The rezoning request on Church Road exemplifies the folly of zoning controls. Having needed services near a residence for people of limited mobility makes good sense, yet is not allowed under many zoning rules.
The trend of many decades has been to segregation, in contrast to the days of corner grocery stores run by a family who lived in the same building. Some fiefdoms, like Seattle, have reversed that but tried to force retail into the ground floor of apartment buildings. That coercion didn’t work because the amount of retail was too small in most buildings so people just went to a shopping area anyway.
I’ve seen problems with traffic from busy churches, yet the same fiefdom refused to allow a church next to an office building it would share parking with, despite the obvious advantage of complementary use times.
And there’s the fiefdom of Victoria’s bureaucrats who don’t want a motel converted to apartments despite the precedent next door.
Why don’t voters just get out of the way of honest people doing things for real humans?
Keith Sketchley
Saanich