Victoria and Park | 25, 36, 38 fl | Proposed

[cherrypark]

This is my favourite quote:


So this lady understands we need more affordable housing and therefore she opposes...more supply of housing.

Meanwhile, the developer "will commit to 50 affordable housing units (ownership at $368,000) as well as a financial contribution to an affordable housing provider to build units elsewhere in Kitchener." 

So if she has her way, there will be 1000+ fewer units of housing supply, including no affordable units, and no donation to an affordable housing provider in Kitchener. I would love to hear her try to explain exactly how that specific outcome helps contribute to resolving the need for more affordable housing. And since it obviously doesn't, I'd actually be even more interested to hear what her true complaint is and then have a discussion about why that should outweigh building as many housing units as possible on this piece of property. It'd be fascinating to know if, once you boiled it down to whatever is truly bothering her, she would come out and say, "Yes, I understand this helps address the issue of affordable housing in Kitchener, but I believe an extra hour of shadow per day on my house (or insert whatever harm she is worried about) is not worth that." I'd have so much more respect for these people if they just said that and then we could have an honest discussion about individual vs. collective rights and what the correct balance is.

How do these units work?  So ownership at $368k, and then once someone owns them are they worth market value and can be sold as such?  Or are they tabbed as "affordible" units long term

To my understanding (and per Councillor Chapman) if they are ownership condos there is nothing that blocks them from being resold. In my view, its just a waste of developer bottom line to even include those. Either they need to be part of a rental section of the development (noted as possible in the Urban Design Brief) and rent controlled permanently, or they would be better off just donating the discount value along with a larger additional excess FSR charge to the city to use developing truly need-based housing on public lands (or through some non-profit). I really don't understand why this model isn't the standard for non-rental developments.