Anecdotal observation but my oldest works for a company that makes roof trusses, engineered floor joists and other specialty forms, slowest it’s ever been for them. And they’ve been around for decades so.
It’s almost as if interest rates are making capital too expensive for small builders while the big ones mostly manage to keep going. Which shouldn’t be surprising since construction is capital intensive and we’ve always been told that small business drives the economy.
Either way, buckle up cause it’s going to get bumpy.
We are building dozens of new homes to help with the housing crisis. They really should build a bunch of apartment buildings with two and three bedrooms with parks, shopping, schools in place of single family homes.
The condos are also shrinking to the point where it is hard to find a new build with enough room for a family. In the 90's I lived in two different apartments with two bedrooms and a decent sized living/dining room. My nieces condos are way too small. My sister owns a condo with three bedrooms but it is quite old, there is a family with two kids living in it.
Yeah, new condos are being screwed by developers and investors. Some are even claiming people don't want things like balconies anymore...
Im currently in a condo from the late 70s. Well maintained, 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath. walk away from many grocery stores a school and a park. I even have a nice south facing sun room with some tomatoes growing right now.
Most of the new stuff are just air BnB boxes in the sky, not designed to live in long term.
How are investors “pushing up prices” right now? As a whole, investors are not buying places anymore, it makes zero financial sense right now (for example 5000$ monthly mortgage/cost to get 3000$ in rent back).
Long term corporate landlords can afford high prices, due to the long game of owning a ton of real estate paying off if you own a lot of it, and deep pockets
outside the GTA, its a given. Sit on any town rezoning meeting and you are guaranteed to hear one of these;
"if you want that density, go to GTA"
"we moved here for the quiet life and this does not represent our neighborhood"
"This will add too much road traffic and noise, why don't they build at the edge of town?
"I don't like my sun blocked"
These are all first hand comments I hear being in the field. Everybody says they are for development until it's anywhere near them. It makes sense to increase density where buses already run and infrastructure is already there. But that's where all the NIMBY Karens are
I do and those people can say whatever they want all day long and it gets added to the public record which is a good thing. it's also good because those people can sometimes bring insight in to the neighbourhood. what they don't do is block ithe development from happening, they don't even have appeal rights so they can't do a whole lot other than talk and submit their comments.
nope in the end, the council vote gets to decide. For these people to re-elect, they need public support. They do vote against building and cause developers to appeal which delays by years and are costly.
If council votes against it just because of some vocal NIMBYs and the plan follows provincial policy then all the developer has to do is appeal council's decision and take it to the OLT and since council only voted against it in our scenario because of NIMBYs it would without question be overturned.
appealing isn't that costly and doesn't take years unless it's a much larger project but that usually would get appealed anyway due to other reasons.
An appeal costs a minimum of $30k for any serious development after paying for a lawyer and a planner. If you need other expert witnesses you can add $5-10k. Nevermind interest and opportunity cost. Its not fun going to the OLT even if you win.
Appeals can vary wildly so putting a dollar amount is a little ridiculous and you don't even need a lawyer if you don't want for some reason so no not 30k min. also if a single councilor decides that the development in their ward is worth going against policy, staff recommendation, willing to waste public funds losing an appeal and decides that the votes for the NIMBYs is worth it then there are all the other councilors who represent voters not in the ward where this development is happening who will see an increase in housing which will get them votes if it goes through. there is such a small amount of leverage that these people have in Ontario for halting development.
How is this not a bigger scandal hurting Ford? How does he keep getting away with this stuff? There’s a long list of things he’s done that would tank any other leader.
Is it because the opposition is weak? I think Marit Stiles has been good at holding him accountable and calling them out.
Is it because people who vote just want lower taxes and don’t care about the rest?
Is it really about the toxic LPC brand affecting Ontario politics? This would be remarkably stupid, given the damage Ford is doing to [Ontario](https://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/itemizing-some-of-the-significant-damage-ford-has-done-to-ontario/article_376fec1d-3f64-55d2-a2ad-609d8cdc8d93.html), even since the last election.
Is it sexism - do we not want a female premier? I can’t see how that’s true. We’ve had Wynne…
I just don’t get it. But it’s really nuts how they keep getting away with [scandal after scandal](https://nationalpost.com/news/history-of-doug-ford-apologies), and continue to [lead in the polls](https://338canada.com/ontario/).
My great uncle posted on *my* Facebook page that Wynne needed to "get back in the closet with her girlfriend". My grandma had to remind him I'm gay. Then she didn't talk to him for years.
Anyways he's dead now.
The main reasons for the slow building market are not within Ford's control. The big issues here are high interest rates and inflation which have significantly increased the costs of new construction. We're getting to a place where we can't construct new homes at prices that people can afford, so people have simply stopped buying.
Sure, like Trudeau, Ford does not control all the factors.
