Housing Bubble II: The Quest To Build Enough Homes Where People Actually Need Them

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by niwell

The flattest swaths of undeveloped land in the GTA are in places like Halton, Central Peel, South City of Hamilton and East Durham which aren't protected by the Greenbelt and could be developed through urban boundary expansions.

Major asterisk next to the bold part as well. The urban expansion is capped at 60% of all new residential units, per the Places to Grow act. And the neighbourhoods in the urban expansion need to have a minimum density of 5000 people and jobs per sqkm. (which is how you end up with large developments across the GTA that look like this)

And 40% of all new residential units need to be built within the original 2006 urban boundary aka "intensification".

Intensification projects in Ontario take over 5 years per project on average, and that is what we are using to decide how many homes get built on greenfields (which is a much faster process).

If anyone is still confused why not enough homes are being built in the GTA, this line of the Places to Grow Act 2006 answers it:

2.2.3 General Intensification

1. By the year 2015 and for each year thereafter, a minimum of 40 per cent of all residential development occurring annually within each upper- and single-tier municipality will be within the built-up area.

2. If at the time this Plan comes into effect, an upper- or single-tier municipality is achieving a percentage higher than the minimum intensification target identified in policy 2.2.3.1, this higher percentage will be considered the minimum intensification target for that municipality.

https://simcoecountygreenbelt.ca/wp-...-Plan-2006.pdf

[hipster duck]

1. Horse farms aren't going to be converted to food-producing farms. Horse farms are almost always a higher value use of that land.

2. It also serves a local demand just as much as food production. There are more affluent people in the GTA who ride horses than anywhere else in Canada. Many of them live nearby in wealthy exurbs like Caledon and King City. It's also not a service that can be geographically outsourced, unlike the production of apples or beef. People go to where they can ride horses, whereas apples and steaks come to them.

3. If you're going to go after horse farms, why not go after similar recreational pursuits of the wealthy that take up a lot of land like in-town golf courses? Unlike horse farms, those actually are surrounded by existing urban infrastructure and services: water, sewer, gas, transit, schools. It's not undeveloped land in the countryside.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by niwell

So you're saying a pretty significant portion *isn't* in the greenbelt. Thanks for proving my point! It makes zero sense to develop stuff further out at this point if we aren't there yet. Municipalities are already having enough issues providing services without haphazard development.

If limiting the supply of land for development to 50% is considered "pretty significant", then sure.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

1. Horse farms aren't going to be converted to food-producing farms. Horse farms are almost always a higher value use of that land.

2. It also serves a local demand just as much as food production. There are more affluent people in the GTA who ride horses than anywhere else in Canada. Many of them live nearby in wealthy exurbs like Caledon and King City. It's also not a service that can be geographically outsourced, unlike the production of apples or beef. People go to where they can ride horses, whereas apples and steaks come to them.

3. If you're going to go after horse farms, why not go after similar recreational pursuits of the wealthy that take up a lot of land like in-town golf courses? Unlike horse farms, those actually are surrounded by existing urban infrastructure and services: water, sewer, gas, transit, schools. It's not undeveloped land in the countryside.

That's my point. Even though the soil could be used for food, it is not, because the owners of that land have determined that it is more productive for them to use it for horse farming. Turning that land into houses would be an even more productive use of that land, but they are not allowed to, so the next most productive thing they can do is to use it for horse farming.

So instead of making a small handful of people to drive a little bit further a few weekends per year to go ride a horse, we are forcing 100,000+ people to drive further every single day to get to work (since they can only afford to live outside the belt, but work inside the belt).

And I'm not "going after" horse farms. I'm going after stupid government policies that lead to unintended consequences. People should be free to choose what is the most productive use of their own land. As long as it doesn't hurt anyone else and they pay for their own keep, why is it anyone else's business.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Build.It

And I'm not "going after" horse farms. I'm going after stupid government policies that lead to unintended consequences. People should be free to choose what is the most productive use of their own land. As long as it doesn't hurt anyone else and they pay for their own keep, why is it anyone else's business.

See, that’s the thing: I think a horse farm actually doesn’t require any subsidy over time, but low density sprawl usually does - especially 30 years later when the infrastructure needs replacement.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

See, that’s the thing: I think a horse farm actually doesn’t require any subsidy over time, but low density sprawl usually does - especially 30 years later when the infrastructure needs replacement.

