You can build as many houses as you want but until you restrict investment firms and landlords buying all of them you won’t put a dent in the problem.
Then you should talk to your provincial government as the federal one has no power over that.
They couldn’t implement a tax to help make it less lucrative? I honestly don’t know, but it does seem like something they could do.
Taxes are an issue for people that aren’t already rich enough to not care and the people actually hoarding residences and leaving them empty are in that category.
It seems like a lot of people have a very hard time understanding the governments division of powers and I think it’s a very big problem because it gives the provinces a free pass for many things as people blame the federal government without realising that they don’t have the means to solve these issues…
Cities aren’t even political entities from a constitutional perspective, they’re fully dependent of the provincial governments and are called their pets, so guess who could force them to increase density? Not Trudeau!
I really wish those politicians would address the issue of unoccupied housing as well. I feel like saying that the solution is to build more housing is to play in the pockets of investors while pushing for less unoccupied residencies is going against it and why I believe it is not talked as much on the political front.
I wrote this for a US bill that they’re trying to pass, but it might apply in Canada?
Corporation Plan
- Step 1, US has a financial meltdown
- Step 2, corporations buy up all of the housing at cheap prices, price fix the rentals and use a shit ton of them for airBNBs
- Step 3, not worry about the empty units or homes because price fixing and airBNBs will fix that
- Step 4, develop a crowdfunding site so “investors” can get in on the renting/price fixing game
- Step 5, complain that there isn’t enough housing to get the zoning changed, so they can build “luxury” apartments where they continue to price fix or rent out to tourists/business people because they’re ToTALLy NoT A hoTEl!
- Step 6, profit, profit, profit
Common Person Plan
- Step 1, look to buy a home but there’s not enough supply so the prices go up
- Step 2, try to save but their rent keeps getting raised because it’s being price fixed and there is a lack of supply (sometimes real because of the tourists)
- Step 3, continue to rent while nervously waiting to try and build up a deposit and there’s less and less supply
- Step 4, rent, rent, rent further away from the city core
Don’t forget the mortgage rates are sky high so even people with 20% can’t really afford to buy. Corporations buy for cash.
My one hope is that the meltdown is tied to commercial real estate, which will hopefully avoid this whole thing.
It’s exciting to see that the government could cut up to a year of development time with these blueprints. I’m curious what they’ll come up with that reflects the best of what modern BIM, digital twin, offsite manufacturing, CLT, and modular construction technologies can do.
Hopefully there will be a variety of to choose from for different kinds of environments and tastes. Personally I’d like to see some 6 storey apartments complexes, designed to accommodate car free lifestyles.
This is still only one piece of the puzzle though. To restore affordability it would make sense to prioritize building and converting more existing stock to non-market housing so there’s competitive pressure on the remaining/existing landlords to keep rent low.
Vienna has done a wonderful job to show the world what’s possible after a century of continuous improvements with non market housing.
Truly feels like a “we’ve tried nothing, and we’re out of ideas!” situation, it’s almost comical.
It seems like these are blueprints for single family homes, so we’ll be stuck with car-based city designs that aren’t helping us solve the housing crisis in the first place…
Mike Moffatt, senior director of policy and innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute, proposed this idea directly to the federal cabinet during meetings in Charlottetown, and believes it could cut as much as 12 months off construction times.
That’s awesome!
I thought part of the deal was that municipalities would have to buy into the plans, which I didn’t see mentioned in the article.
