Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
It's not a matter of a "city" being pro or anti development. It comes down to the specific area where development is proposed. The fact remains that there is always loud, angry opposition to any proposed change that residents think might lower property values. Just like in other parts of NA. Yet lower property values makes it easier for buyers to enter the market. Fact is, restrictions on supply affect affordability regardless of who does or doesn't "agree". Just like people being climate deniers doesn't make climate change any less real. But sure, supply isn't the only factor so it's not a direct correlation and there will be variation in cost among NIMBY locations.
My main point was simply that people complain on one hand about paying higher amounts of property tax while on the other hand opposing any change that they think may lower properly values. Yet lowering property values would also lower property taxes (assuming a constant tax rate). In fact, you wouldn't see any increase in tax liability at all even if the tax rate doubled if the value of the property was cut in half. For instance, you'd pay the same tax on a $2 million property under a 1% tax rate as you would on a $1 million property under a 2% tax rate. People know full well that increases in property value tends to have property tax implications yet they want it anyway because it's still a net benefit for them. Obviously people want to have their cake and to eat it too, because who wouldn't? But someone wanting something doesn't make it good public policy.
What's really odd is that someone who'd accuse others of being "closet communists" would blatantly deny as basic a concept as supply and demand that's so central to market economies.
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Basic supply and demand does not fucking exist in a market that has commoditize development potential. Stop brushing aside the quarter million approved units in the GTA that have had zero impact on property flippers from profiting. Opening up Toronto's character family neighbourhoods for shoebox development will another add million dollars in value to each house that is already overpriced from small scale multi-family given the lot size. You can't build affordable low rise at $5 million an acre nevermind the astronomical construction costs.
A developer that builds a house and puts it on the market is more of an indicator of end user demand from than presales of hundreds of units that won't be delivered for the next 5 years. This beast that Conservatory Group released 30 years ago is now entirely investor driven. At least Conservatory Group is an actual developer building physical units. The investors' primary goal isn't to have them occupied
Height and squeezing in as many people as possible take precedence on these forums. There's very little thought process on community planning. Any sort of concern or opposition to any development is labeled NIMBYism. A person concerned over their cat losing their panoramic view is a NIMBY. Someone concerned over traffic, schools and character of their neighbourhood which wasn't designed for cramped 4 plexes replacing single family homes is actually more in tune than the forums. The obsession with tall tower single use development around transit stations in far flung suburbia as progress.
It's applies to being labelled anti bike for having concerns with Toronto aggressively reducing lanes of traffic when the streets are already clogged with cars while building 50,000 more parking spaces with the 80,000 plus units under construction. Neither does it take into account Toronto is not designed like those two smaller, European cities with mixed employment and residential throughout their sizable medium density cores and skylines that make Ottawa's look grandiose.
Communist is a joke as there are many on the forums particularly urbantoronto that believe owning your own structure with a yard and a car is elitist. If this is a reflection of the broader Toronto society than it's no wonder no one is having kids. Biking or transit as a family is not an ideal situation at all.
I'm guessing 1 times coverage across Toronto has the potential to double the number of housing units. However, the outcome for the urban environment means a lot more roofs and concrete and a lot less spaces for trees to reach old age.
We want to add tens of millions of people to Canada than we should be looking at populous Asia and their masterplanned new cities rising in the wilderness than expecting the largest metros to absorb all these new residents.
Then there is you. You see affordability issues in Toronto. Being on a site like this, you're going to be skewed towards more development and not knowing Toronto all that well. It hasn't crossed your mind that Toronto's optimal population may not be squeezing in more people. Intensification is not redesigning neighbourhoods for greater populations. It's just developers densifying individual properties.
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