replace them with 108 strata homes meant to be priced for the city’s ‘missing middle’.

Of these new homes, 27 will be three-bedroom units, 42 will be two-bedroom units, 37 will be single-bedroom units and 2 will be studios. 

Along with the residences coming to James Bay by way of this new build, there will also be space for commercial opportunities. 

There will be space for a daycare, a meeting space, a cafe and other commercial units. 

For parking at this building, there will be 141 total vehicle spaces, 121 of which will be for residents. 

Additionally, the developer will be providing two car-share vehicles with memberships for most residents and 161 bicycle parking spaces to mitigate the number of vehicle spaces available. 

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City council had to revise their Official City Plan (OCP) and rezone the proposed building site in order for this building to be approved. 

Councillor Jeremy Caradonna said during the meeting that he believes this is now supportable, where before it was not. 

“I think that 14-storeys is contextual within the surrounding community; there’s a number of 12 to 13-storey buildings in the immediate neighbourhood,” Caradonna said. 

“Right now it’s a parking lot, a completely underutilized parking lot and it could be a place for homes, for small businesses, for day care, it could be a place for street activations, so I think that this building, if it goes forward, will be a huge improvement over a parking  lot.”

When it came time to vote on amending the OCP, approving the rezoning and allowing this building to go forward, council voted 5-4 in favour with Councillors Susan Kim, Marg Gardiner, Chris Coleman and Stephen Hammond in opposition.