It’s Unanimous (Again)

June 28, 2019 by clove 4 Comments

We got through public hearing #2. Phewf.

I had considered not presenting at all this time around (it is optional). Surely this was a no-brainer, right? Surely it’s in everyone’s best interest to approve our new Development Permit and just finish the project?

But then I watched the Committee of the Whole video (this is the meeting at which Council hears staff’s report and votes on whether to put the project forward for public hearing). They all voted in favour of proceeding, but one councilor was very critical of the design and suggested that it was only approved because of the existing house and with that constraint removed, the whole design could have been reconsidered (not in any practical way, but that’s another matter).

This was his perspective, but the sentiment at the first public hearing was extremely positive and it wasn’t just because we were re-using the existing house. Nevertheless, I realized that once again we had to do everything we could to ensure a positive outcome, especially since so many of the current councilors are new. I invited neighbours to write letters and a couple came out in support (thank you Gail and Len!). And I prepared another presentation in spite of my intense fatigue over the whole process.

After my presentation, the same councilor reiterated his negative opinion about the design and concluded by saying he hoped this sort of thing never happened again. Thankfully, the other councilors spoke more supportively and ultimately they all voted in favour.

So we’re back in business. I’ve mentally shifted gears back to critical path decision making. We also got notice that we will likely have to be out of our rental place by the end of October, so we are pushing hard for completion in 4 months – not impossible, but a challenge to be sure!

Here’s where we’re at:

Matt’s installed all of the clips that will secure the cladding to the framing (with 6″ Roxul Cavityrock insulation between)

It’s Unanimous!

November 17, 2017 by clove Leave a Comment

Matt and I outside Council Chambers post-public hearing

In my preparation for our public hearing, I replayed the cautionary voices of others who have done this before: ‘There is always someone who hates your project no matter what you do!‘ Or: ‘Sometimes you’ll go into the public hearing thinking you have community support only to be blindsided by a mutiny!’

My best case mental visualization of the event was that we would have enough positive voices to ring out over the negative ones. I sent invitations to everyone who had expressed support or interest throughout the process. A couple of neighbours said they would come, and a couple of others said they would write a letter. Otherwise, it felt (strangely?) quiet on our block in the days leading up to the hearing.

Here’s how it went down:

We were 3rd on the agenda of rezoning/development permit applications, and somewhere around 10th on the overall agenda, which meant we were called up at 8:45, over 2 hours into the evening’s proceedings. The public area of Council Chambers was full of people early on, and with each item that was ticked off the list, more and more people filtered out. A small group of our neighbours and friends were still among us, along with some people who were waiting for the agenda items after ours.

A member of City staff introduced the project and what was being proposed for Council consideration. I was then called up to the podium with a (strictly enforced!) maximum 15-minute window to present whatever we thought relevant to Council and the public. Using a pre-loaded presentation, I introduced our project goals and talked about our design choices, materials, and rationale. I described how the project fit into the Official Community Plan and the Gonzales Neighbourhood Plan. I summarized the consultation process and how it influenced the design. I concluded by expressing our appreciation for everyone who provided engaged input and ultimately made our project better.

Council then asked a couple of clarifying questions, then opened the floor to anyone who wished to speak for a (strictly enforced!) maximum of 5 minutes. Five neighbours spoke in support and none spoke against.

Every neighbour spoke so eloquently about their personal stories as they related to our project. One spoke about how the character of our community is not just about what the houses look like, but about the individuals who live here and make it their own. Another spoke about having lived on the block since he was 5. Another about how they’d originally lived in the townhouses next to us and then bought a house a few doors down so they could stay on the block as their family grew. This was by far my favourite part of the evening – each neighbour sharing their personal histories and experiences on the block, and their own reasons for supporting our project.

After everyone spoke, the public hearing portion closed. Council then asked a few more questions before offering their opinions on whether and why they supported prior to the final vote. All who spoke were emphatically in favour and the vote to approve our application carried unanimously.

Holy cow!

Never have I witnessed so much smiling and excitement at a public hearing! If you want to see it for yourself, you can watch it here (Nov 9, about 2h:45 in).

We owe thanks to City staff for their work moving this forward. Thank you to the City Councillors for their words of support and encouragement. And most of all, thank you to our neighbours and friends who have listened and made suggestions, shared their opinions and ultimately offered their support. We feel so fortunate to be part of such a strong, supportive, and forward-looking community.

We have some more work to do now to finalize the design prior to submitting for Building Permit. With a little luck, we will begin construction early in 2018. Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

You’re Invited!