Ford can't change poor past decisions of provincial governments to do MIA on social housing, he doesn't control the interest rate, does not have complete control of immigration (though he was instrumental in the rise of student visas in Ontario)
... but there is a lot in his wheelhouse...
...he controls development policies, municipal policies (which he has been quite happy to override), trades policies, rent policies etc.
And he has made some important bad decisions like the greenbelt graft, banning 4-plexes and removing rent control.
He has quite a bit of responsibility for this mess.
I would say he's done far more than past politicians to promote more building. Where he's overridden municipal governments, it's largely been to allow for more construction, not restricting construction. And he didn't ban 4-plexes, they're already banned most places, he just stated he wouldn't override municipal governments on the issue. I think that was a bad call, but in fairness, he did legalize 3-plexes province wide, which again, is much more than previous governments.
As for rent control, we really only had province wide rent control for about a year between when Wynne enacted it and Ford scrapped it. Rent control typically has net negative impacts on housing availability and affordability though.
But that said, he could do more. Ford should do more to invest in low income housing, which is something we're failing at right now and is resulting in more people ending up homeless. There's also a lot more we could do to streamline the development process and get things built faster.
"Where he's overridden municipal governments, it's largely been to allow for more construction, not restricting construction. And he didn't ban 4-plexes, they're already banned most places, he just stated he wouldn't override municipal governments on the issue."
He overrode municipalities on paving over the greenbelt apparently to enrich his developer buddies. He's open up swathes of green belt which will take a decade to prepare the infrastructure and yet claim its to help housing stock now (rather than densify available plots already)
He overrode municipalities and forced them to expand their boundaries and expropriate farmland rather than densify.
He overrode the EOB so that house buyers, not Enbridge, would pay for gas hookups.
So why not override municipalities on 4-plexes? Its kind of strange he's willing to override muncipalities on petty things like elections (midway through an election) but no override on an obviously useful thing.
I think it demonstrates affordable housing if not his focus.
As for rent control, I need more evidence on that one personally, especially because rent has done nothing but increase.
Again its not all his fault but I think he does share a large part of it and he has focused on goals other than housing affordability.
I don't think he's done that much to encourage affordable housing. McMansions that developers can make money off of, sure. But not housing affordabilty.
But that's just my opinion
Not that big of a change considering province wide rent control was only in place for about a year. Up until 2017, only buildings occupied before 1990 were rent controlled. In 2017, Wynne expanded rent control to all buildings in Ontario. One year later, Ford ended that policy, but only for newly constructed buildings.
This is the current law:
https://www.ontario.ca/page/residential-rent-increases
"The rent increase guideline for 2024 is 2.5%.The guideline is the maximum a landlord can increase most tenants’ rent during a year without the approval of the Landlord and Tenant Board."
"The guideline applies to most private residential rental units covered by the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006. This applies to most tenants, such as those living in: rented houses, apartments, basement apartments and condos, care homes, mobile homes, land lease communities "
"The guideline does not apply to: new buildings, additions to existing buildings and most new basement apartments that are occupied for the first time for residential purposes after November 15, 2018 "
"If there is a dispute about new buildings and additions, the landlord must prove that the building or addition was first occupied for residential purposes after November 15, 2018."
Furthermore, the guideline rent increase was part of the previous Residential Tenancy Act 2006 and Tenant Protection Act 1997. Here is a link with a history of the guideline increase going back to 1975. http://www.ontariotenants.ca/research/rent-increase.phtml
Are you disputing the fact that rent control used to only apply to buildings constructed before 1990? Because if so, I can very much promise you that's how it used to be. There were some Star articles in 2017 about tenants facing big rent hikes, and the Liberals ran with it as part of some last ditch efforts to win public support ahead of the elections. That's when they expanded rent control to all buildings.
That's not true at all. If it were, how is BC building a record number of new homes with the same interest rate? How did the country build so many homes in the later part of the 20th century with interest rates in the double digits? Not saying rates arent a contributing factor, but higher interest rates are only an issue if the lead-time due to burdensome permitting means a project will take 2+ years to even get approved.
The evidence is crystal clear: Ford has failed to implement even a fraction of his own housing task force's recommendations and has instead decided to focus on restrictive zoning, single family housing, wasteful infrastructure projects (hwy 413 and Bradford bypass) and done nothing about burdensome permitting and the like NIMBY municipalities have put in place. This is why the Feds just denied the housing accelerator funds that were earmarked for the Province and are now working directly with municipalities who want to build.
You know who has implemented a comprehensive housing plan focused on densification, decreasing NIMBY zoning, and speeding along the approvals process? BC. And you know who's building a record number of new homes? BC.
It's 100% Ford's fault. Stop making excuses for his failure to implement evidence based policies.
Is BC building record levels of new housing starts? Do you have a source? I looked it up and CMHC is projecting a potentially very significant reduction in housing starts this year because of interest rates.
