City planners, Mari said, have so far been unwilling to approve multi-unit housing that disrupts the “character” of residential neighbourhoods.

Victoria’s requirement for six metres between the front of the home and property line prioritizes a decorative front yard over more functional space in the backyard

“But municipalities say, ‘No, we want a single-family 1950s white-picket-fence front yard esthetic’ and they write that into their bylaws.”

“I don’t think it’s failed,” said Marianne Alto, who was elected mayor in October and has sat on council since 2010. “What I think has happened is we asked too much of a single policy. I think there was a probably an unreasonable expectation that this was almost magic.”

" […] there are some local governments that don’t want to participate in making sure we have housing for future generations […] said Kahlon, who recently spoke to California Senator Scott Wiener about it."

“I don’t believe for a second missing middle will produce affordable housing — but it will create more diverse supply in the long run,” Dell said.

Even as the City of Victoria looks to fix the problems in its missing-middle policy to spur building, Mari, the Victoria developer, is skeptical it >will provide the transformation needed.

“It’s unlikely we’re going to see a policy that is robust enough to actually tackle the housing crisis,” he said.

Amodio said as long as we’re wedded to the idea of the single-family home as a symbol of the middle class dream — even as it excludes a >vast swath of society who have been priced out of that dream — municipalities will continue to take a conservative approach around >green-lighting density.

“This vision that we have embedded, it’s imbued in our collective consciousness, to have a big front yard with a certain style of house that >has been defined as being character. And this character is what makes a beautiful neighbourhood. And I so strongly oppose that,” she said. >“To me, it’s people … that create character.”

In my opinion, the only issue here is all the micro-managed zoning laws created by people that still think the whole city should be giant fucking suburb. And guess what, it is a giant fucking suburb. As soon as you get outside of downtown, it’s just houses and roads interspersed with random car-centric shopping centres until you get to parkland.