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

[Nite]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Quickie math time:

Retirements in Canada (2023): ~307k

Number of Canadians entering the labour market (those born from 2000-2005, 18-23 years old): Between 329-345k, depending on year born, so let’s split the difference and call it 337k.

Alleged growth of jobs in past year (I can’t find a source, but I’ll take it at face value): 550,000.

Population growth 2022 from immigration: ~ 1 million. Operating under assumption that all migrants want employment.

So: (retirements + job growth) - (Canadians entering labour force + immigration)

= (307k+550k) - (337k+1m)
= 857k - 1.337m
= -480k

If under a very high job growth scenario we have an excess of nearly 1/2 million people per year relative to employment available, I am curious as to how long we need to sustain such a pace for population growth. If the job market falters, what then?

This is all very simplistic I admit, as the chronic worker shortages are of the skilled variety.

a large portion of the 1 million migrants to Canada are students and childrens who are not all enter the labour market however

as for the "Alleged growth of jobs in past year " Statscan release monthly jobs figures. the 550K is the total of these job figures for the last 12 months

[theman23]

Originally Posted by casper

Actually as it turns out, last month there was to be a photo opt and it was promptly cancelled by the minister due to this silly move by the municipalities.

https://globalnews.ca/video/9990705/...t-cost-changes

But most federal programs are allocated on a provincial per-capita basis.

I'm well aware. The Liberals will negotiate with the region and obtain concessions about as meaningful as their recent attempt to deal with the influx of international students. One of the country's most important housing market just had its politicians turn their nose towards the Liberal's best attempt at having a housing policy. What,do you think they're going to admit that their Housing Accelerator Fund is a failure? This is the party that still bookends each housing announcement by asking us to please remember what a great job they've done so far.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by Hawrylyshyn

Love this! Here in Hamilton there was a Tiny Home projected to have 25, privately-funded tiny cabins built for the homeless. Despite being in the heart of a die-hard NDP ward, people came to a community meeting about it and demonstrated "physically and verbally aggressive behaviour", resulting in cancellation of the meeting before it could start and a delay (and perhaps cancellation) of the Tiny Homes project.

City staff pitch tiny homes pilot instead of sanctioned encampments
Backers of Hamilton’s ‘tiny homes’ plan disappointed that ‘anger’ cancelled meeting

Yep. I believe the idea of central kitchen and washing facilities, and security, were noted in an earlier proposal for a different site. But the status quo is WAY better.

Consultation wasn't planned very well, but still.

People don't like the idea of more permanent solutions in their wards either.

Now that the weather is turning cold (and very damp this week in Hamilton) desperation is probably going to lead to more bad news.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Tiny home are not the solution, they are one part of a solution and help to provide a stopgap in the instances where excess beds are needed fast, and without the long lead times of a larger-scale project.

I guess we should tell someone who is homeless right now that they can't have a bed for 3 years because building anything other than "optimal value housing" for every single homeless person would be retarded.

This poster gets it.

[casper]

Originally Posted by theman23

I'm well aware. The Liberals will negotiate with the region and obtain concessions about as meaningful as their recent attempt to deal with the influx of international students. One of the country's most important housing market just had its politicians turn their nose towards the Liberal's best attempt at having a housing policy. What,do you think they're going to admit that their Housing Accelerator Fund is a failure? This is the party that still bookends each housing announcement by asking us to please remember what a great job they've done so far.

Fundamentally it is what PP wants to do the only difference is the Liberals are using a carrot vrs the Conservatives using a stick.

The program is a failure in that sense.

I would be happier if the feds were to take direct action. Have CMHC build and own housing. Will it fix the problem globally? No. However it would create some housing (in limited numbers) that benefits the people who live there.

Social housing in Canada is 3% of all housing. If the feds help maintain that level as the overall stock grows so be it.

Trying to bribe municipal elected officials is pointless when their voters are NIMBYs. The province needs to step in a change the rules.

[ssiguy]

The idea of CMHC building all these new homes we need is laughable. It is a gov't organization and hence runs at gov't speed. A recent example of this is in London which wants to build 600 units in a new redevelopment area in the inner city with a mix of low/moderate & standard price housing. It is a combination of many different organizations and were getting $12 million in CMHC funding but apparently they didn't cross the right t and dot the right i and so that funding was withdrawn. The development is going ahead but already completion has been put back at least a year and the organizations are desperately trying to fill the financial gap left by CMHC bureaucracy and praying to the Maker that they will eventually get it.

