Population and Housing

[jeffster]

I'm curious, do you think it's possible to both advocate for 'housing as a right' and also strive to 'protect' housing as an investment tool?

And on a similar, but slightly different topic, when considering a new development, should the voice of nearby residents (within that same neighbourhood say) be 'worth' more, or the same, (or less) than other stakeholders or residents outside of the direct neighbourhood?

Those are really good questions!

I think it's yes to both. How you do it, though, is a different story. You almost always have to have 'housing as a right' in a very separate location to 'housing as an investment tool', unless, and this is important, that you limit 'housing as a right' in all areas. And what I mean by that; rather than have a few large complexes of low-income/geared to income, you need to have several smaller units, even individual, in all areas.

For example, the region would pay market rates to rent out 1 unit in say a small 9-unit apartment for affordable housing.

Speaking from experience, my parents bought a condo townhome in an area that had a lot of zero to low income housing. While our complex was fine, as everyone had a mortgage, paid condo fees and property taxes, the other side of the fence was a complete eyesore, looks ghetto, reeked, with a convoy of Brewer Retail trucks dropping off beer once a week (this was the 80's).

The second question is a hard one. Basically the question can be 'should NIMBY'ism be allowed?' because that's basically what it is. As it stands, they already have more of a voice. Clearly places like Waterloo have a very strong neighbourhood voice based on the housing situation in that city. But what really needs to happen is for the region to get this type of housing done on the down-low. Get it to fly under the radar. If a developer wants to build a 30 unit apartment or condo, waive fee's to allow the region to purchase or rent a certain percentage of unit (like 10-15%). In this case, they'd get 3-5 units out of 30, and it'll fly under the radar.