Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRitsman
Agreed. To Chronomut's point, the entire point of affordable housing is supposed to be to bring affordable options and put downward pressure on nearby housing. It's questionable whether it has the latter effect though as the cost is usually paid by new owners and renters so it may cancel out, but there really haven't been studies into the economic effects of affordable housing units.
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Yes - though I do understand why Hamilton went with a higher standard. The deeper the discount the greater the subsidies required, and the City has pretty limited tool to encourage affordable housing so they set a low bar to meet to ensure developers would still actually try.
There are a lot more incentives out there now from both the province and Feds, so I think lowering the standard makes sense.
The idea behind affordable units isn’t to lower market rents around it (that won’t happen) but rather to provide housing options for vulnerable and low income households which otherwise struggle to participate in the housing market. It’s a system which will always be fairly niche and isn’t the only way out of the housing crisis, but plays an important part of the housing continuum.