Also, as Vancouver exemplifies, the city politicians will do everything in their power to thwart such initiatives unless they are stuck in the DTES and can keep their absurd zoning practice of having 80% of the city zoned for SFH. You can now add a suite in the back yard but only if you feel like it as if someone in a $5 million house needs the extra income.

Ottawa playing Mr. Nice Guy hasn't worked and nor will it and it's about time Ottawa starting using blackmail to get the cities in line. Blackmail isn't ideal but when you have tried everything else and the situation has gotten infinitely worse, blackmail is the only thing you have left in your toolbox. Only a gun at their collective heads is going to get housing built and PP wants to wipe out an Uzi and good on him.

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Also, as Vancouver exemplifies, the city politicians will do everything in their power to thwart such initiatives unless they are stuck in the DTES and can keep their absurd zoning practice of having 80% of the city zoned for SFH. You can now add a suite in the back yard but only if you feel like it as if someone in a $5 million house needs the extra income.

Laneway program started in 2009. We're way beyond that now.

I have about over 1000 rental units in central Vancouver's Broadway Plan area (applications started in May, 2023) that will be submitted before X-mas. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't happening.

[GlassCity]

Province of BC announces its long-awaited missing-middle housing legislation.

Media release: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2023PREM0062-001706
Technical briefing: https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/Housing...ov_01_2023.pdf
Program webpage: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/h...g-initiatives#
Actual bill: https://www.leg.bc.ca/parliamentary-...gress-of-bills

Highlights:

• 3 units/lot on lots <280 sq m
• 4 units/lot on lots >280 sq m
• 6 units/lot on lots "close" to "frequent transit" (includes bus)
• No parking requirements for 6-unit projects within 400 metres of "frequent transit"
• Elimination of public hearings on residential/mixed-use rezonings compliant with the Official Community Plan
• Statutory requirement for cities to follow a standard method in calculating housing demand on a 5-year basis, then updating their Official Community Plans and Zoning Bylaws (pre-zoning!) to create the necessary capacity for 20 years of projected growth.

There have been cities in Canada that have done things similar in scale recently, but nothing on the Provincial level. Follows similar measures in New Zealand, California, Washington state, etc. Transformative, whether you feel that's in a positive or negative way. I'm personally ecstatic about this, and while I think it's gonna have some challenges along the way, it'll ultimately not just help deal with the housing crisis but significantly help improve urban planning in our towns and cities.

[casper]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

The idea of CMHC building all these new homes we need is laughable. It is a gov't organization and hence runs at gov't speed. A recent example of this is in London which wants to build 600 units in a new redevelopment area in the inner city with a mix of low/moderate & standard price housing. It is a combination of many different organizations and were getting $12 million in CMHC funding but apparently they didn't cross the right t and dot the right i and so that funding was withdrawn. The development is going ahead but already completion has been put back at least a year and the organizations are desperately trying to fill the financial gap left by CMHC bureaucracy and praying to the Maker that they will eventually get it.

Also, as Vancouver exemplifies, the city politicians will do everything in their power to thwart such initiatives unless they are stuck in the DTES and can keep their absurd zoning practice of having 80% of the city zoned for SFH. You can now add a suite in the back yard but only if you feel like it as if someone in a $5 million house needs the extra income.

Ottawa playing Mr. Nice Guy hasn't worked and nor will it and it's about time Ottawa starting using blackmail to get the cities in line. Blackmail isn't ideal but when you have tried everything else and the situation has gotten infinitely worse, blackmail is the only thing you have left in your toolbox. Only a gun at their collective heads is going to get housing built and PP wants to wipe out an Uzi and good on him.

Vancouver has two great examples of government taking a more active and direct role in housing development. Both down on False Creek.

The older part of False Creek near Granville Island was a CMHC project. Many of those building ended up as co-op housing.

The other is Olympic Village. Built for the Olympics to house athletes then sold off after the Olympics were over.

The government or CMHC would not actually build them. They would pay a construction company to build them for them.

Most Universities in Canada (also government organisations) have no problem building housing if they are given the money to build it.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by casper

Vancouver has two great examples of government taking a more active and direct role in housing development. Both down on False Creek.

The older part of False Creek near Granville Island was a CMHC project. Many of those building ended up as co-op housing.

The other is Olympic Village. Built for the Olympics to house athletes then sold off after the Olympics were over.

