Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
Metro Halifax has 430,000 people. Not all of them can live on the peninsula. If you sprinkle special affordable housing into each building, you have to pick winners and losers and you give up a lot of the flexibility that is so great about markets. It's also inherently inefficient to mix housing types in these buildings. You'd get more affordable housing by taking the money that would have gone into a couple units on Robie Street and building some houses in Sackville, or better yet giving people money or vouchers for housing. The biggest threat to affordable housing in all of this is NIMBYs and politicians blocking new supply. If they do that it doesn't matter if there is special purpose-built affordable housing; there will still be shortages.
But the rules include a process for getting variances and development agreements. Everything is being done according to the planning process in place.
The most common scenario is:
Municipal planning strategy - "to build something over 40 feet tall you need to get a development agreement"
Developer - "I want to build a 100 foot building, so I will apply for a development agreement"
NIMBYs - "Look! They're breaking the rules! The MPS has a 40 foot height limit!"
Journalist - "Proposal doesn’t fit the current rules"
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Fair enough. Thanks for reading through my points and formulating thoughtful replies.
For me, it was a good discussion.