Housing shortfall, costs and affordability

[bravado]

Here are Cllr Chapmans comments against the development at Highland and Spadina, she was the sole vote against it.

https://www.youtube.com/live/qLN01XR3JWY...are&t=7372

Honestly, it's so tiring...the idea that there shouldn't be a building overlooking a park and playground is fundamentally ignorant, insular, and distrustful of people.

I *WANT* buildings overlooking parks where my little one plays because I WANT eyes on, I want foot traffic. Not because I worry about some nefarious behaviour, but because the most likely thing to happen is bullying or an injury, both of which are improved by eyes on. And this is borne out by the data.

Exactly this. Jane Jacobs' 'eyes on the street' has been a well understood concept for half a century now, let's get with it.

Not when the suburban mind has warped your brain and now you view everyone with suspicion and try to craft our bylaws with your own misanthropy.

[nms]

This Australian article says that using the term "NIMBY" as an insult is misguided and that "The real reason for the housing affordability crisis is the “NIMPS” — “Not into my profits”. These are the property developers and multiple property-owning landlords and politicians who won't allow a cent to be spent on public housing and quality public infrastructure, lest it eat into their profits and generous tax breaks."

I don't think that's as much the case here. I don't see a pushback on Kitchener Housing or similar organizations, but then their presence (and housing portfolio) is also only a fraction of what it might be in a similar-sized city in Europe or the UK. (The one part that might apply is the general fear by local politicians of property tax increases in general.)

I don't know whether the (voting) public here would have an appetite for building public housing on a significant scale. So far, I don't see anyone even proposing that.

We definitely see the "Not Into My Profits" here. If developers were more interested in the public good than their profits our cities would be better places (which I realize would be counter the capitalist approach of "make as much money as you can, and then move on"). For instance:
1. An automatic acceptance that every development over a certain size must include an affordable housing component, possibly managed either as a co-op within the larger building, or by a government agency.
2. An acceptance that mew housing stock needs to include a variety of units to allows a variety of groupings (eg singles, new families, large families, multiple generation families) and ownership options (eg freehold, rental, condo, co-op)
3. An acceptance that eating into the public realm is not good (eg no setbacks or lack ground floor green space on the property)
4. An acceptance that development fees are necessary to support civic infrastructure for new residents (eg libraries, parks, streetscapes)

[Acitta]

There have been observations on WRC about the slowness of construction of some of the projects in the region. Perhaps this is one of the reasons.
Construction labour crunch leaves Canada in need of boosting ranks of home builders

[nms]

10,000 homes in 7 years is goal of Waterloo region collaboration between Habitat for Humanity, developers

A new initiative called Build Now: Waterloo Region aims to build 10,000 affordable and "attainable" homes in the community by 2030.

It was launched Thursday at Cambridge city hall by Habitat for Humanity Waterloo region in collaboration with local developers and community partners. It will see the groups work together to build 7,000 homes for purchase and 3,000 to rent.

None of the new homes will be available to be sold as investment properties and all will go to people who need a place to live, Habitat for Humanity CEO Philip Mills said.

"We're looking to build missing middle homes around four to six storeys in height," Mills said during the press conference Thursday.

[panamaniac]

I saw this, but was left wondering who would donate the land and, more importantly, why would homebuilders set aside their profit making activities to engage in at-cost construction (I assume they are too busy to do both)?  I hope it's real, but colour me sceptical, for now.

Edit:  First question answered in today's Record - land to be donated or sold for nominal cost by the various levels of government. 

Several developers are reportedly on board with this, but I'll wait and see.

[tomh009]

Several developers are reportedly on board with this, but I'll wait and see.

The online article lists HIP, Maxwell, Polocorp, Vive, Momentum and Activa as participating developers.

[nms]

Given the money all six of those have made in this community, for better or for worse, it's nice to see them finding the time to think about those further down the income scale.

[Acitta]

Maybe this is why some projects in the region take so long to build.

Canada Lost 45K Construction Jobs In July — And Yes, That Spells Grim Things For Housing

[nms]

So recruitment and training seem to be one of the challenges. If a trades apprentice needs some place to apprentice, but no company will invest the time in training them, they are stuck (insert variety of reasons this here). I can imagine too, that another challenge could be that if construction workers cannot afford to live in the communities that they are expected to work in, that they may find something else to do (or leave). Similarly, as the article pointed out, as the baby boom generation crests in the retirement age, there wasn't enough planning 20 years ago, to make sure that there were enough trades available to fill their boots when they retired (ditto a lot of other trades and professions from nurses to teachers to family doctors...)