November 3, 2017 by clove 4 Comments

Dear Readers, Friends, Neighbours,

Well here we are, finally approaching the moment when City Council will vote yes or no to our rezoning application. The rezoning is what will change the use of our property from single family to two-family + suite. If we get through this, all that is left in terms of the City’s process is to apply for the building permit to begin construction.

First: We want to thank each of you who shared ideas for making our project better, for offering support, and even just for showing interest in what we are doing. Our project is better because of you! We have made many friends through this process and continue to be amazed by this incredible community we call home.

Second: We officially invite you all to join us at our public hearing next Thursday, November 9 at City Hall! The meeting starts at 6:30 and we are third on the agenda. The format is that we present for 10 to 15 minutes and then Council hears comments from any member of the public who wishes to speak.

If you can’t make the hearing, or speaking in public isn’t your thing, feel free to send a letter or email. These do get read and considered. Here are the City’s instructions for doing this:

For those who are unable to attend, your input can be via mail, an email to publichearings@victoria.ca, or you can drop off your written feedback at Victoria City Hall to the City Hall Ambassador located to the left of the main entrance. Correspondence should be received by 11 a.m. the day before the Council meeting.

Please note that all correspondence submitted will form part of the public record and will be published in the meeting agenda. Your address is relevant to Council’s consideration of this matter and will be included as part of the public record. If you choose to share your phone number and email address with us and wish that it not be disclosed, please let us know and we will ensure it remains confidential.

Thank you again and see you out there!

Public Hearing, Here We Come

September 29, 2017 by clove 2 Comments

On one hand, this project feels like it’s taking forever (2 years and counting since we first shared our concept with our neighbours), but on the other, I’m not sure we’d be able to handle it if it moved any faster, what with the rest of life and all. We’re currently looking at a construction start of early 2018 and there’s a lot that has to happen before then!

At the Committee of the Whole meeting in August, Council voted 7 to 1 that our project was ready to go to public hearing. So mark your calendars for November 9, folks! This is the day we present to Council and the public, and anyone with an opinion is welcome to speak. After that, council weighs in and then votes yes or no to our application. If they vote yes, then we’re done with the rezoning part and can focus on getting to construction. If they vote no, it’s back to the drawing board.

Our general plan is that we be ready to submit for building permit as soon after the public hearing as possible. Once we have our building permit, we can start construction.

Here’s the “lot” that has to happen next:

Finish the passive house model to a point that our certifier can review it and flag anything big before we apply for our building permit.
Find a structural engineer to look at our renovation plans, as well as any strange lateral loads we are introducing by attaching a second house to the side of our current house. Last time I called around, half my calls went unanswered, and the other half said they were too busy to take on any more work. This input will be a requirement for our building permit.
Meet with Mark A (our architect) and Russ (our builder) to firm up our assemblies and talk about cost and constructability issues. The big one currently on my mind is how we will insulate a hip roof transitioning to a flat roof. We’d like to do exterior insulation, but how realistic/affordable/buildable will this be?
This meeting should give Russ what he needs to work up a construction budget, which we can then use to secure financing (another big looming question that I look forward to resolving very soon!).
Prepare for and present at the public hearing.
Prepare building permit drawings and apply for building permit.
Find a place to live during construction, pack up and move there!
Clear out as much of our existing house as we can before Russ takes over.

As for the rest of life, there’s work, hosting Thanksgiving dinner, celebrating our anniversary, visiting friends in Toronto, watching a few movies, hanging out with family and friends, riding bikes, sleeping, eating, reading, being healthy…no big deal, right?

Community Meeting: Success!

November 20, 2016 by clove Leave a Comment

Our community meeting was a success! (At least it felt that way for a while.)

The intent of this meeting, hosted by the local Community Association Land Use Committee (CALUC), is to gather comments from neighbours that will be submitted as part of your rezoning application. The comments may also lead to design changes. While this is the official opportunity to gather community input, you’d be foolish not have at least introduced the project to your neighbours well in advance. In our case, we are over a year into the conversation.

I had sat in on several meetings for other projects, so I knew the general format. Still, I felt a lot of uncertainty before our meeting because I didn’t know who would be there besides our neighbour who had vocally opposed our small lot subdivision proposal.

The meeting started at 7 PM. There were four projects on the agenda, and we were #2. The room was packed and stuffy. I knew a handful of people.

The first project was a proposed 4-storey condo building to replace two single family homes across from Beacon Hill Park. The presentation went for an hour and a half, with a lot of discussion around scale, height, parking, privacy, views, and south-facing light – very typical discussion points from what I’ve seen.

