Immigration levels

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by chowhou

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Alas, it turns out the modern world demands better energy efficiency, building safety, accessibility and HVAC - two sheets of drywall and lowest-bid insulation don't cut it anymore.

I'm not saying no immigration, I'm saying the pre-JT level.

[Burquitlaman]

Originally Posted by chowhou

I'm sure you're not aware, but the BCNDP housing policies are only just now being brought into force by the municipalities, with many kicking and screaming. I understand now that you're the type to go looking for facts to match the narrative, but when housing takes years to get through the design and permitting stage, are you really going to try to make the argument that legislation executed this year has already failed because housing starts were down a month ago...?

I get that we're passionate about this topic, but why not focus our efforts on solutions that help everyone instead of cutting off our noses to spite our face?

What you are saying is 100% valid. But the reality is today, in 2024, we do not have housing for new immigrants.

No houses, no new people. Occam's razor. When houses are there, increase supply.

How are we cutting our noses by not bringing in low-skilled workers and international students? Again, my wife came here as an international student (we met when she was an international student), but her presence in Canada, apart from adding value to my life, provided zero value to Canada! Her presence contributed to increasing housing costs and financed a bs for-profit school.

We cannot meet the housing needs of newcomers. You are saying we will meet it. I guess you are saying you are clairvoyant. I put it to you that you are not.

When these policies bear fruit, increase the numbers.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Alas, it turns out the modern world demands better energy efficiency, building safety, accessibility and HVAC - two sheets of drywall and lowest-bid insulation don't cut it anymore.

Two sheets of drywall and lowest bid insulation is better than living on the street or in an unpermitted renovated 1930s bungalow with 9 roommates. Perfect is the enemy of good, as they say. We're regulating ourselves out of housing. Can you imagine that we allow people to eat non-free range eggs and low nutrient vegetables like lettuce? I say we mandate that all eggs be free range and only vegetables with a nutrient density at least as high as kale be sold. Allowing anything else is beneath the modern world.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by chowhou

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Homelessness is what the TMH is for (which in fairness should not have been removed until the art gallery was actually shovel-ready).

By the same token, we shouldn't have every new resident living on an instant ramen and prison food diet just because times are hard. To bring it back to housing, earthquakes, fires, climate change, electricity demand et al are also problems to consider just as much as affordability; if they had fifty years ago, at least to our level, they'd've likely made the same code changes themselves.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Homelessness is what the TMH is for (which in fairness should not have been removed until the art gallery was actually shovel-ready).

By the same token, we shouldn't have every new resident living on an instant ramen and prison food diet just because times are hard.

Yet we still allow people to have the option regardless of whether times are good or bad, hell if someone makes a million bucks a year but wants to live off of cheap ramen we all collectively think, "Wow that guy is cheap", not, "This is a disgrace to our modern standard of living and must be prevented." Why are we so opposed to allowing people the option to have cheap "crappy" housing?

To bring it back to housing, earthquakes, fires, climate change, electricity demand et al are also problems to consider just as much as affordability; if they had fifty years ago, at least to our level, they'd've likely made the same code changes themselves.

Perfect is still the enemy of good. See: Single stair egress. Not fifty years but a hundred years ago someone decided that they were a necessary regulation. Nowadays we know that it doesn't make housing all that much safer but definitely is an impediment to housing development. And of course, there are people in the peanut gallery saying that any deregulation is bad and fire safety will go down, but not everything has to be perfect. It just has to be good enough.

We'll be okay if housing insulation isn't 100% effective. We'll be okay if electricity demand is not zero. We'll be okay if a building can "only" survive a magnitude 9.5 earthquake and not a 9.6 earthquake.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by chowhou

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Safety regs are written in blood more often than not. As recently as five years ago, we figured air conditioning was optional in BC; now, when the next heat wave comes and we find out that several heatstroke-related deaths could've been avoided if only the building had heat pumps and passive cooling (because in this scenario, we learned nothing from 2021), guess what everybody'll point the finger at? Yup, the building code.

Energy efficiency can reduce the demand on the electricity and gas networks. Stricter fire safety requirements and changes to building materials (e.g. banning asbestos) can save lives. Post-Covid changes to ventilation and room layouts can reduce the spread of infection. Not everything exists simply to make developers' lives harder.

Originally Posted by chowhou

We'll be okay if housing insulation isn't 100% effective. We'll be okay if electricity demand is not zero. We'll be okay if a building can "only" survive a magnitude 9.5 earthquake and not a 9.6 earthquake.

