There are many wonderful attributes of Campbell River’s downtown – a variety of local shops, destinations and amenities, Spirit Square and the awesome programming supported by the City, green space, tree canopies and ocean access and views. We have a very good starting point for increasing the vitality of our city and providing additional housing. Much of the downtown area is zoned for residential development, but so far there is very little housing in our core. I’m picturing all the single (or at most two-) story malls – along Shopper’s Row and the streets feeding it, Dogwood, Ironwood and in between. These areas host a variety of great shopping and service businesses but they come with a whole lot of wasted, unproductive space. Does a mall with businesses that may only see one or two clients at a time really need 50+ parking stalls? Adding housing above and around these locally owned enterprises would not only address our housing crisis, but would generate additional customers for those businesses, and tax revenue for the City. The embedded link cites several studies that demonstrate why densification, especially around businesses is a win for everyone.
Walkable cities are more economically successful
Downtown Campbell River (mycampbellrivernow)