So what you're saying is that the way property taxes are calculated is unfair and needs to be reformed. I would agree with you on that.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

See, that’s the thing: I think a horse farm actually doesn’t require any subsidy over time, but low density sprawl usually does - especially 30 years later when the infrastructure needs replacement.

Well I mean if your criteria for what is a productive land use solely comes down to the level of public subsidy is required then it could lead you to the conclusion that we shouldn't really be growing at all. Or if we do then it would literally be frontier-style homesteading with everyone obtaining their own supplies and digging a well and septic system.

[CanSpice]

I'm assuming that Ontario needs to build in the greenbelt because there aren't any single family homes left to build multi-family homes? Toronto's completely built out at this point? I'm just a naive BCer who has a similar Agricultural Land Reserve, but nobody is seriously considering turning that into housing because there are swaths of Vancouver (not just Metro Vancouver) that are still zoned single family and can be built up.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

I'm assuming that Ontario needs to build in the greenbelt because there aren't any single family homes left to build multi-family homes? Toronto's completely built out at this point? I'm just a naive BCer who has a similar Agricultural Land Reserve, but nobody is seriously considering turning that into housing because there are swaths of Vancouver (not just Metro Vancouver) that are still zoned single family and can be built up.

It was pointed out above, but there are still significant amounts of greenfield land that could be developed before the GTA is truly butting up against the greenbelt in every direction. If the Places to Grow Act was eliminated or substantially reworked, there would probably be more than a decades worth of land that could be built out before the Greenbelt truly became the biggest culprit in limiting the growth of new low-density supply.

[goodgrowth]

"Progressive" land use policy in parts of this country is one that leads to wealthy enclaves(protectected SFH only/Heritage districts) that have close proximity to local hobby farms/vineyards(protected "farmland") staffed by TFW's all in the name of "localism".

I mean if Margaret Atwood can't go from her multi-million dollar house to get some organic apples picked by Jamicans are we really doing progressivism right?

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Build.It

So what you're saying is that the way property taxes are calculated is unfair and needs to be reformed. I would agree with you on that.

I'm saying a few things:

One is that low density sprawl is not fiscally sustainable. It's a pyramid scheme where a city has to be continuously developing outward and receiving revenues from DCs in order to balance the budget. Eventually land runs out. You then either have the choice of going to your electorate and forcing them to accept higher densities in their backyards, cut services/infrastructure repair, or raise taxes. It's usually a combo of all three. But there's also a fourth alternative, which is to wither and die. A lot of American postwar suburban municipalities have essentially become slums because they're caught between a rock and a hard place and must force those choices on their residents while the municipality that hasn't run out of land further out doesn't have to impose those choices, and is - in the short-to-medium term - a much better deal. Ferguson, Missouri - with its infamous race riots - is a good example of such a place.

But if you artificially impose scarcity at a regional level, you can actually get away with imposing some of those hard choices on your electorate. Or, better yet, you can make it so that more fiscally sustainable, higher density development is the default choice right out of the gate.

So that means that high density townhouse subdivisions abut hobby farms for rich people. It looks unjust, but it is what it is.

I think property taxes should be reformed, but any municipality that does that takes the risk that their neighbour, which might not be in such a developmental straitjacket, may not. This kind of goes to the argument I made in the first paragraph about how built-out suburbs of previous generations in sprawling American cities typically have to raise taxes without any additional value proposition, and, as long as neighbouring municipalities don't have those burdens and can still charge relatively low rates, they end up falling flat on their face.

[wg_flamip]

The Greenbelt's purpose isn't to freeze today's land uses in perpetuity but rather to protect fertile and ecologically sensitive land for the future. As the pandemic taught us, we can't expect today's supply lines to last forever, and climate change lurks on the horizon. In the event of a future food security crisis, horse farms are far easier to transition to productive agriculture than suburban subdivisions.

[goodgrowth]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

The Greenbelt's purpose isn't to freeze today's land uses in perpetuity but rather to protect fertile and ecologically sensitive land for the future. As the pandemic taught us, we can't expect today's supply lines to last forever, and climate change lurks on the horizon. In the event of a future food security crisis, horse farms are far easier to transition to productive agriculture than suburban subdivisions.