Back in the Seventies, everything was built to withstand a 5 or 6; 9.5 would wreck most of the city. We're not asking for 100%, we're asking for just 80-90% (which will likely drop to 50-60% over the next few decades as engineering gets smarter, just like the old codes did).

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Safety regs are written in blood more often than not. As recently as five years ago, we figured air conditioning was optional in BC; now, when the next heat wave comes and we find out that several heatstroke-related deaths could've been avoided if only the building had heat pumps and passive cooling (because in this scenario, we learned nothing from 2021), guess what they'll blame to cover their butts? Yup, the building code.

Energy efficiency can reduce the demand on BC Hydro's grid. Stricter fire safety requirements and changes to building materials can save lives. Post-Covid changes to ventilation and room layouts can reduce the spread of infection. Not everything exists simply to make developers' lives harder.

And the issue is that people seem to think that we have to add regulation upon regulation until there is zero blood spilled, which is just an impossible task and causes more harm than good. Heat pumps in the building code are useless when no new housing is built and you live on the streets. Once again, perfect is the enemy of good. How long until we mandate that all homes must be at least 1500sqft because human beings need room to lounge about and studies say that remaining in the same spot is bad for your health and it's cruel that some people have bigger houses than others and yadda yadda yadda, oh wait we're already moving in that direction...

Back in the Seventies, everything was built to withstand a 5 or 6; 9.5 would wreck most of the city. We're not asking for 100%, we're asking for just 75% (which will likely drop to 50% over the next few decades as engineering gets smarter).

Yet we're not condemning those buildings for some reason...? Surely they're safety hazards that should be torn down, no? I'm not sure if you're aware but the 2024 BC Building code is increasing the seismic requirements again. In fact they deferred the change in March because they're trying not to impact currently proposed buildings apparently.

[logicbomb]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I'm not saying no immigration, I'm saying the pre-JT level.

We need to pause immigration.

We badly need to reform our immigration, international student, temporary foreign workers and refugee programs in this country. Right now there are countless ways to obtain PR in this country and there's no real ability to track and deport individuals who are overstaying. Seriously, immigration warrants are outright ignored.

We desperately need to put a cap and tie it per country. We also need to adjust immigration numbers and refugee intake based on housing starts.

Will it happen? Hell no. The economy is primarily driven by demand for housing while also relying on a surplus of labour to drive down wages.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

We need to pause immigration.

Why? I for one do not want the Canadian population and economy to age and shrink away. Literally every immigration related issue is solved by housing related solutions, and every economist on the planet will tell you that immigration is essentially always a net positive for the entire economy.

Originally Posted by Burquitlaman

How are we cutting our noses by not bringing in low-skilled workers and international students? Again, my wife came here as an international student (we met when she was an international student), but her presence in Canada, apart from adding value to my life, provided zero value to Canada! Her presence contributed to increasing housing costs and financed a bs for-profit school.

Your wife doesn't consume products and services from Canadian companies and workers? She didn't purchase education services as a foreigner increasing Canadian exports to other countries? (Yes, educating international students is economically an export. Foreign money is used to purchase a Canadian good or service, it's an export.) She doesn't work or produce anything, contributing to the Canadian economy and tax base? She doesn't contribute to Canadian society as all with zero friends or coworkers or children? Interesting. Is she a ghost?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by chowhou

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Again, homelessness is what the temporary housing - and the portables next to them - is for. Maybe we should just forget about building permanent housing at all and set up half a million of those all over the city instead? I hear Rio's favelas are lovely this time of year.

Why increase the load on the city and BC Hydro, and by extension, current and future residents? Why make it easier for them to die in a fire, suffer a respiratory problem or catch the next plague? You can't eliminate all accidental deaths, but you can definitely stop the easily foreseeable ones (hold a seance and ask Stockton Rush how cutting through regulations worked for him), or at least save the future a little money.

Most of Vancouver is a seismic risk, so you'd have to bulldoze a large part of Gastown and New West, among others; we're already condemning St Paul's, the viaducts and every pre-modern school as we speak. Alas, building codes are retroactive, and it's impossible to update every building, but we can still fix the unbuilt ones.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Again, homelessness is what the temporary housing - and the portables next to them - is for. Maybe we should just forget about building permanent housing at all and set up half a million of those all over the city instead? I hear Rio's favelas are lovely this time of year.

You always claim to not be a NIMBY, but then pepper in little NIMBY dogwhistles like this. Really, modular housing = Brazilian favelas. Really. As soon as someone lives in a house that doesn't have R22 wall insulation, boom instant depraved poverty. C'mon.