After much of the room cleared out, we taped up our drawings and presented to about 15 people plus 5 members of the CALUC. At least 8 people were there for our project; many but not all were familiar faces.

We heard the full range of comments, from ‘everything about it is brilliant’ to ‘everything about it is horrible’. No kidding! On the whole, though, the feedback was very positive, and we had a thoughtful conversation about how to do creative infill in our city. I hesitate to represent the comments of others, so I will just say that those who supported the project seemed aligned with what we were aiming for, while the ‘horrible’ comment was too vague to draw any constructive criticism from. Our neighbours who were strongly opposed to the small lot subdivision focused on the details – plantings between our properties, the design of the roof line etc, which I took as an encouraging sign.

To get to this point feels like an accomplishment, even though we still face many more steps before we can break ground.

We originally chose this property because it is in a fabulous location and well suited to a small infill project. Early on, I heard a lot of stories from neighbours who had fought off various developments over the years. I wondered whether we had chosen the wrong neighbourhood. And yet we persisted through comments like ‘You’re ruining the neighbourhood’, ‘I’ll fight this to the death’ and ‘We’ll have to sue you’. We clung to the encouragement of those who liked what we were doing, and in talking to as many people as we could, we discovered that opposition was very localized; a minority talking like a majority. Still, we listened. We changed our design. And here we are, ready to submit our rezoning application.

And I actually believe even more strongly now that this is the perfect neighbourhood for our project. The way it has evolved reflects not only our vision and values, but also those we share with our neighbours. It reflects the eclectic and thoughtful character of and characters in our community.

POSTSCRIPT: I since received an email from a neighbour who attended the meeting that was very negative and attacking on our character. Two steps forward…

A friend told me before we started on this path that someone will always hate your project, no matter what you do. Fair enough, but I could do without the personal attacks. Needing a lift, I went for a long walk and checked out a couple of Passive House project tours that were happening around town (the 5th Street Passive House currently under construction and the North Park Passive House, which has been occupied for over a year). I got a few new ideas and my spirit was buoyed by the conversations I had with people who are committed to improving our environment, enthusiastic about learning, open about making mistakes, and hopeful for the future.

To all of you: Namaste!

CALUC, Here We Come!

October 10, 2016 by clove Leave a Comment

We are presenting our duplex proposal at the Fairfield Gonzales Community Association Land Use Committee (CALUC) on October 20! The Association’s political struggles have sufficiently abated that the Committee has resumed its activities.

Everyone who lives or runs a business within 100m of our property will receive a letter inviting them to the meeting, and anyone can attend. We present our plans; neighbours ask questions and provide comments, and the CALUC records those and submits them to the city. Depending on the comments received, we may make some revisions before submitting our official rezoning application. Then the 6-8 month clock starts ticking as our application wends its way through the various city engineering and planning departments. If all that goes well, we present at a Public Hearing, at which City council votes yay or nay to approve our application.

Then we apply for our building permit and then we can put shovels to the ground – phew! With a little luck, we’ll get rolling with construction early next summer.

We are still tweaking a few things, but here’s how the design is shaping up.

Front Elevation, sketch by Kate Stefiuk

Landscape plan, sketch by Kate Stefiuk

Progress toward Continually Adjusted Expectations

June 3, 2016 by clove Leave a Comment

When doing something like this for the first time, I think it’s safe to say that your expectations for the amount of time the project will take and how much it will cost will creep toward longer and more expensive the deeper into it you get.

Take the budget category of “soft costs” for example. I like this term because it captures the malleable, ill-defined edges of a catch-all bin for all the costs you don’t yet fully understand. Things like design costs, engineering fees, rezoning application fees, permitting costs, miscellaneous city fees, site servicing fees, financing costs, and legal costs.

I learned from my latest call to the city that we should budget $25,000 – $30,000 to complete the small lot subdivision. This is only for servicing the lot (water, sewer), providing access (driveway and curb cut), and paying city fees. Yikes!

I laugh at the naïve me who a year ago estimated that the total cost to renovate our existing house would be about $100,000. Since that time, I’ve gotten a quote from a contractor who does interiors, plus a round estimate from our builder who will do the shell of the building (foundation, walls, windows, roof), and it’s looking more like $300,000 to do everything on our wish list.

I also marvel at the optimistic me of only 6 months ago, who thought we’d have our rezoning application submitted by February (which I’d already extended from a previous goal of ‘before Christmas’). The City of Victoria is special in the level of civic engagement it expects for all development projects. But especially so in a case like ours where we intend to continue living here once our project is complete, the amount of time we have invested to meet and listen to our neighbours is important and worthwhile. And it just takes time.