So on one hand we bring in ~1M people a year and on the other hand basically have a prepper policy for farmland? OK...

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by goodgrowth

So on one hand we bring in ~1M people a year and on the other hand basically have a prepper policy for farmland? OK...

Wow, no? You can have farmland AND have more homes for more people, it's not an either/or, and distilling it down to that is disingenuous and shows a lack of an actual argument.

[goodgrowth]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

Wow, no? You can have farmland AND have more homes for more people, it's not an either/or, and distilling it down to that is disingenuous and shows a lack of an actual argument.

If that were true there would be proportional conditions for adequate upzoning in adjacent urban areas whenever greenbelts and protections for farmland are implemented.

But we don't get that. We get get greenbelts and protected hobby farms(with no requirements on output) implemented unconditionally .

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I'm saying a few things:

One is that low density sprawl is not fiscally sustainable. It's a pyramid scheme where a city has to be continuously developing outward and receiving revenues from DCs in order to balance the budget. Eventually land runs out. You then either have the choice of going to your electorate and forcing them to accept higher densities in their backyards, cut services/infrastructure repair, or raise taxes. It's usually a combo of all three. But there's also a fourth alternative, which is to wither and die. A lot of American postwar suburban municipalities have essentially become slums because they're caught between a rock and a hard place and must force those choices on their residents while the municipality that hasn't run out of land further out doesn't have to impose those choices, and is - in the short-to-medium term - a much better deal. Ferguson, Missouri - with its infamous race riots - is a good example of such a place.

But if you artificially impose scarcity at a regional level, you can actually get away with imposing some of those hard choices on your electorate. Or, better yet, you can make it so that more fiscally sustainable, higher density development is the default choice right out of the gate.

So that means that high density townhouse subdivisions abut hobby farms for rich people. It looks unjust, but it is what it is.

I think property taxes should be reformed, but any municipality that does that takes the risk that their neighbour, which might not be in such a developmental straitjacket, may not. This kind of goes to the argument I made in the first paragraph about how built-out suburbs of previous generations in sprawling American cities typically have to raise taxes without any additional value proposition, and, as long as neighbouring municipalities don't have those burdens and can still charge relatively low rates, they end up falling flat on their face.

Everything you just said can be solved by the removal of most zoning rules and pegging property taxes to how much your lifestyle will cost the municipality.

Ontario homeowners also pay some of the lowest property taxes in North America. Most comparable cities in the US pay double what we pay. If people had to pay the true cost of what they use, then there would be less demand for SFH by default.

[ssiguy]

ALR's are no guarantee of food production as BC can testify. Metro Vancouver/FV has some of the most fertile land in the country with the longest growing season and yet it is highly unproductive.

A 2018 report, "Protection is not Enough" by the Kwantlen University Institute of Sustainable Food Supply states that only 50% of all ALR land in Metro Vancouver is actually being used to grow food and found that of 122 ALR sales, 73 were to "investors" who had no intention of being farmers. They bought it to flip or put a house on it and enjoy the VERY low rates of property taxes as opposed to if they were to build their house on urban land. The amount of actual food production required in dollar terms is laughably low.........buy a few thousand carrots from a supplier and then sell them to a local grocery and voila, your tally for food production has been met.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

The Greenbelt's purpose isn't to freeze today's land uses in perpetuity but rather to protect fertile and ecologically sensitive land for the future. As the pandemic taught us, we can't expect today's supply lines to last forever, and climate change lurks on the horizon. In the event of a future food security crisis, horse farms are far easier to transition to productive agriculture than suburban subdivisions.

I already disproved the land shortage/food security myth on the last page.

Canada has the 3rd most arable land per capita in the world of all countries. (source)

We have the 6th most total arable land in the world. (source) NOTE - if you follow the link you'll see that the total sqkm has actually gone up the last decade.