Why increase the load on the city and BC Hydro, and by extension, current and future residents? Why make it easier for them to die in a fire, suffer a respiratory problem or catch the next plague? You can't eliminate all accidental deaths, but you can definitely stop the easily foreseeable ones (hold a seance and ask Stockton Rush how cutting through regulations worked for him), or at least save the future a little money.

Well here's the litmus test. Are you pro or anti single staircase egress? Do you want to make it easier to die in a fire or not? It's easily foreseeable that one staircase can become blocked by fire, isn't it?

And why not increase the load on BC Hydro? There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Maybe we should actually promote homelessness to make sure people use less electricity?

Most of Vancouver is a seismic risk, so you'd have to bulldoze a large part of Gastown and New West; we're already condemning St Paul's, the viaducts and every pre-modern school as we speak. Alas, building codes are retroactive, and it's impossible to update every building, but we can still fix the unbuilt ones.

Until we decide to bulldoze Gastown and New West, if those buildings are not condemned then there's no reason we shouldn't be allowed to build them again. If we as a society think it's acceptable for people to live in them despite the risk, what exactly is the compelling reason that we shouldn't be allowed to build the exact same building and allow people to live in it?

For the record, none of the structures you mentioned were condemned. The government is opting to upgrade, remove, or replace them; there's no government order to evacuate and demolish due to pressing safety concerns.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by chowhou

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A) Reductio ad absurdum. Too little regulation is just as problematic as too much (which we haven't even come close to arriving at yet - that's SoCal's jurisdiction).
B) Temporary housing is supposed to be temporary, but ends up permanent.
C) So you think the prefabs the province just approved aren't up to the province's code? Interesting...

That single-stairs deregulation applies to only four apartments per floor on six-floor buildings (or shorter), and only as a trial run due to tighter rules in other parts of the building code making it apparently safe enough. At this point in time, with the limited information we have, doing the same for a highrise would be a decent case for future charges of criminal negligence.

The more people we can house for the least energy usage, the better. BC'll need Sites D, E, F and G at the rate we're going.

The leaky condos needed years of renovations in order to stop leaking. The Sahotas were allowed to keep their roach motels for decades. The government has opted to get rid of many of their old brick/concrete buildings instead of retrofitting them. Their continued existence speaks more to their indispensability (or the legality of reappropriating them) than their "acceptable" quality or safety standards.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

A) Reductio ad absurdum. Too little regulation is just as problematic as too much (which we haven't even come close to arriving at yet).
B) Temporary housing is supposed to be temporary, but ends up permanent.
C) So you think the prefabs the province just approved aren't up to the province's code? Interesting...

Whether we have too much or not is not a yes or no question. The fact of the matter is that we continue to add more and more housing regulations which continue to increase the cost of construction. I'm not sure why you're talking about temporary housing or what point you're trying to make here. You can't disagree with the fact that if regulation got out of the way of modular housing, we could build housing faster and cheaper.

That single-stairs deregulation applies to only four apartments per floor on six-floor buildings (or shorter), and only as a trial run due to tighter rules in other parts of the building code making it apparently safe enough. At this point in time, with the limited information we have, doing the same for a highrise would be a decent case for future charges of criminal negligence.

So you admit that you're okay with removing a safety regulation. The fact there are other rules is irrelevant; Apartments would have more fire safety on top of the other rules if multiple egress points were required, so only having one reduces fire safety.

Frankly, we have plenty of information that it's okay for highrises. We don't see Germans or Koreans dying en masses in building fires.

The more people we can house for the least energy wastage, the better. BC'll need Sites D, E, F and G at the rate we're going.

And I'll take the side of more people housed over less energy wastage. Perfect is the enemy of good.

The leaky condos needed years of renovations in order to stop leaking. The Sahotas were allowed to keep their roach motels for decades. The government has opted to get rid of many of their old brick buildings instead of retrofitting them. Their continued existence speaks more to their indispensability (or the legality of reappropriating them) than their "acceptable" quality or safety standards.

Okay cool. Refer to my previous message if you want to make a point about older building standards being clearly good enough today.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by chowhou

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At what cost? You want to go faster, you don't turn all the safeties off, you get a bigger engine.

I'm okay with turning off one safety on a limited basis as a trial run. If it goes wrong, we'll switch it back, but we won't have to worry about every single new tower being a deathtrap, just the ones the fire department can actually handle.

We can have both. Again, false dichotomy - it's not passive heating making housing starts harder, it's permits, zoning, manpower shortages and insufficient economies of scale. You want to say I'm using NIMBY talking points, I'll say you sound like a developer fixing to skim off the top.

