Junk buildings — Needs More Spikes

With the Northern Junk development back in the news in September, I checked to see if the proposal had any gross defensive architecture or “crime prevention through environmental design” elements to meet the city’s requirements. Yes. Yes, it does.

“Stone!”

Along the lower walkway the developers are planning a “large precast ‘stone’ seating feature,” which they say “provides a place to rest, wait for a table at the restaurant or simply enjoy the view.” It’s not really a place to rest, though. Using a sloping surface with no backrest instead of a bench is one way to ensure it’s not a comfortable place to hang out, and that it keeps people from using it as a place to sleep off the ground.

While it’s not a bench with a defensive armrest, the effect of their fake stone will be the same. It also looks ridiculous.

Let the developer without benches cast the first stone. Design showing the developer’s proposed stone seating. Image source: Development Application, Full Package, 2019.

Locking Gate

This developers propose adding a walkway from Wharf Street down to a new waterfront path, but keeping up with current trends in the city, they want to lock it up with a gate “after business hours,” shutting off the sheltered passageway. One of the design drawings says that the operation of the gate either is or will be “agreed with [City of Victoria],” which could suggest the city may require a public right of way, but will let the developer treat it as purely private property each night.

Design showing the developer’s proposed gated walkway. Image source: Development Application, August 2020 Revisions.

Surveilling Reeson Park

The development is right next to Reeson Park, where the city has engaged in a decades-long project to displace people living in homelessness and poverty. Over the years, the city has added lighting, paths, planted spiky plants, and used the police to kick people out of the park. In 2016, they held a public consultation about the park’s future, providing a forum for people to sing their anti-poor heartsongs and say things like “The public needs to reclaim this area,” and the city should “attract [a] better, safer, more diverse public.” For those respondents, Reeson Park was for the public, but a public that excluded unhoused people. The city agreed, and banned people from sheltering in the park overnight in 2018.

Map showing Reeson Park, with the existing Junk buildings directly to the north. Image source: Google Maps.

A benefit of the Northern Junk development, according to the developers, is that the tenants who move in will surveil the park on the city’s behalf:

“The building design promotes an eyes-on-the park relationship of the [commercial units], the lobby and the residential units above Reeson Park. This is not only a benefit to the residents but provides a significant CPTED [Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design] improvement as the sunken park is not in view from the street.”

The fact that the developers are openly promoting surveillance doesn’t come out of nowhere. The city’s guidelines require developers to use “CPTED” to design buildings that consider “Natural” and “Formal Surveillance,” and which promote “Territoriality” to “extend [people’s] sense of ownership from private space into semi-private and even public spaces.”

Reeson Park has been the site of Victoria’s annual commemoration of Canada’s National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day. When the developers say their new building will help surveil homeless and poor people — sorry, “promot[e] an eyes-on-the-park relationship” — they seem to be signaling that their tenants will call the cops for any number of things. That will almost certainly include tenants calling the police because they have witnessed visible homelessness or poverty. The city has worked for years to displace homeless people from Reeson Park, and if the Northern Junk development goes ahead, it will be another step towards completing that goal.