The primary cause of runaway housing costs are zero percent interest rates, but since the concept of net present value seems well beyond the grasp of policy makers, they’ve now decided that the best way to deal with this is to have higher levels of government override decision-making at lower levels. In other words, switch out responsibility for central planning. Another option would be for developers to decide for themselves what housing density is appropriate, but that would be too much like a free market in housing and we can’t have that.
The NDP bill eliminating single-family zoning, the Housing Statutes (Residential Development) Amendments Act, seizes zoning authority from municipalities and transfers it to the province.
Municipalities with a population higher than 5,000 will now have to zone in line with a provincial policy manual.
“The primary cause of runaway housing costs are zero percent interest rates,…”
BS.
Show me a zero-percent mortgage.
The cause is demand exceeding supply.
Stopping mass immigration and reducing regulatory burdens on builders will fix it.
Doing anything in our current politicians society would get me fined or imprisoned.
Sew a cut and be jailed for life by not being a qualified health provider by our government laws and regulations…considering I used to skin animals and sew any holes…
Being a contractor in building would take decades of school instruction as everything needs a license in every field you can imagine…
Even going outside to work, our politicians deem even more laws for health and safety as everything is registered or regulation even propane refill…
yep.
In Ontario, you need a ticket to climb a ladder.
Saw a propane guy refuse to change an outdoor tank because there was an outlet about 7 feet away from it. Shutting off the circuit breaker wasn’t good enough, I had to move the outlet and re-book.
No. Canada used to have much more immigration 100 years ago and no housing shortage because housing was legal. Calgary didn’t have a shortage of housing in the 2000s and tons of in-migration because building housing was easier (though still too constrained).
Yeah, adding a good-sized city worth of immigrants EVERY YEAR has no bearing on the supply/demand ratio, and therefore costs.
That you can mouth such absurdities without shame speaks volumes about the quality of your character.
It really doesn’t when you let people stuff, like Canada used to and will again.
Agreed! What the politicians fail to see is the actual answer to the housing issue is to get out of the way, be involved as little as possible from all levels of government, worked before and it’ll work again.
“The primary cause of runaway housing costs are zero percent interest rates”
No, and I used to believe it was so. Certainly excessively low interest rates have done a lot exacerbate the problem but the real issue is constrained supply due to laws and regulations imposed almost entirely by local governments. Japan has had crazy loose monetary policy for years but housing isn’t completely terrible because the housing policy is very centralized and pretty open so it gets built.
The BC NDP’s bill is excellent and constitutes a massive step forward for property rights and YIMBY. Localism has failed in housing and so many other contexts. Localism in housing just means small-scale cliques working together to ‘preserve neighborhood character’ ie crush freedom.
So herd everyone into dull, crummy and shabby apartment blocks because “freedom”.
You and Nicolae Ceausescu think alike.
You really pwnd that strawman.
“Only believe what the party tells you” -Unme on city life
IOW more central planning at a higher level of government. Yah, that’s the ticket. The same Jacobins that brought in the ALR which made growth of suburban development near impossible will now engineer the destruction of suburban neighborhoods limited only by infrastructure constraints. Central planning – once you buy in to it it never ends. The backlash from urban NIMBYs will be interesting given that this NDP is virtually in bed with or co-managed by ENGOs.
Unme is a closet commie who wants all rural dwellers herded into urban apartments.
Just like what Nicolae Ceasescu attempted back in the 1980s.
You forgot the part where it hates white people and longs for the white race to be gone. No point in engaging with subhuman filth.
Ending single-family restrictions on land use is the opposite of central planning. You are conceptually challenged.
No, ending “all” restrictions on land use is the opposite of central planning. Infrastructure and expectations are built in to single-family ownership. As a libertarian, I welcome private property rights unencumbered by the state not knee-jerk reflex in response to their own created distortions. And you are the sort of self-described faux libertarian who lives and likely works in leftist social circles and hides from them behind fake names IOW, an indisputable asshole.
“Infrastructure and expectations are built in to single-family ownership. ”
So? So what?
