Capital Daily for Wednesday, July 8

Victoria police have charged two people in the Dallas Road assault that injured three people the night of Friday, July 3. Twenty-year-old Hussein Saadedeen faces aggravated assault, two counts of assault with a weapon and a failure-to-comply charge. The second accused is a youth whose identity is protected, charged with aggravated assault, two counts of assault with a weapon and carrying a concealed weapon. Both were arrested at the scene and remanded in custody.

One member of the group that was attacked, identified only as Abigail, told Victoria Buzz about 25 friends had gathered near the Mile Zero monument for a relaxed evening when a separate group of around 10 young men began watching them from a nearby hill. She said the confrontation escalated after one man approached with a knife and another produced what looked like a machete. One person needed hand surgery. Nobody in her group recognized the suspects.

Then, on Sunday night, a woman waiting at a bus stop in the 600-block of Johnson Street was struck in the head by a man who fled south on foot. Police are calling the 10:30 p.m. attack unprovoked and are asking anyone with dashcam or CCTV footage to come forward. The two cases are unrelated.

Two years ago Victoria opened a pilot that would cover as much as 100% of a landlord's retrofit costs through property-tax breaks. As of last week, exactly one application has been approved.

So council tweaked it. Out went the six-storey height limit, and more of the five pilot spots opened up for retrofits that cut greenhouse-gas emissions. City energy specialist Chris Moore told council a second application has come back for review, but he couldn't say whether more owners would bite before the pilot wraps next year.

The stakes sit inside those four-storey wood-frame buildings from the '60s through the '80s, the ones burning natural gas for heat and hot water. Close to half the city's emissions come from buildings like these, and they also happen to be some of Victoria's more affordable rentals.

Saanich runs a similar program, started around the same time. It has approved exactly one application too. LandlordBC says about 40 Victoria buildings have flagged interest in retrofits, but the economics are, in its CEO's word, "challenging" without government help.