Population and Housing

[bravado]

I have to add that this report seems to be deliberately misleading. “Approved” is a word that means something very different to planners vs regular citizens and seems to push blame on to lazy selfish developers that doesn’t seem fully appropriate.

Twitter thread with some great informed replies:
https://twitter.com/alexbozikovic/status...7908933632

[tomh009]

The report was released by the Regional Planning Commissioners of Ontario, but I can not find any reference to them elsewhere online, nor a copy of the report. I would be interested to see if the report chose Waterloo Region as one of the 15 municipalities studied and also whether the approved, yet unbuilt, units cover the full range of housing needs, or more narrower bands of the market (eg single-bedroom units).  If the former, getting these units build would be a good thing.  If the latter, it could simply perpetuate the problem of not creating housing to match the full range needed in Canada (eg multi-bedroom units regardless of building type that are suitable for families; or affordable units; or rental units)

"The Regional Planning Commissioners of Ontario (RPCO) represents the planning directors, commissioners and other senior planning officials of municipal governments across Ontario.

Its current membership includes the Cities of Chatham-Kent, Guelph, Greater Sudbury, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Ottawa, Thunder Bay and Windsor; the Regional Municipalities of Durham, Halton, Niagara, Peel, Waterloo, and York; Counties of Simcoe and Haldimand; and the District Municipality of Muskoka."

https://www.wellesleyinstitute.com/housi...y-housing/

[ac3r]

On March 29th, the City of Kitchener is holding a meeting regarding "More Homes for Everyone Act, 2022, Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022, and Bill 13, Supporting People and Businesses Act, 2021".

[ZEBuilder]

Ford was in the Region on Tuesday talking at Catalyst 137 and his talk was wide range but had some interesting comments about the housing crisis.

Ford Calls for Collaboration to Solve Housing Crisis

One of his comments is the following, "'If we can flood the market and have the supply to make sure the people have an attainable home or affordable or non-profit, then the costs are going to at least level off, or maybe dip a little bit,' said Ford."

It seems as if he is lacking the basic understanding that developers do not ever want to flood the market since it cuts into their profits. Between Vive, Zehr, Dov Capital, Polocorp, IN8 and Vanmar there are over 11000 units proposed, of them only 3600 are fully approved for construction (have OPA/ZBA, Site plan approval) of those 3600 there is only 1500 that have any sign of construction activities (Station Park T3 and 3241 King St E). So it seems to be that if he wants to flood the market he needs to incentivize developers to do so since there is 2000 units that are just sitting there completely approved with no action.

[danbrotherston]

It would be nice if the journalist talked at all about what housing advocates say about the issues. Like how additional sprawl won't solve the housing crisis, and it will only continue to do unsustainable economically disastrous construction.

They could even have touched on how the biggest obstacle is zoning...but alas, I'll settle for the completely un-highlighted but at least present in the article disconnect between "we need collaboration" and "Ford unilaterally overrode cities".

[ac3r]

One of his comments is the following, "'If we can flood the market and have the supply to make sure the people have an attainable home or affordable or non-profit, then the costs are going to at least level off, or maybe dip a little bit,' said Ford."

When you elect a college dropout to lead you to glory, it sure as heck shows...

[bravado]

Technically, supply and demand is the right answer…

But you know that Doug only wants his friends to build and sell that supply 🙄

[tomh009]

Between Vive, Zehr, Dov Capital, Polocorp, IN8 and Vanmar there are over 11000 units proposed, of them only 3600 are fully approved for construction (have OPA/ZBA, Site plan approval) of those 3600 there is only 1500 that have any sign of construction activities (Station Park T3 and 3241 King St E).

Vive has ongoing construction at Margaret/Victoria (and wrapping up at Borden/East Ave, Woodside and Ophelia), and they are excavating at King/Borden. That's five active projects for a relatively small player.

[bravado]

I thought I'd share some data from a real Ontario housing policy expert (twitter: https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt) about Ontario municipalities and their cumulative and May monthly housing starts + completions. There's some shocking data from the usual suspects (Mississauga, Guelph) and some mediocre data from us.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/...5949954048


https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/...8974437377


There's a bunch more data in the twitter thread, but I don't want to spam anybody.

[Acitta]

Canada Has a Chance To Turn Tariff Tensions Into a Global Affordable Housing Alliance

[tomh009]

Canada Has a Chance To Turn Tariff Tensions Into a Global Affordable Housing Alliance

A good article! I hope some people (who have Liberal MPs) will push their representatives on this.

[Kodra24]

Why don't municipalities simply lower development charges seeing as Toronto DC's have risen 900% since 2010? Easy way to spur development and add housing stock

[neonjoe]

Why don't municipalities simply lower development charges seeing as Toronto DC's have risen 900% since 2010? Easy way to spur development and add housing stock

Existing property owners would be up in arms! Development charges are a Ponzi scheme keeping property taxes low for existing home owners. The current rate of property taxes would not cover the costs to provide roads, water and sewer infrastructure to the new developments. They currently cannot fund maintenance and rehabilitation of the existing infrastructure.

[creative]

So I want to buy a new house but I don’t want to pay for all of the infrastructure to support that new home. People that already own a home and have paid for the infrastructure to support that new home should now also pay for the infrastructure to support my new home. Maybe the foundation and roof should also be paid for by existing home owners. While we are at it why not have existing home owners pay for the entire house. Just because the value of houses have gone up significantly over time does not mean that homeowners income has gone up equally. Many seniors are house rich but income poor.

[dtkvictim]

So I want to buy a new house but I don’t want to pay for all of the infrastructure to support that new home. People that already own a home and have paid for the infrastructure to support that new home should now also pay for the infrastructure to support my new home. Maybe the foundation and roof should also be paid for by existing home owners. While we are at it why not have existing home owners pay for the entire house. Just because the value of houses have gone up significantly over time does not mean that homeowners income has gone up equally. Many seniors are house rich but income poor.

Has anyone said that, or are you just doing some creative writing? There is no such thing as existing homeowners having already paid their share of infrastructure costs because of this thing called maintenance. If development charges have increased 900% as claimed earlier (and new infrastructure costs haven't risen by that much) then either the existing homeowners significantly underpaid or new homeowners are significantly overpaying. 

I get that people would prefer to put their head in the sand regarding the reality that inflation affects what property tax dollars can afford, but doing so pushes the burden of that shortfall onto people even less well off than your "house rich but income poor" seniors.