Cambridge Mill Hotel | 38 & 24 fl | Proposed

[bravado]

What's the typical cost to build affordable units? I doubt that anyone could build much of anything for $506,000 (253 units x 2000).  I would be much happier if each new development (and any major renovations to existing ones) were to provide 20% affordable housing units.  Or, perhaps suggest that any request of density increases (adding more floors than zoning allows etc) would require a proportionate addition of affordable units in those buildings. You want to go up 10 more floors than the 10 that are zoned for there? Fine, but half of those floors must be affordable units. You don't want to add affordable housing to your project, fine, stick to the zoning.

Keep this up until there is no more housing crisis in the Region.

I don’t think that making housing even more expensive for everyone by increasing costs is the best way to get people on board with affordable housing as a political issue.

We just need to make more housing everywhere because city budgets can’t afford the $300k+ needed per unit of modern affordable housing.

[ac3r]

What's the typical cost to build affordable units? I doubt that anyone could build much of anything for $506,000 (253 units x 2000).  I would be much happier if each new development (and any major renovations to existing ones) were to provide 20% affordable housing units.  Or, perhaps suggest that any request of density increases (adding more floors than zoning allows etc) would require a proportionate addition of affordable units in those buildings. You want to go up 10 more floors than the 10 that are zoned for there? Fine, but half of those floors must be affordable units. You don't want to add affordable housing to your project, fine, stick to the zoning.

Keep this up until there is no more housing crisis in the Region.

I don't think the onus should really be on developers to provide affordable housing in what be would otherwise be non-affordable developments. The lack of affordable housing is primarily an economic and thus political issue. Forcing developers to include a minimum amount of affordable units may hurt housing even more if it makes developers - who are driven by financial motivations - feel like they'd be losing money if there's a mandate to include affordable units.

The government needs to find a way to tackle this economically while also incentivizing developers to build larger scale affordable projects (not just a few sprinkles in luxury condo or apartment towers), which some do indeed do. Ultimately, people aren't making enough money in their lines of work to afford to have a home and that's something that isn't up to developers to solve on their own. Wages need to go up, employees need better protections, unionization needs increase, housing costs need to come down across the board etc. It's a huge issue that will need a multi-pronged approach to solve in the long term.

[ijmorlan]

Ultimately, the cost of constructing housing needs to come down. The inability to build new housing gives existing property owners economic rents (not the same thing as “rent”, although not entirely unrelated). This is the same as any other market where it is difficult or impossible for new entrants to break into the market: existing sellers can sell for high prices.

To me, this means our regulations have to be re-targeted to stop micro-managing how development works and instead concentrate on true matters of public interest: building safety, nuisance control, and provision of public goods such as parks. Stop worrying about whether somebody is building a duplex, triplex, or townhouse.

[cherrypark]

What's the typical cost to build affordable units? I doubt that anyone could build much of anything for $506,000 (253 units x 2000).  I would be much happier if each new development (and any major renovations to existing ones) were to provide 20% affordable housing units.  Or, perhaps suggest that any request of density increases (adding more floors than zoning allows etc) would require a proportionate addition of affordable units in those buildings. You want to go up 10 more floors than the 10 that are zoned for there? Fine, but half of those floors must be affordable units. You don't want to add affordable housing to your project, fine, stick to the zoning.

Keep this up until there is no more housing crisis in the Region.

I think focusing your criticism on the amount collected would net more impact than having asked for these units within the development itself. Not to say that affordable units need to be sequestered away but more can be done to build many units when they aren't in a luxury building where below market rate is still a big ticket.

Seems the bigger question as ac3r said, is how to collect and incentivize quality low-cost rentals to be built in accessible parts of the city.

[nms]

One could argue that asking for any number of nuisance additions to a development could cut into a developer's profits. Fire safety systems for one. When was the last time a high density building actually burnt to the ground? So obviously those are just useless. And elevators, very expensive. Why should buildings have more than one? That just cuts into profits. And mail rooms? Why not force Canada Post to put community boxes out front instead? You could squeeze another unit in the mail room space.

If a building is to become a complete community, then I think that there is definitely grounds to encourage affordable housing within buildings.

This particular development is creating 253 units and barely providing enough funding for 1.5 units of affordable housing. The Region's current waiting list for affordable housing is somewhere between 5000 and 6000 units. At this rate, we will need 4000 new buildings built to collect enough affordable housing funds to support new affordable housing in Waterloo Region. While the development pace is quick in town, I doubt we're going to get there any time soon. I am also not convinced that building 4000 new buildings, skewed heavily towards luxury, single bedroom units is going to solve the housing problem either.

[tomh009]

$2000 per unit is a pretty pitiful contribution. I doubt bumping that to $5000 per unit would lose them any sales. And $10K (about 2% of the total) would look much reasonable.

[bravado]

$2000 per unit is a pretty pitiful contribution. I doubt bumping that to $5000 per unit would lose them any sales. And $10K (about 2% of the total) would look much reasonable.

Even $5000 per unit x 253 is $1,265,000, which is about 3.5 2 bedroom units of affordable housing at the latest rates...

It's simply too expensive for taxes or fees from developers to build affordable housing. We need to incentivize developers to build it on their own (example: allowing medium density projects *everywhere*) because everything else is lipstick on a pig...

[bravado]

https://www.cambridgetoday.ca/local-news...on-6631928

Cambridge Mill towers developer asks city to bump its brownfield cleanup grant to $4.8 million
Site was once home to Galt Gas Works, a company that extracted coal oil from coal

Sometimes cleanup costs really blow my mind - how was this not known before starting this process?

Either way, damn it's expensive to build anything nice.

[nms]

Probably for the same reason anyone else is given when they try to book a construction or renovation job these days: labour shortage, supply chain & inflation.

It's also possible the further site investigation found more of an underground plume than anticipated, or Ministry of Environment changed based on what was found in the ground, or the off-site processor who would clean the soil raised their prices.

[bravado]

Just a little info nugget hidden inside another article. The Region will start road reconstruction in downtown Galt in order to accommodate this project, which is "starting soon". My hopes continue to be quite low until I see a real shovel on site..

https://www.cambridgetoday.ca/local-news...er-7207899

The region is removing seven parking spaces on Water Street North and changing the one-way between Simcoe and Ainslie streets to two-way traffic.

Pearle Hospitality is expected to begin construction soon on the 253 unit condominium tower and 146-unit hotel tower, which will be connected by a two-storey podium with underground parking.