“As a libertarian, I welcome private property rights unencumbered by the state”
You are making it crystal clear that this is not the case.
>housing [in Japan] isn’t completely terrible
Yes, it is. I have multiple friends who live there and the quality and price of housing is absolutely abysmal. Stop bloviating about crap you know nothing about.
This article takes a while to get to the meat, but Japan’s centralized pro-housing policies deliver the goods: “A typical two-bedroom apartment in Tokyo has rented for under $1,000 a month for years, about half of what the same apartment cost in Seattle during the pandemic, when rents dropped for the first time in decades.”
https://www.sightline.org/2021/03/25/yes-other-countries-do-housing-better-case-1-japan/
I can’t find it, but there’s a graph of rent as a portion of income over time and Japan’s was very stable while everyone else’s was rising. This is pretty much the one thing Japan gets very very right.
Japan’s population has been in decline for years.
Try selling your open borders in Japan. Next example.
It is not just low interest financing.now past.
It is all the compliance costs.
All the bright and shiny Safety features required.
All the health and occupancy regulation.
All the tax on transport of goods.
All the systemic corruption in every capitol.
And it is also the ever dwindling Canadian Dollar.
Those imported materials have not increased in price at source anywhere near as much as our money has become ever more worthless.
And we import more stuff than ever,for we are forbid any home manufacturing.
Become a self employed person, enjoy the accelerating Cost of Compliance at every level..
Of course every one of these Entitled Time Thieves,insists you serve them first..
They insist you pay them before you have earned a dollar..
Engaging in productive work,to earn a buck?
Entirely beyond their imagination.
And after all their magnificent help?
The modern home is still as dangerous as ever.
The buyer must still beware.
Even more so as they must now see through the false assurances of these “helpers”.
Perfectly Safe and Effective.
They left out a big reason for high house building costs and slower building in Canada.
CMHC report: Government fees crippling housing construction
“The average government charge per square foot in Toronto area municipalities is $86, in Vancouver it’s $70 and in Montreal it’s $24.”
“The study added the number, complexity and uncertainty of government charges, particularly when they are subject to negotiation, may lengthen the development approval process and, in turn, the amount of time needed to bring new supply to market.
The study suggested municipalities must work on increasing certainty around the number, timing and magnitude of government fees.”
https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/news/economic/2022/07/cmhc-report-government-fees-crippling-housing-construction
Personally, I’m not fond of being constantly surrounded by crowded neighborhoods. Too much petty crime like porch pirates and vandalism. Too many road rage drivers. Too many Karen control freaks and do-gooders increasing bylaws and spending/property tax obligations. I don’t see the appeal of living in cities.
For people like me, the answer will be to move to smaller communities with bigger yards, house number limited developments in rural areas and small acreages. It’s not white-flight, it’s flight to areas with a better quality of life, less crime and room to breathe.
And when ruled by pro-crime authorities, urban areas degenerate into hellscapes rife with junkies, vagrants and criminals.
Just like San Franciscans who pay $5000 a month to live in a place that makes a Brazilian favela look like a nice little suburban neighborhood in comparison.
The bigger, denser the city is…the bigger the problems. I think many people are not psychologically built to live like bees in overcrowded hives and this partly explains the increase in depression, anxiety, road rage and mental illness, etc.
“The bigger, denser the city is…the bigger the problems. ”
Wrong. There’s just no correlation here. Houston and Dallas are fine, NYC’s crime is trending down. There are tons of rural places rife with dysfunction and crime particularly the Big White Ghetto of Appalachia.
Look we get it: you can’t handle being around too many other people so you want to live somewhere boring and then rationalize it with fairy tales about how every urban center is Mogadishu.
Yes, I’m very boring and live in a boring community. In fact, two of my favorite sayings are : that the intersection of boring and normal is a great place to raise and family, and that the benefits of living a boring life is severely underrated.
So you got me, Unme….No one will ever describe me as a drama queen. But, I’ve got to say, you don’t seem like a happy person. Maybe you need to add a little more boring into your life.