(Read this post to learn what our neighbours have said so far.)

The biggest choice we are currently facing is whether we will continue with our small lot proposal or switch to our Plan B, the attached duplex option (shown below).

Preliminary concept for attached duplex option. Rendering by Mark Ashby Architecture.

It’s not as simple a decision as what our neighbours will be most likely to support, although that is an important piece. Financial risk is another big one, as the costs and financing options are different for the two options. What will work best for our family long-term? What is most likely to make it all the way to Council approval and actually be realized?

I’ve been spending my time lately looking for answers to as many of these questions as I can – calling various city departments, calling lenders, calling people who have done this before. Then Matt and I will sit down and evaluate our options against a list of criteria which is starting to take shape:

financing risk and financing costs
total cost and return on investment
maintaining/building positive relationships with our neighbours
best fit with the site and its immediate surroundings
lowest impact on the environment
what will work best for us long-term
likelihood of approval

Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

On Courage and Cool Projects

April 8, 2016 by clove Leave a Comment

We are (still!) in the midst of neighbourhood consultation, and I will provide an update on that process very soon. Suffice to say that I occasionally wake in the middle of the night feeling anxious and in need of a fresh burst of inspiration. So for this post, I am sharing some big ideas from beyond our small project.

Last month I attended the Passive House Northwest Conference (PHNW) in Portland Oregon to present the research RDH is doing at the North Park Passive House here in Victoria. I left the conference full of admiration for the people making incredible projects happen on our continent. And it really is about the people. These projects do not just materialize on their own accord. The people who are making them happen display incredible depths of courage and tenacity. Here I introduce you to two of these people and their projects.

Arnold Development Group’s Second and Delaware project; rendering from Arnold’s PHNW presentation

Jonathan Arnold, President and CEO of Arnold Development Group, for his triple bottom line development model (one look at his Advisory Board will tell you this is a company committed to doing things differently) and his latest project at Second and Delaware in Kansas City. This project I love because it addresses everything that matters today in terms of development: energy, housing, food and transportation. It is a higher density rental project in the heart of the city that uses a traditional courtyard design. It is walkable and transit oriented. It is designed to meet the Passive House standard. It includes a diversity of housing types, including 20% ‘workforce’ housing. It includes space for urban farming. It is a place where people will want to live, can afford to live, and can do so with a light environmental footprint.

You can download his presentation from the conference here.

Second and Delaware features; from Arnold’s PHNW presentation

Lois B. Arena, Senior Engineer and Passive House Consultant at Steven Winter Associates , for driving the design of the world’s largest Passive House building – the Cornell Tech NYC Campus Residential Building, now under construction.

Cornell Tech NYC Residential Building, rendering from Arena’s PHNW presentation

Imagine that the fasteners that Lois needs to attach curtain wall with no thermal bridging did not exist before her project. She is drawing completely new details and training contractors. She is having to change existing building code to design the mechanical ventilation system. She is the one telling the contractors that they are simply going to have to do things differently – and she’s undoubtedly repeating this message over and over again. She joked about going grey within a couple of months of the start of construction, but what an accomplishment it will be after it’s complete.

Lois’ presentation (which will particularly appeal to the techies in the crowd) can be downloaded here.

When I see the sprawl in the outer edges of our city and the construction practices that focus on short term profit, I lose heart that things will change and change fast enough to have a real impact on climate change. Then I see projects like these. Big projects in big cities. People who are showing that it can be done and that designing for the environment goes hand in hand with fiscal common sense.

Returning to the really big picture, I want to close with an invitation to view Zack Semke’s fantastic keynote presentation at PHNW, which ended with a standing ovation. Zack opened with the worst case scenario: If we burn all remaining fossil fuels, Antarctica will melt and sea levels will rise by 200 ft. He asked: Are we all f****d no matter what we do?

I highly encourage you to flip through his slides – at turns shocking, hilarious, and inspiring as the key messages will shine through without having heard the talk. Below is an excerpt – a graph of the relative prices of gas, coal, oil, LNG, and solar. The plummeting grey line is solar, and may represent what is called a “Black Swan” event – an event that changes everything and seems to have come out of nowhere. The internet is a black swan event. The plummeting price of solar PV? Could be a black swan event.

Price of Solar PV vs gas, coal, oil, LNG.