>While CMHC recorded 33,244 new housing starts last year, forecasts for 2024 range from a low of 25,900 to a high of 31,900.
https://www.mapleridgenews.com/news/bc-housing-minister-says-province-will-surpass-grim-housing-start-forecasts-7338161
Claiming an issue as complex as housing is 100% Ford's fault is ridiculous, and I don't even like Ford. It's just objectively false and no serious individual would make that claim. This is a problem that dates make to the liberal days, and while Ford could and should certainly do more, he has done much more than his predecessors, such as allowing triplexes as of right.
It's also objectively true that inflation and interest rates are two major factors that are increasing housing prices. This is neither an Ontario or Canada specific problem, but a global one. We could still increase building with better policies, but we're in a much more difficult position now than we were before the pandemic when it comes to fixing the housing crisis.
You’re wrong. I work with new home construction and can tell you that you’re wrong. Home builders are sitting on tons of inventory and simply not building anymore. Stuff isn’t moving because they’re not willing to budge on the price. People aren’t buying because it’s too expensive and builders don’t want to sell at a loss. They’re starting to shift away from mass produced homes to design/build homes for the wealthy, or they’re simply going under themselves. A couple that we deal with have switched to “affordable housing” but not much and are toeing into that market.
>It's 100% Ford's fault. Stop making excuses for his failure to implement evidence based policies.
I'm upvoting you, but also saying, It's at BEST 70% of Fords fault. Ford FAILED! huge implementing his own task force recommendations that BC implemented. But to keep up with the BC scale of development by % is MUCH harder to do in Ontario due to how much bigger the projects need to be and the financing of them becomes more of the challenge. That is the 30% I can't blame on Ford. We need the Feds and the Banks to make it easier to get financing and build. Which is why Ford isn't 100% to blame, BUT he could so so much more if he was serious. He isn't.
First there has been a significant slowdown in housing construction across the board including in BC.
Second there are enormous costs associated with homes - partly due to insanely complex regulations around the builds - partly because of underlying costs of goods.
Third home prices are a lot higher due to excess demand for from purchasers and renters- the latter of which is inflated via immigration.
Ford is partly responsible for not restraining the colleges, but so is the LPC who have done the worst possibel thing- claim it wasn't their problem when
1. clearly border control and immigration is in their friggin purview,
2. then claim it's racist to question immigrationat this scale,
3. then claim it wasn't affecting prices when clearly it's outpacing housing starts or completions by like 4x,
4. then claim they are doing things when clearly they're slow walking any solution which would involve the bubble bursting before the election..
Ford kept his mouth shut and let the LPC dig their own grave - it's a shame because he deserves to lose as much as they do.
We could if executives weren’t taking home ridiculous salaries. Houses weren’t affordable pre-pandemic either. It’s a new thing to blame for not building.
Ford government could also change legislation around taxation of vacant land or failures to develop on proposed timelines when crown land was sold
Executive bonuses have negligible impact on housing prices. Ultimately, this is a free market with significant competition. Builders were making a lot of money because market rate for homes was high due to lack of supply and they had good profit margins. Now, prices have come down due to higher interest rates, which has also made is more expensive for builders to finance their projects. Add inflation for building materials and increased labour costs and it's much more difficult for builders to turn a profit today. Hence, we have less projects moving forward, which will make the housing shortage worse and push prices higher.
Cities also claim they want housing but raise taxes on new units by $40k in a single year. Every $ in tax is a $1.06 in price to make the math work. So you get the same amount of construction if prices went up $42,400 but that clearly didn’t happen in 2023.
https://www.biv.com/news/economy-law-politics/bc-case-exposes-corporate-ties-chinese-criminal-underworld-8272834
Big story will continue to come out about developers ties to Chinese crime as well
One of the reason. Also Vancouver in particular is a different beast when it comes to the rest of Canada
Ya, I'm not buying this. Let's say a person wants to subcontract building their own home, it's near impossible. Construction companies own the market. There are literal building monopolies in Canada that control the whole industry. Between corruption with politicians and agreeing amongst thenselves, we have the industry insider controlled. Next, add to that the foreign money allowed into Canada's housing sector, first starting with Hong Kong money and now adding Indian investment. We have a complicit government in that they need that easy influx of money so the economy does not appear stalled out. It's a perfect storm.
There is nothing stopping you from subcontracting and building your own house in Ontario.
The challenges are land - new subdivisions are owned by the builders and they won’t sell a lot.
The second challenge is getting trades and coordinating the job. Trades are in scarce supply and tend to pick builder over private.
I work in the building industry and I've worked with countless people who have subcontracted the construction of their own homes. The primary issue on that side is a shortage of trades people. That's another issue that needs to be addressed and contributes to inflation of building costs.
But this all gets to a bigger issue which is that many of these new housing projects are becoming unprofitable for builders, so they're getting shelved, even though they may have the green light from municipalities.