” In fact, one of my favorite sayings are : that the intersection of boring and normal is a great place to raise and family, and that the benefits of living a boring life is severely underrated. ”
Thanks, this makes me very grateful to not be you. This also makes clear why conservatives are so culturally irrelevant: they have nothing to offer and seriously believe that to be a virtue.
Since, I so highly value your opinion of me, Unme..I’m now very sad. OTOH, maybe I should feel sorry for you:
“Although the study by Gimbrone et al. was focused on trends among young people, the well-being gap between conservatives and liberals is not unique to youth. The gap manifests clearly across all age groups and is present as far back as the polling goes. ”
“In a similar vein, studies have repeatedly found that conservatives—both politicians and laymen—tend to be more conventionally attractive than liberals (and have better sex lives)”
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/03/how-to-understand-the-well-being-gap-between-liberals-and-conservatives/
Note: that’s my final response to you because the site owner doesn’t like the off topic chatter.
>Wrong. There’s just no correlation here.
“Those are absolutely not American tanks rolling into Baghdad behind me.”
UnMe, c. 2003
DR: you are welcome to deliver the goods as I have above. Once again, I don’t think you have them. People aren’t moving to cities because they are terrible.
@LC-Bennet: I am not a progressive/”liberal” in the modern sense so this doesn’t apply to me.
A lot of the so-called safety features do not work. Most are digital electric, so will fail when too much electric crap is plugged into failing electric infrastructure.
Developers are only interested in getting a crappy apt building up, with the same small floor-plan for all and selling it.
That should do wonders for the price of detached homes…for those of us not interested in living in a brezhnevka.
Affordable housing?.. It’s your right to live in a neighbourhood you cant afford ?.. Bla bla bla.. Community this and single mom that.. Besides, all the single family homes were scoped out 50 years ago.. Nobody wants safe injection sites or halfway houses.. Nobody wants affordable housing (single mom) criminals at the end of the street..
It’s my right to defend my investment from idiot politicians.. Or should we call it simply government because what they are doing will never be put to a vote..
“It’s my right to defend my investment from idiot politicians”
But it’s not your right to call in politicians to defend your investments from market forces.
Central Planning.
The natural refuge of fools and bandits.
Because they believe ,themselves to be smarter than everyone else,they never hesitate to impose their “wisdom” through force of government.
“Somebody should do something about it”.
We may as well start building the walls around our cities now,to keep the kleptocrazies inside.
Funny how after the fall of The Soviet Union, all their really stupid ideas,started being imposed here.
Guaranteed failure when the Never Done Nothings start dictating what shall be built.
To be clear there is nothing remotely ‘Soviet’ about the (excellent) decision to abolish single-family zoning laws which are literally central planning writ small-scale.
Yep, by demolishing small towns a d herding all the inhabitants into crummy apartment complexes in crowded, crime ridden cities.
Ceausescu would be very proud of you.
No one is proposing to demolish small towns. You idiot.
Crack Wisdom?
Or are you always so stupid?
The Provincial Government has stomped all over local zoning.
Stating that they know better than the residents of any community [over a certain size] what land use is proper.
State Central Planning .
Versus local land use decisions..
But you always side with our State of Thuggery,don’t you?
Because they provide your pay check?
Nothing Soviet?
Right.
You …
“State Central Planning .
Versus local land use decisions..”
These are the exact same thing, but only you are advocating for it. The NDP is getting rid of state central planning at the local scale and replacing it with freedom from local government.
Have a look at the Soviet-style housing being built in my home town of Lachine, Quebec. The factories in the east end of the city, which built Hawker Hurricanes during WWII, fabricated bridges and built turbines for hydro dams, have long since been shut down, and demolished. In their place, the politicians and central planners have built some of the grimmest looking new housing in Canada.
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.4383256,-73.6622587,3a,90y,86.9h,92.92t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sxNH0LtzfKmDBFceyySicwA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?authuser=0&entry=ttu
It’s what’s inside that counts.
Just try building something as simple as a deck and the problem will become apparent.
Ronald Reagan nailed it when he cited the 9 most feared words.