Policy

I’m in the process of creating a detailed policy platform. For now, these are my general positions on some of the issues we face in Victoria. If you want to help shape my policy platform or learn more about what I believe, please get in touch!

  • We need way more of every kind of housing, especially deeply subsidized housing.

    I believe the most important issue affecting Victorians is housing, not only because it’s an incredibly pressing issue in it’s own right, but because it has massive impacts on almost every other issue we face as a city. Transportation, climate change, the economy, public safety, and so many other issues are downstream from the housing crisis. The Housing Crisis is the Everything Crisis. This is both a blessing and a curse; it means that if we don’t fix housing, we won’t fix those issues either, but it also means that by fixing one issue, we can make very significant progress on many others. 

    So, how do we fix it? Fixing the housing crisis requires a “yes, and” approach. The situation is far too large to rely on just the free market or just government action. Neither has the capacity to solve the problem, and we must leverage the benefits of both approaches if we want to make meaningful progress. We need a massive expansion in public housing investment, more shelters and supports for people living on the streets, increased housing options for people at all stages of their lives, and a whole lot more. There is no silver bullet, we need silver buckshot.

    Local government has the easiest job of all levels of government when it comes to housing; most of what local government has to do is stop getting in the way. When it comes to housing, the main function of local government right now is to slow down or outright prevent housing. While Victoria has made progress on this issue recently, there’s still a long way to go, and we need serious change if we want to solve the housing crisis.

    Non-profits want to build affordable housing in Victoria; we should do everything in our power to speed that process up, instead of delaying it and increasing the cost with excessive red tape and fees. Builders want to build homes for people to live in, but the city puts up unnecessary roadblocks and hoops to jump through, which delay badly needed housing and increase its cost. We need to understand that housing is an amenity, not a burden, especially in a housing crisis. 

    Of course, rules and regulations are needed. But they should be clear, predictable, and consistent. Right now, getting housing built requires navigating a costly, complicated, and unpredictable process that involves a lot of negotiation with staff on a project-by-project basis. It can take months to get answers to basic questions. Smaller, local builders don’t generally have the resources to navigate this process, so a lot of the housing we end up getting is built by massive multinational developers with no stake in our community. By making the process clear and consistent, we can improve the quality of housing that gets built, lower the cost, and keep the money in our community.

  • We need safe and efficient transportation for everyone, regardless of how they get around. We can accomplish this by continuing to expand our AAA network, giving people real options for low-carbon travel. We can truly prioritize public transit, so that taking transit isn’t a second-class experience. And we can create complete communities with vibrant and walkable public spaces, so people aren’t forced to travel long distances for daily necessities.

    A good transportation system should serve everyone, regardless of how they choose to get around. Having worked three different delivery jobs, including one where I drove box trucks the size of a city bus all around the CRD, I’ve seen firsthand how our streets work (and don’t work) for everyone who uses them.

    I believe Victoria needs a system that makes it easy, affordable, and sustainable to get around by bus, bike, car, or on foot. Investing in better public transit, safer cycling routes, and more walkable streets reduces traffic or emissions, and creates a city that’s more accessible, connected, and enjoyable to live in. I’m committed to supporting proactive transportation planning that prioritizes people and the environment over congestion and car dependency.

  • We need to adapt to a changing climate, and do our part to prevent it from changing more.

    We’re already starting to suffer the effects of the climate crisis, and things are only going to get worse from here. As a city, we have to do our part to reduce emissions and to adapt to the changes that are coming.

    We can do this by increasing tree canopy coverage, reducing emissions and providing shade to mitigate heat. We can change our zoning laws to make buildings taller instead of making them wider, increasing permeable space to improve stormwater management and providing more space for trees. And we can build more dense infill housing near jobs and amenities so that fewer people are forced to rely on cars to get around, to keep our air clean.

  • We need to ensure an affordable city and economic prosperity for all Victorians.

    The economy is important in the best of times, and we’re certainly not in the best of times right now. Economic health and stability aren’t just abstract concepts, economic downturns have real human consequences, especially for the most vulnerable. The rise of work from home has also had a negative effect on our downtown businesses. I believe there’s more the city can do to support our local economy.

    We can lobby for a commercial vacancy tax, so that landlords aren’t incentivized to keep storefronts empty. We can make it easier to start small and/or home based businesses, meaning entrepreneurs aren’t forced in to paying expensive commercial leases. And, of course, we can expand housing construction, leading to more jobs, more customers for local businesses, and more taxpayers to absorb the costs of large capital projects like the new Crystal Pool. Making it easier to build missing middle housing will also allow smaller local developers to compete with large multinationals like Starlight, ensuring more money stays in our community instead of being siphoned out of town.