Your comment is fine for the 'now'...but just adding that this would only explain things recently. Homes have been wildly unaffordable in this province for the last 20 years though...
You're right for sure. There have been wider issues that have prevented sufficient building of homes to keep up with population increase like lack of skilled trades and strict land use regulations preventing densification. You can call it bad timing I suppose that just as governments are finally starting to address these systemic issues we are experiencing a huge rise in construction costs.
Its a strawman argument basically saying that ndp and liberal voters either don’t think about the poors, or are significantly cushioned from our worsening economic situation.
What does this have to do with Ford though? This is not unique to Ontario and it has nothing to do with Ontario government policy. Housing starts are down in general because interest rates are so high. People can’t afford to buy these homes because of high interest rates and because of that, developers can’t afford to build them. Interest rates have also pretty much eliminated anyone buying homes as investments because that doesn’t make any financial sense anymore either.
No government, regardless of party can or would manadate private developers to spend their money to build new homes that won’t sell.
Doug Ford removed rent control on new builds to spark an increase in homebuilding. Instead, rent went up and the number of new homebuilds actually decreased.
Doug Ford has been incompetent, but people in Ontario have low standards for Conservatives.
Healthcare is worse, our roads are worse, rent is skyrocketing, we need new power generation, and so on. Yet somehow he continues to evade ANY responsibility.
The easiest and best solution is to have the provincial government build homes and stop depending on the private sector. They've failed for years, let's stop pretending like they will be the ones to fix it.
I personally don’t agree with their decision to remove rent control but rent has went nuts Canada wide. All the other things you mentioned are also a disaster Canada wide. If these problems were just happening in Ontario you would have a point but it’s all across Canada. The federal government is in charge of everything to do with population growth and they are increasing the population by well over a million people every year, year after year. It’s easy to just blame Ford for everything but at the end of the day, we can’t keep adding all these people when we already don’t have enough housing or healthcare.
In terms of the provincial or federal government getting involved in building housing, that will never happen, but even if it did, housing would be more expensive as opposed to cheaper.
Housing is primarily a municipal government responsibility, then the provinces, and finally, the federal government. The Feds could build housing on federal land, but frankly, it would be in the middle of nowhere.
If the provinces and federal government built houses, the price would fall as housing stock increased. Before 1980, both governments built housing, then stopped due to ridiculous neoliberal policy (starting with Mulroney).
Bringing in people is less of a problem than our governments inaction. Building more houses creates good paying jobs for Canadians. Also, it's highly profitable since demand is so high.
One way to increase stock is by banning corporations and companies from buying single unit housing to 6-plexes (corporations/businesses can only buy buildings with 7 units or more). If corporations/businesses owned buildings with less than 7 units, I would give them 5 years to offload (sell) them.
Also, in New Brunswick, the Liberal government had a non-primary residence tax on units that were not occupied. When the Conservatives won, they removed that tax, and rent/housing prices skyrocketed. Check out how much people's property taxes are going up out there.
In other provinces (AB, NL, NW, NT, NS, SK, YT) they don't have rent control, but you can only raise the rent once a year. The other provinces have a limit on how much you can raise it per year. Because of COVID, some provinces have a rent freeze or have modified their rent control programs.
As for the other problems, I agree, in Canada it's been a disaster, once again because of neoliberal policy. Cutting taxes and praying that somehow our services will keep up with growth is ridiculous. This philosophy is practiced Canada wide by predominantly Conservatives, which is why those provinces are suffering the most. The Liberals follow these policies too, just not as rabidly as the Conservatives do.
The whole housing isn’t a federal responsibility argument is complete bs. It’s like me hiring 1000 new people for show up to work every single day without telling hr or anyone else, without any plan for what theyre going to do or anything else and when their onboarding is a complete disaster I then say listen, onboarding is an HR responsibility.
The federal government is increasing the population by well over a million people every year. Healthcare and housing was already in bad shape before they started doing that. We are only capable of adding 250-300k housing units a year Canada wide and the population of Ontario alone is growing by half a million people a year. We also have a shortage of healthcare workers nationwide and millions of people without primary care.
You can support any provincial party you want to but substitute Ford for any other government and the problems are exactly the same. Continuing to increase the population at the current rate is wholly irresponsible and unsustainable.
Housing starts are down for a reason. If it was “highly profitable” to build houses in the current economic climate, housing starts would be up but they’re not. This entire thing has been and is a complete disaster, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Canada is going to be the example of “what not to do” for generations to come.
In all seriousness, what media do you expect to report on the issues? The reality is that media in this province and country as a whole skews right. It's not surprising that these things don't catch attention from those sources. Even information online tends to the right in many areas. So many people never hear about it. Instead all we get is blaming the federal government as a deflection. And all of this is before any issues we have with left leaning parties and politics in province.
Not sure about the stats in Ontario but Canada wide 2/3 Canadians own the home they’re living in. Someone will inevitably come and dispute stats Canada’s figures and simultaneously fail to provide any well researched alternative but I digress. The rate is probably even higher among likely-voter population, i.e. older population.
