King-Victoria Transit Hub

[danbrotherston]

Availability of land, due to restrictive zoning policies, is generally recognized as the single biggest factor.

We can't do without zoning altogether but what we have now really constrains the construction of new housing, and thus drives up the prices.

The tricky bit is that the aspect of zoning which says one can’t arbitrarily turn a farm into a suburb is not the problem; the problem is that one can’t take a suburban area and build something urban in it, or an urban area and build something a bit more urban in it.

To be honest, zoning is only one part of it. There zoning which says you cannot turn a farm into a suburb, and that poses nearly zero obstacle to doing so (our countryside line might provide slightly more of an obstacle, but I'll believe it when I see it).

But zoning which prevents anything from changing where people live, now that is sacrosanct.  As usual the real experience of 'law' is some combination of what is written, and what people in all different roles actually do.