UPDATE: Victoria's Bizarre Neighbourhood Borders
The Burnside-Gorge Neighbourhood?!
A little bit of a follow-up from my last update, as the article from the Vic News on the Burnside Gorge's new area plan got me thinking. So I started reading a bit more about the work that has been going on with the progress regarding the plan on the City's website. Then I got a little upset. Really for two reasons. First, that the discussion about perhaps the most important part of the neighbourhood for the city as a whole, was relegated to about ten percent of the consultations and secondly and more importantly, that it was up to the Burnside Gorge residents to provide input on the next logical extension of our downtown!
To get a bit more in-depth on the first point, as you saw in the last post on the crazy neighbourhood borders, the area bordered by Chatham/Caledonia, Blanshard, Bay Streets and the Gorge to the west, is considered part of the Burnside-Gorge Neighbourhood. I am really not sure why. With the intense development going in at the north end of downtown, this area is the logical area for downtown to grow after we see more build-out in Harris Green.
The consultation doesn't really talk about this integral part of town with exception to mentioning the "Douglas Corridor". Whether this refers to north or south of Bay Street is not clear.
This brings me to my second and related concern. We have the City moving ahead on the development of Local Area Plans for every neighbourhood in the city and there has been no discussion about whether the borders of those neighbourhoods should be changed. A clear part of the development of neighbourhood plans should identifying each neighbourhood as distinct and then working away from that distinction to identify the borders. This may upset some community associations that are provided funding based on population but it would be better planning and that should be the point.
Hopefully, the next round of neighbourhood plans or at some point in between these bizarre borders will be reviewed.
Let me know what you think and how the City should be moving on this.