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.

[bravado]

I didn't expect this project to be continuing with the capital crunch, but here's some news:
https://www.cambridgetoday.ca/local-news...ty-8636600

Under the banner Cambridge Development Inc., the company recently submitted a minor variance application to the city to increase the height of the hotel and residence by 1.2m and .8m respectively to allow for the rooftop mechanical equipment.

The variance, coming to the city's committee of adjustment next month, will allow the company to construct a penthouse on each tower.

In an email, project planner Mackenzie Meek said the company is still working through approval processes and does not expect to break ground this summer.

[Kodra24]

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.

Maybe a bit off-topic but this comment got me thinking in regards to affordable housing - is that something that is feasible? As in, would the wealthy or upper middle class want to live in a building where a fairly high proportion of units is designated as affordable housing? Given the choice, would they choose that particular building or one that does not have affordable housing? Just putting myself in the developer's shoes, and again I'm just thinking out loud and could be 100% wrong here, but how would I market a building that has a mix of units like that...in any case this is a great discussion to have

[bravado]

I think there’s plenty of stories from cities like London where the rich residents get the main entrance and the legally-mandated affordable units get a separate, much sadder entrance around the corner.

Old link: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014...ndon-flats

[tomh009]

Maybe a bit off-topic but this comment got me thinking in regards to affordable housing - is that something that is feasible? As in, would the wealthy or upper middle class want to live in a building where a fairly high proportion of units is designated as affordable housing? Given the choice, would they choose that particular building or one that does not have affordable housing? Just putting myself in the developer's shoes, and again I'm just thinking out loud and could be 100% wrong here, but how would I market a building that has a mix of units like that...in any case this is a great discussion to have

Integration or segregation, that is the question, isn't it? If not the same building, do you want "those people" even in your neighbourhood? Maybe should even put up some fences so that they don't go where they don't belong? Or at least signs that say "No poor people allowed in this store"?

Seriously, this has not been a huge problem in Canada, at least for now. We have well-off people living cheek-by-jowl with lower-income people where houses have been renovated. Many condo buildings have 3:1 price ratios or higher between the largest and smallest units. And "gated communities" are rare here, unlike south of the border. I reallt don't think a developer would need to (or want to) do any special marketing even if there are affordable units in the building.

[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.

Maybe a bit off-topic but this comment got me thinking in regards to affordable housing - is that something that is feasible? As in, would the wealthy or upper middle class want to live in a building where a fairly high proportion of units is designated as affordable housing? Given the choice, would they choose that particular building or one that does not have affordable housing? Just putting myself in the developer's shoes, and again I'm just thinking out loud and could be 100% wrong here, but how would I market a building that has a mix of units like that...in any case this is a great discussion to have

Paris, France has come up with a plan, called mixité sociale, residents from a broad cross-section of society and do avoid economic segregation (NY Times article, May 19, 2024).  The current goal is to create 30 percent public housing for low-income residents and 10 percent for middle-income residents by 2035. Currently, 25 per cent of all Paris residents live in public housing.

Often when affordable vs market housing is debated, it's assumed that "affordable" means the very, very low end of the economic scale that may or may not be living on government assistance, and "market" means someone super-rich.  This framing ignores probably 95% of our society. The reality is that "affordable", as defined by the Ontario Ministry of Housing (2023) is anyone who spends no more than 30 per cent of household income on annual accommodation costs (rent or mortgage or whatever). The average price of house in Waterloo Region hovers around $800,000. To keep the mortgage within 30 per cent of the household income, the average household income would need to be somewhere around $150,000 and monthly payments of $4000-$4500.   The CMHC reports that 2023 2-bedroom rents in Waterloo Region averaged $1600 in 2023 (likely a conservative figure), which would require a minimum household income of $64,000.  

What kind of full-time job (2000 hrs/year) fits in the neighbourhood of a $64,000 salary? A quick look at the Federal government job bank (which is not limited to federal government jobs) includes the following job postings on April 23, 2024:

• Art Director
  
• Bricklayer
  
• Conveyor belt splicer
  
• Dental hygienist
  
• Electrician
  
• Family physician
  
• Financial officer
  
• Millwright
  
• Restaurant Manager
  
• Store Manager
  
• Painter
  
• Physiotherapist
  
• Salon manager
  
• Software developer
  
• Speech-language pathologist
  
• Truck technician
  
• Etc etc
  

The current housing market has encouraged properties to sell for too much which in turn encourages developers to squeeze every last penny out of the units that they wish to build on that property.  How would the market change if instead government (municipal, regional, provincial, or federal) were to buy up properties that are either vacant, or neglected and build housing on them (as happens in Paris and elsewhere)? Suddenly, developers would not be encouraged to buy property and sit on it, waiting for the market allow them to build what they want to build rather than what the community needs.

(mods: feel free to bump this to a new thread to avoid sidelining this one)