The government or CMHC would not actually build them. They would pay a construction company to build them for them.

Most Universities in Canada (also government organisations) have no problem building housing if they are given the money to build it.

The Olympic Village is not a good example of building anything. Millennium, the developer of the 1,100 homes hoped to pre-sell enough to ensure the financial success of the project as well as boosting their profile. (A proportion were reserved for market and non-market rental, as co-ops). The timing couldn't have been worse, as they were selling into the 2008 financial crisis. Any normal development would have seen each building pre-sold, and then the next marketed, but everything had to be finished on time, and be available for the games.

As the project finances were revealed in 2008 it became apparent that Millennium were struggling - although construction continued. They ended up borrowing $630m from Fortress Investment Group, but in 2009 the City of Vancouver had to take over the debt (which required a provincial law, as municipalities technically have to operate without a deficit). They advanced another $100m to get the project completed on time, and in 2010 negotiated the developer into receivership when the mortgages weren't paid.

It took until 2014 to sell the condos, and the commercial property, and Millennium's portfolio of other property that the City picked up in the bankrupcy of the developer. Eventually the City got $70m more than the debt, which was substantially less than the amount Millennium had promised to pay for the land (the City had hung onto ownership until after the games, so had some limited control over the whole debacle).

[casper]

Originally Posted by Changing City

The Olympic Village is not a good example of building anything. Millennium, the developer of the 1,100 homes hoped to pre-sell enough to ensure the financial success of the project as well as boosting their profile. (A proportion were reserved for market and non-market rental, as co-ops). The timing couldn't have been worse, as they were selling into the 2008 financial crisis. Any normal development would have seen each building pre-sold, and then the next marketed, but everything had to be finished on time, and be available for the games.

As the project finances were revealed in 2008 it became apparent that Millennium were struggling - although construction continued. They ended up borrowing $630m from Fortress Investment Group, but in 2009 the City of Vancouver had to take over the debt (which required a provincial law, as municipalities technically have to operate without a deficit). They advanced another $100m to get the project completed on time, and in 2010 negotiated the developer into receivership when the mortgages weren't paid.

It took until 2014 to sell the condos, and the commercial property, and Millennium's portfolio of other property that the City picked up in the bankrupcy of the developer. Eventually the City got $70m more than the debt, which was substantially less than the amount Millennium had promised to pay for the land (the City had hung onto ownership until after the games, so had some limited control over the whole debacle).

From a business perspective it was a disaster.

From the perspective of building housing quickly with a reasonable social housing and co-op housing component it did work. Especially during a period when it was more challenging to get projects off the ground.

Perhaps the city should have held on to some of the building as market rentals.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by casper

From a business perspective it was a disaster.

From the perspective of building housing quickly with a reasonable social housing and co-op housing component it did work. Especially during a period when it was more challenging to get projects off the ground.

Perhaps the city should have held on to some of the building as market rentals.

Pushing through bad project fundamentals solely for the sake of being able to say the government is directly contributing to housing supply is not really a scalable solution.

Government owned and built housing shouldn't necessarily have to be profitable, since in a healthy market it should truly be reserved for those who cannot afford even the most basic accommodations, while also being located in an area where land values are likely higher than whatever the subsidized rental stream would justify on the open market. At the same time this type of housing should make up a tiny portion of the overall stock, and so being unprofitable to provide a social benefit to the lowest decile of the population is a worthy cause. The fact that we are now talking about needing the government to provide affordable units for slightly below average to average income earners is just evidence of how far off the deep end we are.

The government should be using the tools it has at its disposal through the CMHC, tax policies, and obviously immigration, to help bring some semblance of balance to market, not pushing through Olympic village style developments for optics sake.

[WarrenC12]

With OV Vancouver got greedy as they took the highest bid for the land from a developer who got in over their head. Concord also bid for the land and has deep enough pockets to weather the 2008-09 storm and deliver on time. Alas...

[someone123]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

The fact that we are now talking about needing the government to provide affordable units for slightly below average to average income earners is just evidence of how far off the deep end we are.

I don't think it is viable for the government to provide affordable housing to half of the households, so this discussion is likely to be purely hypothetical, but at some point it becomes an absurd tax-and-spend plan where you take money from the middle class wage-earning workhorses of the economy, waste some of it, and then give them less than they would have been able to buy for themselves.