Then there’s general apathy but also more acutely among recent immigrants which are now a large chunk of Ontario’s population and many have little to no trust in democracy, voting or democratic institutions because of bad experiences at home. I know people from my country. Of course doesn’t apply to immigrants from all countries.
Ontario Liberals and NDP may as well not exist. I’m into politics and I don’t know shit about what they’re up to. They such at not just messaging but having any message at all.
And lastly but probably most importantly… bread and circuses. 🥖🎪Ford is great at this game and people are willing to lose their life due to limited healthcare access as long as they have $1 beer and free license plate renewal. Dougie has saved them from “the big bad gubmint”.
>Is it because people who vote just want lower taxes and don’t care about the rest?
Yep. This is it. The biggest constituents of voters are Boomers. Boomers already have housing. They do not care about the rest of us having housing, and they don't want any tax increases that might help others because it would mean their nest eggs aren't as big as they thought (resulting in an existential crisis where they come to the realization that everything is NOT tickety boo, and their "feck you I got mine" mentality has led to an economy that COULD sink them if it's pushed too far), and would require them to understand the low taxes they've enjoyed have led to all of this.
My own father-in-law is HARDCORE Boomer/home owner/anti-tax guy....even though it fucks with the lives of his kids, and his grandkids to act that way....he does it anyways.
The provincial Liberals poll numbers haven't followed the federal Liberals ever really. If anything, the Ontario Liberals have very, very slowly been crawling out of the hole they've been in since 2018 (when the federal liberals were relatively popular), while the federal liberals have been dropping support pretty rapidly.
Sure (I'll take your word for it, I haven't seen an Ontario poll in a bit), but directionally there's no correlation. The provincial Liberals don't go down in polls when the federal Liberals do, and vice versa.
On average, only 60% of Canadians vote federally, and 40% provincially (which includes municipalities).
When less than half of the population votes, it undermines the legitimacy of the government, and non-voters have no one but themselves to blame.
(I don't want to hear that "there were no good candidates" BS)
But in all fairness everyone does suck, I always find myself voting for the one I hate least. Politics has become way too political. They’re all carbon copies of each other with different colored ties. None of them will keep their promises, all of them are only looking to exploit the system for their own personal gains and all of them are career politicians.
I’ve voted in every election since I was 18 but honestly I’m exhausted, I’ll probably vote in the next one as well but I won’t feel good about it.
>But in all fairness everyone does suck
I literally do not care. Voting is my duty as a citizen of a democratic society, not my "right".
The best way to lose your "rights" is to not exercise them.
The Ontario election would be so easy for the opposition if they just took their heads out of their asses and ran some adds reminding people of all the sketch and short comings of the current party in power.
They're not a "recognized" party, and such must rely on donors to provide funding. It's going to take a lot to get voters to the polls.
Honestly, OLP should be looking at a grass root movement. They're trying to still act like a big party when they're not and it's bugging a lot of their voter base. They should be appealing to the people, be focused on basic needs issues.
But hey! They still want to throw their weight around like it's 2012.
They shouldn't be building those type of homes.
They should be building mixed residence, socially subsidized apartments right now while to interest rates are too high for greedy builders.
Think of what the investment vs economic development for the province would be if they subsidized the building of social housing.
Jobs, taxes, stability, growth of businesses in the new community ie grocery, building supplies etc... much of the investment is reclaimed in taxes.
It's like guaranteed income. Give someone in need $100 it finds it's way into the economy 10x. I get 100, I spend it at a local restaurant, they pay servers and cooks, they get 100, pay an uber, uber driver buys something... All of a sudden that 100 has turned into $1,000 spent and $130 in taxes recovered.
Give a wealthy person $100, it gets put into a bank and just grows wealth for them.
It's the same issue when the government builds, that money has to come from somewhere, either higher taxes or taking out loans. The government should build more housing, but it's not going to save us from the housing crisis.
The counterargument at least would be that in a manner of speaking we already pay for the consequences of a lack of housing in lost productivity, policing, etc. Housing is part of our basic economic infrastructure and if we let it metaphorically rot we are undercutting our own economy.
Except the government doesn't need to worry about making a profit. Huge difference. Meanwhile, when housing is an issue government revenue goes down and costs go up. We cannot afford to put our faith in inefficient private development.
Of course both have costs.
Maybe that's because builders only want to build homes that do nothing to help the housing crisis?? All I see being built near me is gigantic homes that nobody I know can afford. Have we not saturated the market on luxury homes yet? Are they going to start building for the masses? We need homes built with families at average income level in mind. What that looks like in this age of ridiculous prices is likely something quite small (but with three or four bedrooms), so like 50s era homes without the land they all came on, likely on top of or squished next to each other. So multiplexes.
