Quote:
Originally Posted by OTownandDown
Are people on this website really urban planners working for the City? That's a worrisome thought lol... I thought the point is that urban planners have no idea and that we're the voice of trolling reason? Is Jim Watson going to come to my house to save the olds from our collective trolling outlet?
As for the other comments on this particular page... Following a literal translation of socialism and communism is probably overstepping, and for that I apologize. I blame my millennial interpretation on the news media, I'm not old enough to remember either style of government. I'm just trying to find somewhere between 'dont' tread on me' and 'you can only build a new house if it houses more than one family because of society'. And also throwing in the fact that complete anarchy is also not acceptable (probably? but what WOULD happen if we had no planning regulation?), but then, shouldn't people be allowed to build a bigger house on the property they bought? And how do you grandfather people who *just* bought a house in AltaVista and now the City is dashing their hopes and dreams to live in a Home Depot decorated McMansion and are about to go full Karen? Where is the happy medium of regulation and de-regulation, and where do we stop? A completely unrelated example is the sheer quantity of road signs in Ottawa. Its a sure sign that regulation begets overthinking begets regulation until we're overwhelmed (pun intended).
I digress, the pandemic makes my mind wander to weird places.
|
solid questions. I think that letting the market create housing inevitably leads to substandard housing. So some oversight is obviously required in the form of building codes. But then what if everything is to code but there is still deficiency? Right now, new condo units are simply too small to be real long-term residences. Yet the market won't create stock of larger and multi-bedroom units to meet demand unless they are forced to, because they have calculated that it is not profitable to do so.
How do you resolve that? the city may try to place increasingly onerous restrictions on the market, which will continue to find new and creative ways to make housing substandard so they can create profit.
Obviously the suburbs is a very profitable business model, and has the knock on effect of forcing people to rely on a whole host of services they wouldn't otherwise need. But it profitability relies on the city paying for a series of hidden costs, and the short and long term negative environmental impacts of that style of development. So from the city's perspective it should be financially sound to force developers to create a more socially and environmentally sound form of housing because it also reduces those aforementioned externalities by spreading them out to a larger group of people in the same amount of space.
Ultimately I don't think that you can regulate the market into creating a suitable stock of housing. It's already an abject failure, and thats partly capitalism and partly policy at all levels of government.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OTownandDown
Edit: No, now that I've done 4 minutes of google research, I take it back. Public planning policy for multi-unit residential has been borderline socialist policy for many years now, but only to the detriment of those truly winning in capitalism (i.e. have the $$$ to build 100's of market rate units), and which benefits those who truly have something to gain from socialist policies (i.e. create such-and-such percentage of affordable housing, if you're going to otherwise be making a mint on a large building). This isn't wrong policy, we live in Canada, after all. Now with this new designation, we're getting into trickle-down socialist housing policies, whereby the slightly less rich are also now going to be building multi-unit homes on single-family lots, IF those people truly want to build bigger. OR I'm just truly wrong and someone is going to mansplain it to me within the next day or so.
|
I still don't really understand how you're connecting socialism to zoning policy. So what, developers are forced to build multi-family residences. They are still operating on the open market and building housing for a profit. This is at odds with socialism, which has legitimate criticisms of financializing basic necessities like shelter.
Also its not like these policies are without precedent. Look at how Toronto deals with its early suburbs, very similar zoning rules where you can't rebuild larger than the original footprint of the building.
Really enjoying the phrase trickle down socialism. I kind of see your point, about people being forced to build multi-unit for their own benefit, but I think it would mostly be homeowners selling to developers.
Prev
I don't know how anyone would figure out each other's identities or employment, other than the few who met each other at the meet-ups. He seems especially upset about the highrises near Dominion Station as he uses that as his basis for claiming this board is a part of City Hall with posters being City employees with terrible attitudes towards residents. He seems to have gone down the conspiratorial road (did you see the reply to his post on his website)? He used to be a journalist?
Linear Mode
