{
  "id": "downtown-office-vacancy",
  "geography": "Downtown Victoria",
  "scope": "city",
  "period": "Q2 2026 (April to June)",
  "period_start": "2026-04-01",
  "period_end": "2026-06-28",
  "refresh_frequency": "Quarterly (City economic dashboard)",
  "category": "Downtown",
  "title": "Downtown office vacancy rate",
  "levels": [
    "Building owners and businesses",
    "Municipal (zoning and permits)"
  ],
  "plain_question": "Out of all downtown office space, what share was empty and available to lease?",
  "value": 13.0,
  "display_value": "13%",
  "unit": "of downtown office space, Q2 2026",
  "comparison": {
    "previous_period": "Q1 2026",
    "previous_value": 13.3,
    "change_percent": -0.3,
    "change_unit": "percentage points"
  },
  "trend": "roughly_flat",
  "direction_good": "down",
  "right_direction": "A lower vacancy rate means more downtown offices are in use.",
  "trend_basis": "13% in Q2 2026, against 13.3% in Q1 2026 (the quarter before), as printed in the City’s economic dashboards (source: Colliers Office Q2 Report).",
  "since_text": "Q1 2026: 13.3%. Each dashboard prints only its own quarter.",
  "caveats": [
    "The City of Victoria republishes this rate in its quarterly economic dashboard and credits it to Colliers, a commercial real estate firm (“SOURCE: Colliers Office Report”). Colliers is not a public body. No public body publishes downtown office vacancy, so this source is used, with this note.",
    "Each dashboard gives the current quarter only, not the same quarter a year earlier, so the comparison is with the quarter before. Office vacancy can move with the seasons less than retail does, but a quarter is a short time.",
    "Storefront (retail) vacancy is not published as a rate by any public body; the dashboard gives only the quarterly change in retail availability (from CBRE). It stays on “What is missing”."
  ],
  "series": [
    {
      "period": "Q1 2026",
      "value": 13.3
    },
    {
      "period": "Q2 2026",
      "value": 13.0
    }
  ],
  "source": {
    "name": "City of Victoria, Victoria's Economic Dashboard, Q2 2026",
    "url": "https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/ec-dev-data-report-q2-2026",
    "dataset_url": "https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/ec-dev-data-report-q2-2026",
    "download_url": "https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/ec-dev-data-report-q2-2026",
    "dashboards": [
      {
        "quarter": "Q1 2026",
        "url": "https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/ec-dev-data-report-q1-2026-finalpdf",
        "reads": "Downtown office vacancy rate: 13.3%"
      },
      {
        "quarter": "Q2 2026",
        "url": "https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/ec-dev-data-report-q2-2026",
        "reads": "Downtown office vacancy rate: 13%"
      }
    ],
    "locator": "City economic dashboard Q2 2026, page 5, “Office and retail occupancy”: “Downtown office vacancy rate” (SOURCE: Colliers Office Q2 Report)",
    "reads": "Q1 2026 dashboard: “Downtown office vacancy rate: 13.3%”; Q2 2026 dashboard: “Downtown office vacancy rate: 13%”",
    "page_url": "https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/ec-dev-data-report-q2-2026#page=5",
    "page": 5,
    "publisher_page": "https://www.victoria.ca/building-business/economic-development"
  },
  "licence": {
    "name": "Public data, not under an open licence. Used with attribution.",
    "url": "https://www.victoria.ca/legal-disclaimer",
    "open": false
  },
  "verified_text": [
    "Downtown office vacancy rate: 13.3%",
    "Downtown office vacancy rate: 13%",
    "SOURCE: Colliers Office Q2 Report"
  ],
  "data_published": "2026-08-21",
  "retrieved_at": "2026-11-13T05:28:00Z",
  "attribution": "Source: City of Victoria, Victoria's Economic Dashboard, Q2 2026 (Colliers Office Q2 Report). Public document, used with attribution; not endorsed by the publisher.",
  "ownership_note": "Figure from Colliers, a commercial real estate firm, as republished by the City of Victoria.",
  "licence_type": "public",
  "source_tier": 1,
  "measure_kind": "outcome",
  "better_measure": null,
  "status_rule": {
    "rule": "One rule for every measure: a change smaller than 5% of the earlier value, or smaller than the agency's own margin of error, is “About the same”; no change is calculated across a marked break in a series; homelessness estimates, prices, staffing and comparison pages are shown for context without a label.",
    "reason": "The change is 2.3% of the earlier value, below the 5% threshold.",
    "threshold_percent": 5.0
  },
  "changes": {
    "year": {
      "period": "Q1 2026",
      "value": 13.3,
      "text": "vs Q1 2026: -0.3 points"
    },
    "five_year": null
  },
  "direction": {
    "type": "outcome",
    "rule": "Outcome measures read Better, Worse or About the same; published government targets read Ahead of, On or Behind target; value-judgement measures read Rising, Falling or Steady in a neutral colour. A change smaller than the agency's own margin of error, or otherwise smaller than 5% of the earlier value, is About the same (or Steady). No change is calculated across a marked break in a series.",
    "key": "same",
    "label": "About the same",
    "arrow": "▼",
    "rel": -2.255639097744366,
    "delta": -0.3000000000000007,
    "vs": "Q1 2026",
    "cur": "Q2 2026 (April to June)",
    "why": "The change is 2.3% of the earlier value, below the 5% threshold.",
    "change": "0.3 pt",
    "one_year": "−0.3 pt",
    "long_why": "The series starts in Q1 2026, so there is no reading longer than one year yet."
  },
  "data_published_basis": "file dated",
  "benchmark": {
    "rung": 4,
    "rung_name": "Context measure: no target expected",
    "as_of": "2026-11-12",
    "items": [
      {
        "kind": "context",
        "label": "Context measure: no target expected",
        "area": null,
        "source": null,
        "documents_checked": null,
        "text": "Context measure: no target expected. A market vacancy rate reported by a commercial real estate firm. No government sets a target for it."
      }
    ],
    "drawn": [],
    "rule": "Highest rung found is shown; the site never sets a target. Methods, Targets."
  },
  "no_target_expected": "A market vacancy rate reported by a commercial real estate firm. No government sets a target for it.",
  "benchmarks": [],
  "highest_rung": null,
  "decided_by": [
    {
      "body": "NONE",
      "name": "No government decides this directly",
      "note": "Building owners and businesses decide leases."
    },
    {
      "body": "COV",
      "name": "City of Victoria Council",
      "decides": "Decides zoning and development permits, and regulates building by bylaw.",
      "laws": [
        {
          "key": "lga479",
          "label": "Local Government Act, s. 479",
          "url": "https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/r15001_14#section479"
        },
        {
          "key": "lga490",
          "label": "Local Government Act, s. 490",
          "url": "https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/r15001_14#section490"
        },
        {
          "key": "cc8l",
          "label": "Community Charter, s. 8 (3) (l)",
          "url": "https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/03026_02#section8"
        }
      ],
      "last": null,
      "next": null
    }
  ],
  "main_decision_maker": "No government decides this directly",
  "label_1y": {
    "key": "same",
    "label": "About the same"
  },
  "label_long": null,
  "target_line": {
    "form": 7,
    "text": "No target expected",
    "target": null,
    "gap": null,
    "comparison": null,
    "applies_here": false,
    "note": "A market vacancy rate reported by a commercial real estate firm. No government sets a target for it."
  }
}