REGIONAL
Just shy of 1,100-units of purpose-built rental housing was completed in 2021 across the Capital while a further 3,000-units are under construction with delivery slated for 2022 through 2024, according to Citified’s construction activity tracking.
The City of Colwood on Victoria’s West Shore led the way this year with over 350-unit completions, all of which took place in the burgeoning Colwood Corners area centred on Sooke Road at Goldstream Avenue. Two-thirds of the inventory was affordable housing.
Runner-up was the City of Victoria with 330 purpose-built rental completions, one-third of which were allocated to senior living in a high-end retirement project. None of the completions in 2021 were earmarked as below market or affordable units.
Langford – which delivered more rental housing per-capita over the last five years than any other south Island municipality at over 3,000 completed units compared to the City of Victoria’s 2,600-units – added 229 rentals last year. All were market housing.
According to the latest population estimate from Statistics Canada, Victoria’s census metropolitan area (CMA) grew by just over 1.4 per cent between 2020 and 2021, the organization states. The national average across all CMAs totalled 0.5 per cent year-over-year growth. The Capital’s population increased to 415,573 individuals from 409,697 in 2020, a difference of 5,876.
CENTRAL SAANICH
A purpose-built rental project proposed at the former site of Marigold Nurseries in could deliver nearly half of the municipality’s goal of adding 550 new apartments by 2025. However, following a public hearing in early January, council has decided to postpone its decision on the project in light of strong community opposition.
Starlight Developments is pursuing approvals for a two-building, 235-suite investment at 2515 Hackett Crescent as an upcoming phase of the Marigold Lands development along Lochside Drive near Mt. Newton Cross Road. If approved, the project’s rental suites will amount to 42 per cent of the district’s rental housing targets set through 2025.
Meanwhile, a proposal to build 300-units of seniors and workforce rental housing on West Saanich Road just north of Keating Cross Road has been sidelined due to the site’s location outside of the urban containment boundary.
LANGFORD
Reunion at #MyBelmont, a condominium project on lands formerly occupied by Belmont Secondary School, has progressed to sold-out status in one of the fastest pre-sale uptakes ever seen on the West Shore, while clinching the title of southern Vancouver Island’s most desirable development of 2021.
Ledcor Property Investments’ five-storey, 80-suite offering that launched in early fall as the final phase of Ledcor’s #MyBelmont residential community (on Reunion Avenue at Kelly Road) drew purchasers to its one and two-bedroom offerings at a pace firmly establishing the West Shore as a dominant player in the region’s pre-sale market.
VICTORIA
Spanning nearly two decades of visions and proposals, Focus Equities’ Roundhouse concept at Vic West’s Bayview lands has switched gears once more with an amended rezoning package now before the City.
The latest direction for Roundhouse – bordered by Esquimalt Road to the north, Catherine Street to the west, Kimta Road to the south and the already partially constructed Bayview Hilltop to the east – calls for a greater emphasis on condominium residences in lieu of its prior iteration from late 2020 through mid-2021 that sought a higher ratio of rental homes to condos.
Down from five all-rental towers totalling 1,100-units across one million square feet and the potential for rentals in two additional mixed-use condominium/hotel towers, the latest plan is now forecasting just two rental blocks, standing 24 and 26-storeys tall, with approximately 500 residences (half of which are described by Focus Equities as affordable units) across 400,000 square feet.
The loss in rentals represents a major gain for condominiums that now number just shy of 1,700-units throughout seven towers, three of which may include hotel uses (up from two with a mixed-use hotel designation from the earlier plan), compared some to earlier plans of 700 condo units in four towers. Building heights will include 23, 26, 28, 30 and 32-storey massings.
VIEW ROYAL
Rising along the 200-block of Old Island Highway between Admirals and Helmcken roads, the four-storey Skyeview condominium project has sold through all but one pre-sale home as part of TLA Developments’ pre-completion sales component, with nine residences earmarked for release upon its anticipated completion in Summer 2022.
The fast absorption of homes at Skyeview is part of a highly successful condominium sales year for West Shore and suburban pre-sales.