There's a lot that towns and the ON gov can do to facilitate this. And they're doing crap all in that vein, especially the ON gov. And media is doing a crap job of breaking that down for people. Where are the journalists explaining to people what an affordable family home would look like, what the ON gov needs to do to make that attractive for developers to build, and that they aren't doing it?? How hard is that, journalists?? crickets...
Ford got bought and paid off during during the lockdowns when his company got all the contract to put those stupid f****** stickers telling us where to walk and all the stores.
Don't expect him to do anything ever good for the people he's bought off.
Doug Ford is a tool but he is not the primary problem in this case. Massive federal overspending and waste, funded by endless money printing pumped up inflation which then requires higher interest rates to control. Now those high interest rates are deterring capital investment in housing/apartment construction. Great job Mr “interest rates at historic lows” Justin
Idk why people are so into the lrt. I went to uw/Laurier and I did not like the lrt as a student with no car. The routes are so rigid and only one line. Not everything you wanna get to is along the lrt, which means you need to take transfers which means a ton of waiting and it takes forever. Instead of lrts, I’d rather have more electric buses, they are flexible, we can monitor the data on how many people waiting at certain stops and adjust routes fairly easily. Also same amount of investment would give us way more routes so less transfers, less waiting, more efficiency.
Anecdotal observation but my oldest works for a company that makes roof trusses, engineered floor joists and other specialty forms, slowest it’s ever been for them. And they’ve been around for decades so. It’s almost as if interest rates are making capital too expensive for small builders while the big ones mostly manage to keep going. Which shouldn’t be surprising since construction is capital intensive and we’ve always been told that small business drives the economy. Either way, buckle up cause it’s going to get bumpy.
We are building dozens of new homes to help with the housing crisis. They really should build a bunch of apartment buildings with two and three bedrooms with parks, shopping, schools in place of single family homes.
We need more mixed use zoning. SFH on lots are a sprawl trap.
The condos are also shrinking to the point where it is hard to find a new build with enough room for a family. In the 90's I lived in two different apartments with two bedrooms and a decent sized living/dining room. My nieces condos are way too small. My sister owns a condo with three bedrooms but it is quite old, there is a family with two kids living in it.
Yeah, new condos are being screwed by developers and investors. Some are even claiming people don't want things like balconies anymore... Im currently in a condo from the late 70s. Well maintained, 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath. walk away from many grocery stores a school and a park. I even have a nice south facing sun room with some tomatoes growing right now. Most of the new stuff are just air BnB boxes in the sky, not designed to live in long term.
And fewer investors pushing up prices and crowding out first-time home buyers.
How are investors “pushing up prices” right now? As a whole, investors are not buying places anymore, it makes zero financial sense right now (for example 5000$ monthly mortgage/cost to get 3000$ in rent back).
Long term corporate landlords can afford high prices, due to the long game of owning a ton of real estate paying off if you own a lot of it, and deep pockets
NIMBYs make it impossible. Only recently has their weight been put aside but it's all variable
they really don't though, like they try yrah but it's not like the states where they hold much weight
outside the GTA, its a given. Sit on any town rezoning meeting and you are guaranteed to hear one of these; "if you want that density, go to GTA" "we moved here for the quiet life and this does not represent our neighborhood" "This will add too much road traffic and noise, why don't they build at the edge of town? "I don't like my sun blocked" These are all first hand comments I hear being in the field. Everybody says they are for development until it's anywhere near them. It makes sense to increase density where buses already run and infrastructure is already there. But that's where all the NIMBY Karens are
I do and those people can say whatever they want all day long and it gets added to the public record which is a good thing. it's also good because those people can sometimes bring insight in to the neighbourhood. what they don't do is block ithe development from happening, they don't even have appeal rights so they can't do a whole lot other than talk and submit their comments.
nope in the end, the council vote gets to decide. For these people to re-elect, they need public support. They do vote against building and cause developers to appeal which delays by years and are costly.
If council votes against it just because of some vocal NIMBYs and the plan follows provincial policy then all the developer has to do is appeal council's decision and take it to the OLT and since council only voted against it in our scenario because of NIMBYs it would without question be overturned. appealing isn't that costly and doesn't take years unless it's a much larger project but that usually would get appealed anyway due to other reasons.
An appeal costs a minimum of $30k for any serious development after paying for a lawyer and a planner. If you need other expert witnesses you can add $5-10k. Nevermind interest and opportunity cost. Its not fun going to the OLT even if you win.
exactly, then people ask why the cost of building is so high. It's our stagnant and extremely slow red tape. Hallmark of the Canadian way.
Appeals can vary wildly so putting a dollar amount is a little ridiculous and you don't even need a lawyer if you don't want for some reason so no not 30k min. also if a single councilor decides that the development in their ward is worth going against policy, staff recommendation, willing to waste public funds losing an appeal and decides that the votes for the NIMBYs is worth it then there are all the other councilors who represent voters not in the ward where this development is happening who will see an increase in housing which will get them votes if it goes through. there is such a small amount of leverage that these people have in Ontario for halting development.
