Capital Daily for Wednesday, July 15

Starting at noon on Thursday, July 16, campfires will be prohibited across most of the Coastal Fire Centre, which covers Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and parts of the south coast. It's the second campfire ban of the season. A similar one went up in May and came down when the rain returned.

The timing isn't only about the mid-20s heat coming to Greater Victoria this week. BC Wildfire Service operations director Cliff Chapman warned Tuesday of dry lightning and wind sweeping most of the province from Wednesday afternoon into Friday, with southern B.C. at the highest risk. Stream flows in some parts of Vancouver Island are already at the 10th percentile of normal, or lower, which leaves the forest primed to catch and spread.

The ban stacks onto an existing prohibition on larger open fires, fireworks and burn barrels. Campfires stay legal in the Campbell River and North Island-Central Coast forest districts, where it's cooler and wetter. CSA-approved gas or propane stoves are still fine, as long as the flame stays under 15 centimetres.

The lone active wildfire on the Island is a 2.23-hectare blaze on Mount Prevost west of North Cowichan, discovered July 6 and considered under control. The new restrictions run until October 31 unless conditions ease first.

In Victoria's downtown core, the required number of parking spots for new developments could soon be zero. That's the headline change in a new off-street parking framework council gave initial approval to last week.

The idea is a sliding scale: the closer a project sits to the city centre or good transit, the fewer car stalls it has to build. Downtown and industrial lands drop to a baseline of zero, while other transit-rich areas see cuts of 30 to 50 per cent. Acting planning manager Mike Angrove says building a single stall averages around $100,000, more once you start digging out underground levels.

Developers who want to shed even more parking can pay into a city fund for public parking and cycling infrastructure. Council voted 5-4 to halve those fees after Coun. Jeremy Caradonna warned the cost would land on homebuyers.

Not everyone's sold. Coun. Marg Gardiner voted against sending the plan to a public hearing, saying it hadn't had enough block-by-block consultation and would cause "havoc on the streets."