Meanwhile, readers of the Herald were blessed today with a long missive from Kommissar Howard Epstein about the decline of single-family homes on the peninsula:
https://www.saltwire.com/halifax/opinion...er-occupied-houses-in-halifax-100790414/
Of course he uses that to decry the development of DT Halifax et al along with general grousing about things in general. There are so many Howie gems in this that is hard to extract any single part to post here to give you a taste of the column. But this sort of jumps out:
Quote:
The overbuilding of offices and the overbuilding of apartment buildings are of a different sort.
With overbuilt offices, there are vacancies, declines in value of the underutilized buildings and then their owners pay less tax, shifting the tax burden to others.
With overbuilt apartments, there are no vacancies because people will be forced to take what is available just for a place to live. Owner-occupied housing becomes scarcer, prices are driven up: this is inflationary, interest rates are raised, and mortgage and tax charges go up. Life becomes unaffordable because the market has not offered people what they want.
Shannon Park is ideal for a new subdivision of family homes. The Cogswell Interchange is now being redeveloped. Exhibition Park is being looked at. The whole area that is Woodside/Shearwater/Eastern Passage could accommodate owner-occupied housing. So, too, could the former RCMP land on Bayers Road. No more apartment buildings should be allowed to be built until those various large, central areas are used to redress the nature of the housing supply. And that supply should include modest starter homes, not only mansions.
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