For Families
Victoria is exporting its young families. The city builds 56 apartments for every single townhouse, childcare waitlists stretch for years, and family doctors are scarce. None of this is fate. It is the result of choices a city makes — and choices a city can change. This framework was built budget-first, 0% ideological and 100% pragmatic: every measure below is costed, proven in a comparable city, and reported on a public scorecard every quarter.
This is the same framework as the full Program — same measures, same numbers, same jurisdictional caveats — read through a parent's eyes. Every measure named here is costed and sourced in the master, and every number links back to it.
← Back to the frameworkA home your family actually fits in
- Homes with bedrooms, not just units (Measure 6). Victoria is ahead on raw housing volume and behind where families live: 3-bedroom homes and the missing middle. We set composition targets and report them quarterly: 12,000+ net new homes by 2030, at least 20% with 3 bedrooms or more, at least 25% missing middle — townhomes, duplexes, triplexes, garden suites.
- Permits fast enough to build for your kids, not your grandkids (Measures 7 and 7b). Published permit targets by category — simple under 6 weeks, complex under 6 months — plus a pre-approved pattern book of family housing designs that skips the slowest steps.
- Fair access, no queue-jumping (Measure 10). One digital portal for City-affiliated housing waitlists with public, point-based criteria — single parents and larger families are explicitly weighted — and you can see your place in the queue.
Childcare and a family doctor
- 500 new childcare spaces, using every lever the City has (Measure 12). Childcare is provincially regulated — so we use what is municipal: childcare permits processed in 60 days or less, community buildings pre-zoned for childcare use, city-owned space offered below market to licensed operators, and hard advocacy for housing the early childhood educators who make it all run.
- Recruit family doctors with the levers we control (Measure 13b). Permissive tax exemptions for not-for-profit clinics, below-market city space, clinic permits fast-tracked on the childcare timeline, and a recruitment partnership with Island Health.
Streets your kids can cross
- The ten most dangerous intersections, redesigned — all of them (Measure 38). Today no published collision inventory even exists. We publish it, name the top ten, and rebuild them within the term. This is row 10 of the public scorecard.
- 30 km/h on residential and downtown streets (Measure 39) and protected bike lanes on major routes (Measure 41) — so the ride to school is a route you would let your child take.
- School-zone speed cameras — the honest version (Measure 40). BC law does not let a city install a speed camera today. We will not promise a camera we cannot lawfully install. We will nominate every school and playground zone with evidence, prepare the sites at City cost so provincial installation is never delayed by us, and press the Province for the authority — carrying forward council's own unanimous 2023 resolution.
- Buffer zones around child-focused spaces (Measure 33b) and a Downtown Public Order Team with bylaw coverage 6 AM to 10 PM, 7 days (Measures 26 and 27). Order is a family policy.
Schools, parks, and places to play
- A standing agreement with School District 61 (Measure 13d). School gyms, fields, and playgrounds open to families outside school hours; City facilities open to schools during them. The cheapest recreation capacity a city can add, because the buildings already exist.
- Real food in schools (Measure 13). A Farm to School standard with Island producers, menus redesigned with local chefs, and daily meal photos published — you see exactly what your children are served.
- Parks worth the name (Measures 49 and 52). A 5-year Beacon Hill restoration including the Children's Farm, a signature horticultural feature in every neighbourhood, and sport facilities — including Royal Athletic Park — used fully, year-round.
- Public bathrooms that exist and are open (Measure 24b). Every parent understands why this is transportation infrastructure.
- A maximum-temperature rule for rental homes (Measure 64). In the 2021 heat dome, 619 British Columbians died — 98% indoors. Families renting older units get the same protection as everyone else: at least one room at or under 26°C during heat warnings.
What it costs you
Nothing beyond a tax bill that finally behaves. The framework caps the residential tax rate increase at 6.5% in Year 1 (against the 9.34% council levied on homes in 2026), 5% in Year 2, then roughly inflation plus growth — funded by verified savings, not cuts to what your family uses (Measures 65 and 15, and the Taxpayer Guarantee, Measures 66 to 66d). One published Household Bill shows what your family actually pays, in one number, every year.
Also in the framework for you
- Playgrounds and parks, reclaimed (Measures 36 and 34). Priority public spaces — playgrounds first — kept safe and usable through daily presence and a rapid-removal protocol, paired with real shelter capacity.
- Homelessness cut in half, honestly (Measures 11 and 35). Housing-First throughput plus capacity-first enforcement — order and compassion in the same sentence, counted quarterly in public.
- Vehicles designed for streets with kids on them (Measures 42 and 42b). A safety audit on every new road project, and federal advocacy on vehicle hood heights — because a child's odds in a collision depend on the front end of what hits them.
- Something to do in every season (Measures 51 and 45c). Covered, lit, programmed outdoor spaces year-round — and one signature public-space project your kids will grow up with, shortlisted by residents and approved on a ballot.
- The family dog counts too (Measure 25c). Leashed access to parks, waste stations and water fountains at every major one.
Your Victoria in 2030
It is a Tuesday in September 2030. You drop your youngest at a childcare space that opened in a community centre three blocks from home — one of the 500 the city fought for. Your oldest bikes to school on a protected lane and crosses at an intersection that used to be on the dangerous-ten list and is not anymore. After school, the gym is open to the neighbourhood, because the City and the school district finally signed one agreement. Saturday is Beacon Hill: the Children's Farm restored, the playground full, the dog on a leash beside you. And the 3-bedroom townhouse you thought Victoria would never build — you live in it, because the city started approving homes shaped like families and published the count every quarter until the mix changed. Nobody sold you a dream. They published targets, and hit them, where you could check.
How you hold us to it
Quarterly public scorecard, no spin: homes by composition (row 3), all ten dangerous intersections redesigned (row 10), crime severity down 15% (row 6), and the tax cap itself (row 1). Miss a number and you will know by 2028 — not at the next election.