Zack’s call to action is to resist climate denialism (there is no problem and/or we’re not part of the problem), overcome climate defeatism (we’re all f*****d anyway), and continue to take small local steps toward potentially huge collective change. Three cheers for courage and cool projects.

Remind Me Again Why We’re Doing This?

January 29, 2016 by clove 3 Comments

I’ve been learning through trial and error about how to communicate our project.

In my early conversations with our neighbours, I focused on sharing the basic information. What do we want to do and what does it look like? I knew I had to keep it short and not throw out too much information all at once. So I showed renderings, gave basic facts, and then somewhere in the muddle of it all, I practically whispered something about energy efficiency and my passion for sustainability – as if I was embarrassed to admit that this was the stuff that gets me up in the morning.

Then last week, I took a course in communication and leadership that convinced me I had it backwards. I need to lead with the vision and follow with the cool pictures and facts!

In other words, we must answer the question ‘why?’ at the very beginning of the conversation. If we answer the question later, it gets lost in the details. If we don’t answer it at all, we leave others to guess, and for many, ‘why’ is that we’re just another developer out to maximize profit.

So I tried it for myself, using the project narrative/letter to Council as my testing ground. Here’s the draft of the introduction:

This proposal is to modestly increase density in one of Victoria’s most walkable neighbourhoods, in a manner that exemplifies efficient design and construction practices, and respects the fabric of the existing established neighbourhood. The project is shaped by the following fundamental values (here comes the ‘why’):

We believe that we have the skills, materials, and available technologies – right now – to build new homes that are significantly more energy and water efficient, comfortable, healthy and long-lasting than most of what is being built today.
We believe there is tremendous value in our existing homes and that there is much we can do to improve those as well.
We believe that environmental outcomes are at least as important as financial ones.
We believe that thoughtfully designed infill is critical to supporting a walking and biking culture.
We believe that sustainable design is compact design.
We believe that anyone can make a positive difference in their communities and this project is how we want to do it.

Starting with our vision – in a written narrative, a presentation, or an in-person conversation – reminds us what motivates us; what excites us; what pushes us out to knock on doors and jump through seemingly endless hoops. The fact that we have this opportunity to manifest so many of our core values in a real, live, bricks and mortar project is frankly incredible! It makes me want to jump up and cheer. So why in the world would we not start by sharing this enthusiasm?

You may not agree with our vision, and that’s OK. But the beautiful thing about sharing it is that it opens the door to conversation. It leads to questions. It may lead to disagreement. It may lead to new ideas.

And by being clear about what we care about and where we are coming from, we are opening ourselves to the possibility that others are there with us.

What do you think?

(For a different spin on the same theme, check out architect Steve Ramos’ 7 Essential Public Speaking Lessons I Learned the Hard Way.)

Talking with Our Neighbours Part 2

December 6, 2015 by clove 5 Comments

On Remembrance Day and I found myself with the gift of a free afternoon – a rare window of time during the day when I wasn’t working or with our daughter.

Despite a low-level trepidation, I folded the plans under my arm, donned my boots, scarf and mittens and thrust myself into the bright chilly November afternoon.

I started at the south end of the 100m radius on our block. A neighbhour several doors down was out raking leaves. I introduced myself, told her we were planning a project and asked if she wanted to hear a bit more. As I got into some of the goals of the project, she became increasingly engaged. She knew about Passive House; recognized that we had a huge lot that was likely to be developed by someone if not us, and said she would like to see our project happen. What a great (and relieving!) first conversation!

I talked with 5 more neighbhours that afternoon, including three who share a property line with us. 5 of the 6 people I talked with were either neutral or supportive. The 6th thought that the new lot and house seemed very narrow, but he also commended our ambitious plan.

So far so good!

I’ve now spent five afternoons door knocking and have had conversations with over 20 different neighbours. Each time, I have started with uncertainty and finished feeling buoyed by the largely positive response.

Here is a summary of the generally positive and constructive comments I have heard so far:

Most are either neutral or supportive of the project proposal
Many were supportive of adding modest density to the area
Most are either neutral or supportive of adding the suite to the existing house, citing the need to increase density and the diversity of housing options in the area
Neighbours sharing back yard boundaries want to ensure that their privacy is considered in the house and landscape design
One architect neighbour with a long history in the area suggested we move the parking back to the front of the property (see early design post). No other houses on the block with adjoining back yards on Chamberlain and Clare Streets have parking in the rear, which results in a large ‘park’ space that many of the residents value highly. There are even gates connecting many of the backyards.
Many expressed interest in and support for the energy efficiency/low energy approach to the design

Holy cow!

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