Quote:
Originally Posted by jigglysquishy
He fought against downtown residential subsidies. Saskatoon brought them forward and are getting roughly 1,000 units new. Once the tax break is over you basically pay yourself back in one year with new taxes.
Fought increasing fees for suburban growth so that it would pay for itself.
Hasn't funded any new transit projects in his 7 years as mayor that weren't instigated by the federal Liberals.
He's a huge booster for the construction industry, which isn't bad, but he's 100% in bed with RRHBA. They aggressively push suburban growth.
He has done a grand total of zero things since becoming mayor to promote inner city development.
The blame doesn't just lie with him though. Stevens is the only councilor pushing for urban growth. The others are full steam ahead suburbanites.
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Agree with most of your points on suburban growth, I think that has been his largest weakness. However, wasn't Fougere extremely important in pushing the Railyards Initiative as well as Mosaic? As well, multiple different transit enhancements were approved recently with the downtown hub and first-mile last-mile (believe this was tied into federal dollars tho). I agree that he hasn't been the perfect mayor for urban growth but that definitely isn't solely his blame.
As well, I would be curious to do the math on the downtown residential subsidies. I can't imagine a tax subsidy is the one element moving a housing project from unprofitable to profitable. In fact, a massive affordable housing subsidy already exists within core areas and hasn't spurred much development in applicable areas.
Frankly, something needs to be done to ensure downtown housing is financially feasible. We don't need more projects like Gardens on Rose, which Saskatoon is seeing with RL, Escala, and Highpoint. Until we are seeing new units under $300K nothing will change. Even then, look at all the vacant units in TD, the Hamilton and similar buildings. The market just isnt great.
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