[ac3r]

This video is making rounds. It's taken outside of St. Louis Adult Learning Centre downtown...hundreds of Indian students lining up desperately to try and get a job at McDonalds. No wonder houses are hard to come by!

https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaHousing2/...ne_up_for/

Edit: Avoid the comment section though...the sub is one of those weird delusional right wing echo chambers.

[tomh009]

This video is making rounds. It's taken outside of St. Louis Adult Learning Centre downtown...hundreds of Indian students lining up desperately to try and get a job at McDonalds. No wonder houses are hard to come by!

https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaHousing2/...ne_up_for/

This less cause and more effect of high housing costs: students from lower-income countries pay high tuition fees and then need to deal with rising housing costs, so they look for additional income, from McDonalds or elsewhere.

[dtkvictim]

This video is making rounds. It's taken outside of St. Louis Adult Learning Centre downtown...hundreds of Indian students lining up desperately to try and get a job at McDonalds. No wonder houses are hard to come by!

https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaHousing2/...ne_up_for/

This less cause and more effect of high housing costs: students from lower-income countries pay high tuition fees and then need to deal with rising housing costs, so they look for additional income, from McDonalds or elsewhere.

Ac3r's post is a bit of a non-sequitur, but the presence of international students (and well, people generally) directly affects housing prices. People need places to live, and with our current population growth rate that demand for housing is growing faster than our housing stock, simple as.

Not to mention, international students are supposed to prove they can support themselves before being allowed to come here. We used to limit the amount they could work with the stated reason of not negatively impacting the balance of existing labour market, though those rules been thrown out, at least temporarily.

It's hard for struggling (especially younger) Canadians to see the current developments as anything other than wage suppression and throwing fuel on the housing crisis.

[panamaniac]

This video is making rounds. It's taken outside of St. Louis Adult Learning Centre downtown...hundreds of Indian students lining up desperately to try and get a job at McDonalds. No wonder houses are hard to come by!

https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaHousing2/...ne_up_for/

This less cause and more effect of high housing costs: students from lower-income countries pay high tuition fees and then need to deal with rising housing costs, so they look for additional income, from McDonalds or elsewhere.

The government has basically turned them into TFWs.

[tomh009]

This less cause and more effect of high housing costs: students from lower-income countries pay high tuition fees and then need to deal with rising housing costs, so they look for additional income, from McDonalds or elsewhere.

The government has basically turned them into TFWs.

Only on a temporary part-time basis. Permanent work at McDonalds will not get you PR status, technical work at a software company will.

[ac3r]

If that's a non-sequitur you...um...what, even? Lol.

These unfortunate people were conned by people back in India, conned by John Tibbits and conned by Canada. Conestoga College is a bullshit PR mill on par with those who used to sell "degrees" like pharmaceutical assistant during daytime TV commercial breaks for Jerry Springer. 2022 saw 1 million immigrants dumped into Canada, the largest number seen in over half a century. We are importing so many people yet not ensuring anything else keeps up to support them, not that it should because those numbers are god damn absurd. 1 million people in 12 months.

It's god damn modern day slavery. The neoliberal Liberal and NDP coalition is desperate to import warm bodies they can make work the shittiest jobs because none of us want to anymore since the pay sucks. And they're desperate enough that even though they are coming from middle class Indian society, coming here to line up hours in a line to put french fries into a cardboard sachet to max level rank up your PR hours is superior than whatever goes on back in New Delhi.

And it fucks us the most, at the end of the day. As an Indigenous person I've seen this entire continent genocided, colonized and then basically raped for a couple centuries by modern day capitalists. Now they're doing it on a scale that is equal to industrial livestock farming. Reel them in with promises, use them and then make everyone live life like a battle royale deathmatch competing for whatever scraps are thrown our way. This is not in any shape or form sustainable. People whine about housing costs, how transit sucks, how we are eating up green space etc. Well that tends to happen when you let in hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people a year and you keep voting for the same brain dead morons who perpetuate it.

Or just think about it this way: when is the last time you've seen hundreds of people camping in tents in public parks or wrapped around the block downtown Kitchener to flip burgers? Absolutely never. Something has changed, then, right?