Our wheat yield/hectare is 12th in the world (source)

Our maize yield/hectare is 6th in the world (source)

Our soybean yield/hectare is 4th in the world (source)

We have the 7th most cattle per capita (source)

We produce the 10th most maize in the world by total (source)

We export half of our beef/cattle, 70% of our soybeans, 70% of our pork, 75% of our wheat, 90% of our canola, and 95% of our pulses. (source)

Canada isn't a good place to grow fruit (shocking), however of the fruit that we do grow, 50% of that is berries, and we export more than half of it (source)

Canada is a NET exporter of food, exporting $66B of food per year, and importing $48B of food/year (source)

We are the world's 3rd largest producer of primary fertilizers, and the largest producer of potash fertilizer (source). In fact, 12% of the world's fertilizer comes from Canada, and 95% of the fertilizer Canada produces gets exported (source)

If that's not enough, we are expected to gain 4.2 million sqkm of agricultural land in the coming decades thanks to climate change (source).

We also produce the 8th most total electricity in the world (source), the 6th most natural gas in the world (source). Per capita we produce the 6th most electricity (source) and 10th most natural gas (source). Of the natural gas we produce, 61% gets exported (source). Additionally, we are NET exporter of natural gas by a massive ratio (source). So in the imaginary food security scenario, we have more than enough energy to grow in Greenhouses what we can't grow naturally in our climate.

All the Class 1 soil people like to bring up hasn't disappeared, it was just moved to peoples' backyards. The house only takes up a small percentage of the land on a property, the rest is the backyard, and there is nothing stopping you from growing your own food. In fact multiple DIY sites say that you only need 1000 sqft of land to grow enough food for a family of four for an entire year (source). The average backyard is a lot bigger than that. So in the imaginary food crisis scenario, the people who will be screwed the most are those living in condos because they won't have a yard to grow their own food in.

We have plenty of problems in Canada, but a lack of land or capacity to grow food isn't one of them - in fact it's not even a remote possibility. We have hundreds of thousands of sqkms of land to feed us, we have more fertilizer than we could ever need, we have more energy we could ever need. Globally, we are in one of the best positions if there ever were some sort of a food security crisis. Allowing a couple hundred extra sqkm of land to be developed around our largest city won't make even make a dent on this.

Prior to the Greenbelt/Places-to-Grow legislations the GTA already had the highest population density of any metro-area in all of English-speaking North America. Literally every other metro area in Canada and the US had (and continues to have) a lower population density than the GTA. This includes Vancouver, New York, SF/Oakland and LA.

Greenbelt and Places to Grow are rooted in ideology, not facts. Our current policy was designed to solve a non-existent imaginary problem, but has created multiple other very real problems as a by-product. However thanks to the Greenbelt and Places-to-Grow acts, the average Canadian is far more likely to die from homelessness than than they ever were from hunger.

[ssiguy]

What ticks me off is all these farmers who lament the loss of agricultural land and their way of life. How do they think all this land is being sold and developed...........by ultimate domain? The developers don't just swope in guns blazing and take the land out from under them. They go into a big song & dance about the loss of local farming and produce but when a developer comes along and waves a nice juicy cheque in front of their collective faces, their fine sensibilities are tossed straight out the window.

As BC shows, ALRs don't work and as Ottawa shows, neither does a Greenbelt. Putting aside sensitive lands and/or ecosystems is one thing, but these wide scale development no-go zones do nothing but increase property and housing prices.

As far as getting rid of them encouraging sprawl, that is a myth. The land can be designated as high/medium density to prevent this which is something the cities can do with the stroke of a pen.

[yaletown_fella]

Durham, like western Hamilton looks too restricted if the red area is all greenbelt. Theres no mystery that the 2005 Places to Grow Act artificially induced land inflation.

I think Escarpment , areas of the Moraine/headwaters/rivers/tributaries & marshes make sense to preserve.

But I think any farmer with flat land should be able to sell off to developers. Land scarcity is a huge issue in the GTHA, and it becomes very evident when you compare the affordability of dependent suburban starter homes in somewhere like Niagara to virtually identical homes in Upstate New York, just minutes away.

Ford had it right with his earlier plans to scale back Places to Grow, but unfortunately he's caved to pressure from a large contingent of those who'd never vote for him anyways. Big blunder on his part.

Anyone who puts up lawn signs lobbying to expand the Greenbelt should be required to also have a lawn sign beside it calling to curb immigration. You can't have your cake & eat it too, but then again, the housing shortage benefits many of these hypocrites through home value appreciation.