Quote:
Originally Posted by whatnext
Except the pace of development is sold to residents as "we need to build this to help affordability". You see people parroting that here all the time. In reality it does no such thing. Look at the 1000 block of Barclay where affordable rental/strata was assembled by Westbank and Bosa in the hopes of building luxe condos, largely for offshore buyers. In that instance they found an even greater fool to pay an outlandish sum for the site, so they didn't even have to build a thing.
While I applaud you for building rentals, as long as the Mainland Chinese buyers is present, what you build will never really be "affordable". The City should be bold and seize the power they are going to be require all developments downtown to be 100% rental. Nothing would deflate land values faster.
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What does that do for home ownership? We are working within City programs to produce rental below and at market rate... which is both due to good programs (we get bonus density for reduced rent-cap units) and bad zoning (limited height and density and lots of expensive underground parking in transit areas).
Why should the City regulate an issue that is largely out of their jurisdiction? Why are developers "bad" for playing within the rules of selling and assembling land. If we could build condos, co-ops, and rental in greater density on non-assembled lots in single family neighbourhoods (within City jurisdiction and easily executed) then a fair amount of issues would recede.
If you regulate "rental only", what stops foreign investment from buying large amounts of land, assembling it, and building and running rental buildings. Where does that leave local ownership?
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