Housing Motion Sets Tone for Council
A Council Member Motion sponsored by Dave Thompson and Krista Loughton seeks near-term measures to address housing affordability
Any reservations about the tone of our new Victoria City Council went out the window last Wednesday during the first Committee-of-the-Whole meeting of the year. It all started with a motion from Councillors Dave Thompson and Krista Loughton entitled: Near-Term Measures to Encourage More Housing and Affordability.
On the face of it, the motion seems perfectly legit. We are, after all, deep in the throws of a very real and very serious housing crisis in our city, indeed across our whole province and arguably across most of the country. During the last election housing was an important issue, arguably *the* issue of the campaign. So it is reasonable that councillors would be eager to get to work, to engage staff and begin developing the policies that address these issues.
We are just getting this newsletter off of the ground and need as much support as we can get. Please consider subscribing to the newsletter to show your support and get regular updates as they are posted directly to your email inbox.
But there is a process to these sort of things. And there are mechanisms that council as a whole has that include proper venue to discuss and present these things. While Councillors Thompson and Loughton both gave passionate remarks on the merits of their motion, they attempted to create a false impression that no one is interested in dealing with housing except them. Listening to them on Wednesday, a stranger to our city and politics could have been excused for thinking that we had a mayor and council who has done nothing to address housing affordability and is not currently in the process of addressing a major housing initiative in the Missing Middle policy. Never mind that we just finished a local election where housing was the most important issue. And that is where the intent and spirit of this motion speaks volumes to the now expected tone of this council against any real or meaningful progress on housing affordability.
This motion creates confusion. It directs staff to begin a process that pulls them away from the normal and routine development of policy at the local government level. It creates the impression that Councillors Thompson and Loughton are pulling the fire alarm to let us all know that the building is on fire when in reality we’ve been putting water on it for some time now. It is essentially cheap politics and it is no doubt indicative of what we can expect from this group moving forward over the next four years.
The fact that this motion is more about politics and creating wedge issues was made clear during the opening remarks from Councillor Thompson on the motion. He opens by reminding people that housing was an important issue in the campaign and that he heard a lot about it at the doorstep (as if none of the other sitting councillors or candidates, for that matter, experienced the same). He dismisses an entire segment of our city who are concerned about unbridled housing initiatives by saying that those candidates were not successful (which I guess to Councillor Thompson means their concerns are no longer valid). He then defends his motion, saying that it isn’t that big of a deal at this point because it is just a motion to direct staff, not to actually take any action. But Councillor Coleman was quick to point out during his portion of debate that even merely directing staff consumes precious local government resources. It is silly to say that this motion is not impactful, it especially makes no sense in light of what Councillor Thompson and the organizations behind him and this housing motion are saying about the initiative.
The tone for our council has been set. Regardless of the fact that housing is a forefront issue that all of the sitting councillors have spoken about at length during the campaign and since and that we are in the middle of a process to bring real change to our city regarding housing, Councillor Thompson and Loughton have decided to set the tone by ramming through hastily written motions that attempt to drastically change our housing policy without due consideration to the process. It is business as usual given the performance of our last council.
But Councillor Coleman was quick to point out during his portion of debate that even directing allocates precious local government resources. It is silly to say that this motion is not impactful, it especially makes no sense in light of what Councillor Thompson and the organizations behind him and this housing motion are saying about the initiative.
And if this piece seems a little mean spirited and over the top, there is probably good reason for this. Dave Thompson seemed like a reasonable candidate during the election, perhaps not someone with the same politics as me or most of us reading this little newsletter, but someone who understood policy and process and would put meaningful governance over petty politics. But in the first week of 2023 all of that has been jettisoned in favour of tactics that look and feel a lot like the old way of doing things. A way that never got us anywhere.