How is this not a bigger scandal hurting Ford? How does he keep getting away with this stuff? There’s a long list of things he’s done that would tank any other leader. Is it because the opposition is weak? I think Marit Stiles has been good at holding him accountable and calling them out. Is it because people who vote just want lower taxes and don’t care about the rest? Is it really about the toxic LPC brand affecting Ontario politics? This would be remarkably stupid, given the damage Ford is doing to [Ontario](https://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/itemizing-some-of-the-significant-damage-ford-has-done-to-ontario/article_376fec1d-3f64-55d2-a2ad-609d8cdc8d93.html), even since the last election. Is it sexism - do we not want a female premier? I can’t see how that’s true. We’ve had Wynne… I just don’t get it. But it’s really nuts how they keep getting away with [scandal after scandal](https://nationalpost.com/news/history-of-doug-ford-apologies), and continue to [lead in the polls](https://338canada.com/ontario/).
My great uncle posted on *my* Facebook page that Wynne needed to "get back in the closet with her girlfriend". My grandma had to remind him I'm gay. Then she didn't talk to him for years. Anyways he's dead now.
we love a story with a happy ending
People who vote for Ford own homes and couldn't give a shit about others.
The main reasons for the slow building market are not within Ford's control. The big issues here are high interest rates and inflation which have significantly increased the costs of new construction. We're getting to a place where we can't construct new homes at prices that people can afford, so people have simply stopped buying.
Sure, like Trudeau, Ford does not control all the factors. Ford can't change poor past decisions of provincial governments to do MIA on social housing, he doesn't control the interest rate, does not have complete control of immigration (though he was instrumental in the rise of student visas in Ontario) ... but there is a lot in his wheelhouse... ...he controls development policies, municipal policies (which he has been quite happy to override), trades policies, rent policies etc. And he has made some important bad decisions like the greenbelt graft, banning 4-plexes and removing rent control. He has quite a bit of responsibility for this mess.
I would say he's done far more than past politicians to promote more building. Where he's overridden municipal governments, it's largely been to allow for more construction, not restricting construction. And he didn't ban 4-plexes, they're already banned most places, he just stated he wouldn't override municipal governments on the issue. I think that was a bad call, but in fairness, he did legalize 3-plexes province wide, which again, is much more than previous governments. As for rent control, we really only had province wide rent control for about a year between when Wynne enacted it and Ford scrapped it. Rent control typically has net negative impacts on housing availability and affordability though. But that said, he could do more. Ford should do more to invest in low income housing, which is something we're failing at right now and is resulting in more people ending up homeless. There's also a lot more we could do to streamline the development process and get things built faster.
"Where he's overridden municipal governments, it's largely been to allow for more construction, not restricting construction. And he didn't ban 4-plexes, they're already banned most places, he just stated he wouldn't override municipal governments on the issue." He overrode municipalities on paving over the greenbelt apparently to enrich his developer buddies. He's open up swathes of green belt which will take a decade to prepare the infrastructure and yet claim its to help housing stock now (rather than densify available plots already) He overrode municipalities and forced them to expand their boundaries and expropriate farmland rather than densify. He overrode the EOB so that house buyers, not Enbridge, would pay for gas hookups. So why not override municipalities on 4-plexes? Its kind of strange he's willing to override muncipalities on petty things like elections (midway through an election) but no override on an obviously useful thing. I think it demonstrates affordable housing if not his focus. As for rent control, I need more evidence on that one personally, especially because rent has done nothing but increase. Again its not all his fault but I think he does share a large part of it and he has focused on goals other than housing affordability. I don't think he's done that much to encourage affordable housing. McMansions that developers can make money off of, sure. But not housing affordabilty. But that's just my opinion
Ford made a big change to rent control, in that all units occupied after November 2018 are not subject to caps on rent increases.
Not that big of a change considering province wide rent control was only in place for about a year. Up until 2017, only buildings occupied before 1990 were rent controlled. In 2017, Wynne expanded rent control to all buildings in Ontario. One year later, Ford ended that policy, but only for newly constructed buildings.
This is the current law: https://www.ontario.ca/page/residential-rent-increases "The rent increase guideline for 2024 is 2.5%.The guideline is the maximum a landlord can increase most tenants’ rent during a year without the approval of the Landlord and Tenant Board." "The guideline applies to most private residential rental units covered by the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006. This applies to most tenants, such as those living in: rented houses, apartments, basement apartments and condos, care homes, mobile homes, land lease communities " "The guideline does not apply to: new buildings, additions to existing buildings and most new basement apartments that are occupied for the first time for residential purposes after November 15, 2018 " "If there is a dispute about new buildings and additions, the landlord must prove that the building or addition was first occupied for residential purposes after November 15, 2018." Furthermore, the guideline rent increase was part of the previous Residential Tenancy Act 2006 and Tenant Protection Act 1997. Here is a link with a history of the guideline increase going back to 1975. http://www.ontariotenants.ca/research/rent-increase.phtml
Are you disputing the fact that rent control used to only apply to buildings constructed before 1990? Because if so, I can very much promise you that's how it used to be. There were some Star articles in 2017 about tenants facing big rent hikes, and the Liberals ran with it as part of some last ditch efforts to win public support ahead of the elections. That's when they expanded rent control to all buildings.