And refer to my previous messages about older building standards being clearly unfit for new builds. Once upon a time, lead and asbestos were "good enough," as were windowless/unventilated rooms and locked exits.

[logicbomb]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Why? I for one do not want the Canadian population and economy to age and shrink away. Literally every immigration related issue is solved by housing related solutions, and every economist on the planet will tell you that immigration is essentially always a net positive for the entire economy.

It's the same ridiculous rhetoric.

Let's be real. The business community here freaked out during COVID when employees had leverage and could freely find work with ease while bettering their work-life balance and improving work standards. Landlords were also shell-shocked when demands for rentals went down and housing prices decreased. The taps were fully turned on to flood the labour market with a surplus of labour and to ensure housing prices along with rental prices stabilized again. You also have legitimate companies and shell companies selling work permits now under the LMIA program while also heavily exploiting the workers.

We are not bringing in doctors or qualified tradespeoples. We are bringing in slaves.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/un-...nada-1.7293495

Pausing immigration is an absolute must to reform potential abuse and loopholes in the country while also allowing our infrastructure to catch up.

[chowhou]

At what cost? At what cost are we piling on additional building requirements every year? Can you explain your analogy? What does "bigger engine" mean for housing markets? Increasing the horsepower (cost) of housing units to make developments viable despite the safeties (regulations and fees) holding it back? Good analogy, but aren't we trying to reduce the size of the engine here?

Clearly I missed the mark when asking if you support single staircase egress. I was under the impression you weren't afraid of a deregulation proven in every jurisdiction in the world besides most of the US and Canada, but I guess that wasn't the case.

It's so funny that you grasp for asbestos bans and locked entrances as if those change building costs at all. I think you'll find that vermiculite is around 10x more expensive than rock wool... And windowless bedrooms are still legal, they're just not allowed to call them bedrooms anymore. They're "dens". Hell, I've noticed some listings call them "Jr. bedrooms" now.

Originally Posted by logicbomb

It's the same ridiculous rhetoric.

My mistake for responding to a conspiracy theorist. Interesting how you conflate temporary foreign workers with immigrants, they're all the same to you I assume?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by chowhou

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See previous answer. Faster approval processes (which ABC says they're on top of, but I'm not seeing), more labourers and trade workers, more materials, more logistical capacity to get them to site (and without overdepending on international supply disruptions). There's always somewhere else developers want to build in Vancouver.

Deregulation isn't an "all or nothing" ideology unless you make it one. Take out one or two control rods at a time just to test something? Alright. Take them all out at once? You're already dead. Not that many North American cities' apartment also have fire escape ladders at the front or back of the property.

It's funny how you think the building code is the main change of costs increasing, as if a pandemic-induced supply chain meltdown, inflation and plain old mismanagement had nothing to do with it. What changes were made to SkyTrain construction regs to make the SLS jump $2 billion?

---

More to the point, the only reason we're even talking about this is because I said it was more complicated to build a home now, not costlier. Since we're almost back to 70s/80s levels of construction (or have surpassed them), cost is evidently not the bottleneck.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Do we really need a municipal politics thread to talk about federal policy?

I believe the argument is that we've easily been able to handle our current immigration rate in the past, there's little reason to believe we can't nowadays.

(I couldn't find a graph including 2022-2023, but I believe the immigration rate was about 3% for both if we include both permanent and temporary residents)

I've always maintained that Canada is one of the largest countries in the world with close to unlimited land, and construction labour should be proportional to population, so if we can't provide housing to everyone that arrives in Canada that's a failure in construction policy, not in immigration policy.

The problem being is that most new arrivals don't want to settle in the emptier parts of Canada. If I recall correctly we tried to force that issue with some medical professionals but the good old Charter forbade it.

As you say, it is a shame it has become a municipal issue but blame the incompetence of the Federal Liberals who amped up the numbers with apparently zero thought of downstream consequences like housing and healthcare that would be downloaded to the provinces and municipalities. I guess Dominic Barton and the Century Initiative folks mesmerized Justin.

[Migrant_Coconut]

In fairness, we've got existing Canadians fleeing to the boonies and immigrants taking their place in the cities, which is slightly more effective than settling the immigrants in those boonies without the proper services to integrate them.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

More to the point, the only reason we're even talking about this is because I said it was more complicated to build a home now, not costlier. Since we're almost back to 70s/80s levels of construction (or have surpassed them), cost is evidently not the bottleneck.

Well, I'll just say that it's pretty sad to be happy to have 1970s level construction when we have over twice the population now.

Complications are cost. Might I remind you that BC recently published a multiplex standardized design catalogue that estimated construction costs alone to be $400-$500 per square foot.