Our tax system puts a low tax burden on many wealthy people and a high tax burden on people earning what are now just middle class salaries that aren't enough to enable them to afford what would have been an average living space in 1980. The seized up housing market and sky-high prices are partly a function of preferentially low taxation on real estate wealth.

In some circles there is a theory that there are super rich people out there who can be taxed to pay for everything. This is probably not true but on top of it not being true our tax system (and government deficits driving inflation etc.) don't generally work to assign that burden fairly anyway.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't think it is viable for the government to provide affordable housing to half of the households, so this discussion is likely to be purely hypothetical, but at some point it just becomes a tax-and-spend policy where you take money from the middle class wage-earning workhorses of the economy, waste some of it, and then give them less than they would have been able to buy for themselves.

Our tax system puts a low tax burden on many wealthy people and a high tax burden on people earning what are now just middle class salaries that aren't enough to enable them to afford what would have been an average living space in 1980.

You are (as often ) hitting the nail on the head with this post, but I would add that it's awfully delicate to try to tax wealth, given how mobile it is nowadays.

I'm one wealth tax introduction attempt away from decamping all my material wealth to greener pastures than Canada, and I'm sure nearly everyone else (including plenty of richer Canadians than me) is like me

(My exit strategy in case a wealth tax is ever on the horizon is to sell off everything I have in Canada that can be converted into condos as condos, which will all go to individuals anyway so unaffected by a wealth tax; the rest is either buildable land or SRO buildings, on the former I'd build buildings and sell them off as condos, the latter I'd convert into condo apartments or raze them to build much bigger buildings, again to be sold as condos­.)

Probably not happening, because I think all politicians from all reasonable parties know wealth taxation is a bad idea.

Ironically, a wealth tax would (in my case) result in densification of my hometown's downtown, so that would be at least a positive effect of it. (Land Value Taxation would accomplish the same thing without the perverse effects, though.)

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

Province of BC announces its long-awaited missing-middle housing legislation.

Media release: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2023PREM0062-001706
Technical briefing: https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/Housing...ov_01_2023.pdf
Program webpage: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/h...g-initiatives#
Actual bill: https://www.leg.bc.ca/parliamentary-...gress-of-bills

Highlights:

• 3 units/lot on lots <280 sq m
• 4 units/lot on lots >280 sq m
• 6 units/lot on lots "close" to "frequent transit" (includes bus)
• No parking requirements for 6-unit projects within 400 metres of "frequent transit"
• Elimination of public hearings on residential/mixed-use rezonings compliant with the Official Community Plan
• Statutory requirement for cities to follow a standard method in calculating housing demand on a 5-year basis, then updating their Official Community Plans and Zoning Bylaws (pre-zoning!) to create the necessary capacity for 20 years of projected growth.

There have been cities in Canada that have done things similar in scale recently, but nothing on the Provincial level. Follows similar measures in New Zealand, California, Washington state, etc. Transformative, whether you feel that's in a positive or negative way. I'm personally ecstatic about this, and while I think it's gonna have some challenges along the way, it'll ultimately not just help deal with the housing crisis but significantly help improve urban planning in our towns and cities.

This is very exciting, and what Doug Ford's housing bill should have been.

I don't think this alone will really solve the housing crisis but it will definitely help, and it will massively improve urban design and development patterns regardless.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

Probably not happening, because I think all politicians from all reasonable parties know wealth taxation is a bad idea.

I don't disagree although I think real estate is a special case. And we have some bad policies like non-means-tested subsidized property tax deferral and limitless primary residents capital gains exemptions. We could talk about "ending the real estate wealth subsidy" rather than raising taxes.

My conclusion from my post is more that providing meaningfully government-subsidized affordable housing as we understand it today to large portions of the population within a reasonable timeframe is folly and if you want average people to do well it has to be by restoring a reasonable property and rental market (and raising productivity).

[Doady]

It was funny looking at the SSP database and seeing that there are 4 high-rise buildings under construction in Brampton. Funny, but not surprising considering that is the same city voted against LRT in their downtown.

Toronto 236
Mississauga 30
Vaughan 22
Markham 12
Oakville 9
Pickering 4
Richmond Hill 4
Brampton 4

[whatnext]

WRT to the thread's new title, it doesn't seem like there's a supply problem in Vancouver according to this:

Housing supply still outpacing demand in Vancouver market as sales increase

[someone123]

When they talk about demand they mean dollars, not how much housing people want/need. Raising rates crushes that demand in dollars as people can borrow less but doesn't make them happier being homeless or living in less space.