An unintended consequence of intensification and LRT/subway construction: Mississauga council fears poor people will be pushed away from LRT route
That this quote comes from Carolyn Parrish aside, perhaps she has a valid point.
I saw this in Toronto with the Sheppard subway. Sheppard Ave E from Yonge St to Don Mills Rd used to be mostly strip malls with some post-war veteran housing and a few rental towers. Now a decade later it's lined, almost wall to wall, with highrise condo towers. Moreover existing housing north of Sheppard, e.g. in Bayview Village has more than doubled in price during that decade. Now you can't buy a detached house there for much less than $1.5M.
The same is happening along our LRT route. What obligation, if any, does city hall have to ensure a mix of housing types and affordabilities ? Should they "encourage" developers to include some more modest, lower cost accommodation options among their grandiose luxury offerings? What are Kitchener and Waterloo doing in this regard? What else should they be doing?
Quote:Mississauga councillors want to make sure a new $1.3-billion LRT along the city’s spine won’t create an exclusive, high-rent corridor that’s out of reach for residents who need affordable housing options and accessible transit. “LRTs displace all the poor people,” Councillor Carolyn Parrish said at Wednesday’s general committee meeting. She told staff she wants a plan to guarantee that the LRT corridor, with developers lining up to build where property values are sure to skyrocket, won’t squeeze out those who rely on public transit the most. “I want a fulsome report on how we look at the concentration of affordable housing in this strip.”
That this quote comes from Carolyn Parrish aside, perhaps she has a valid point.
I saw this in Toronto with the Sheppard subway. Sheppard Ave E from Yonge St to Don Mills Rd used to be mostly strip malls with some post-war veteran housing and a few rental towers. Now a decade later it's lined, almost wall to wall, with highrise condo towers. Moreover existing housing north of Sheppard, e.g. in Bayview Village has more than doubled in price during that decade. Now you can't buy a detached house there for much less than $1.5M.
The same is happening along our LRT route. What obligation, if any, does city hall have to ensure a mix of housing types and affordabilities ? Should they "encourage" developers to include some more modest, lower cost accommodation options among their grandiose luxury offerings? What are Kitchener and Waterloo doing in this regard? What else should they be doing?