Public hearings for buildings topping 20 storeys in Victoria used to play out like a support group meeting for acrophobics.

But one passed last Thursday with a minimum of histrionics over height. Two planned towers at the Bayview site on Vic West’s Saghalie Road won the right to reach heights of 17 and 21 storeys. The towers were previously approved at 13 and 17 storeys, but were redesigned due largely to economics.

Developer Ken Mariash told council the smaller floorplates in the slimmer towers will make it possible to build smaller condos that can be priced lower, in what he called Victoria’s “sweet spot” around $350,000.

The taller, slimmer towers were pitched as more elegant designs that provide wider view corridors and more open space at ground level. City planning staff endorsed the new plans, stating in a report they fit with design guidelines that call for increasing heights on sites away from the harbour. The Bayview site is on the Songhees peninsula’s highest point of land.

Those speakers who came out against the changes did so forcefully. “I think it’s morally and ethically wrong on an elevated site to build building(s) of 21 and 17 storeys,” said Judith Stark, who lives at the Edge condos across Esquimalt Road.

The majority of Vic West neighbours who spoke, though, were in favour. Vic West Community Association land-use committee chair Diane Carr said the association was neither in favour or opposed, but those who had a chance to see the plans at a meeting were unanimously in favour. “I think personally this is a much more elegant solution,” she said.

The changes passed 8-1 for granting a development variance permit. The lone dissenting vote came from Coun. Pam Madoff.

She said her opposition was based on a feeling that Mariash was aiming for LEED environmental certification for the updated project seemingly as an “add-on.”

“I just don’t understand why sustainability wasn’t the guiding principle behind this development,” Madoff said.

kvass@vicnews.com