80 John St N | 97m | 2 x 30 fl |Proposed

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Originally Posted by TheRitsman

As I've mentioned, this is an incredibly simplified way of thinking of supply and demand. Housing policy is more complex than "build taller, more demand, then lower prices". If people here truly think that's as simple as it gets, then there is clearly some naivety here.

Housing in all one place also causes issues. You're telling me, that assuming price goes down the taller it gets, some developer could build the Burj Khalifa in Hamilton with 10,000 units and BAM! Prices would decrease and everybody would sing kumbaya?

No. The lowered demand would decrease profits, meaning the development wouldn't get built, because giant corporations care about profit margins. Any small developers get washed out because of expensive zoning restrictions in other areas of the city.

I would love to develop an old style 8-plex in a more suburban area, but I can because of shitty zoning. I wouldn't care about profit margins on sale of units, because it would be an apartment building, and there would likely be demand out further from downtown. Allowing some mega corporation to build sky high is an insanely dense urban planning theory. It's like arguing that Walmart should get to flatten Ottawa street because bigger is better and there's too much demand!!!

I'm sure if urban planning was as simple as people here made it out to be. You wouldn't need anything more than a highschool math diploma to get a job in the field.

I was waiting for a solution or two - perhaps I need to read more carefully.

Something about relaxing zoning restrictions and building smaller, is that what you're getting at?