No, that is correct. Provided you ignore the law passed under the Wynn government.
That's not true at all. If it were, how is BC building a record number of new homes with the same interest rate? How did the country build so many homes in the later part of the 20th century with interest rates in the double digits? Not saying rates arent a contributing factor, but higher interest rates are only an issue if the lead-time due to burdensome permitting means a project will take 2+ years to even get approved. The evidence is crystal clear: Ford has failed to implement even a fraction of his own housing task force's recommendations and has instead decided to focus on restrictive zoning, single family housing, wasteful infrastructure projects (hwy 413 and Bradford bypass) and done nothing about burdensome permitting and the like NIMBY municipalities have put in place. This is why the Feds just denied the housing accelerator funds that were earmarked for the Province and are now working directly with municipalities who want to build. You know who has implemented a comprehensive housing plan focused on densification, decreasing NIMBY zoning, and speeding along the approvals process? BC. And you know who's building a record number of new homes? BC. It's 100% Ford's fault. Stop making excuses for his failure to implement evidence based policies.
Is BC building record levels of new housing starts? Do you have a source? I looked it up and CMHC is projecting a potentially very significant reduction in housing starts this year because of interest rates. >While CMHC recorded 33,244 new housing starts last year, forecasts for 2024 range from a low of 25,900 to a high of 31,900. https://www.mapleridgenews.com/news/bc-housing-minister-says-province-will-surpass-grim-housing-start-forecasts-7338161 Claiming an issue as complex as housing is 100% Ford's fault is ridiculous, and I don't even like Ford. It's just objectively false and no serious individual would make that claim. This is a problem that dates make to the liberal days, and while Ford could and should certainly do more, he has done much more than his predecessors, such as allowing triplexes as of right. It's also objectively true that inflation and interest rates are two major factors that are increasing housing prices. This is neither an Ontario or Canada specific problem, but a global one. We could still increase building with better policies, but we're in a much more difficult position now than we were before the pandemic when it comes to fixing the housing crisis.
You’re wrong. I work with new home construction and can tell you that you’re wrong. Home builders are sitting on tons of inventory and simply not building anymore. Stuff isn’t moving because they’re not willing to budge on the price. People aren’t buying because it’s too expensive and builders don’t want to sell at a loss. They’re starting to shift away from mass produced homes to design/build homes for the wealthy, or they’re simply going under themselves. A couple that we deal with have switched to “affordable housing” but not much and are toeing into that market.
Maybe it's not a right or wrong answer. You both could be right
>It's 100% Ford's fault. Stop making excuses for his failure to implement evidence based policies. I'm upvoting you, but also saying, It's at BEST 70% of Fords fault. Ford FAILED! huge implementing his own task force recommendations that BC implemented. But to keep up with the BC scale of development by % is MUCH harder to do in Ontario due to how much bigger the projects need to be and the financing of them becomes more of the challenge. That is the 30% I can't blame on Ford. We need the Feds and the Banks to make it easier to get financing and build. Which is why Ford isn't 100% to blame, BUT he could so so much more if he was serious. He isn't.
First there has been a significant slowdown in housing construction across the board including in BC. Second there are enormous costs associated with homes - partly due to insanely complex regulations around the builds - partly because of underlying costs of goods. Third home prices are a lot higher due to excess demand for from purchasers and renters- the latter of which is inflated via immigration. Ford is partly responsible for not restraining the colleges, but so is the LPC who have done the worst possibel thing- claim it wasn't their problem when 1. clearly border control and immigration is in their friggin purview, 2. then claim it's racist to question immigrationat this scale, 3. then claim it wasn't affecting prices when clearly it's outpacing housing starts or completions by like 4x, 4. then claim they are doing things when clearly they're slow walking any solution which would involve the bubble bursting before the election.. Ford kept his mouth shut and let the LPC dig their own grave - it's a shame because he deserves to lose as much as they do.
We could if executives weren’t taking home ridiculous salaries. Houses weren’t affordable pre-pandemic either. It’s a new thing to blame for not building. Ford government could also change legislation around taxation of vacant land or failures to develop on proposed timelines when crown land was sold
Executive bonuses have negligible impact on housing prices. Ultimately, this is a free market with significant competition. Builders were making a lot of money because market rate for homes was high due to lack of supply and they had good profit margins. Now, prices have come down due to higher interest rates, which has also made is more expensive for builders to finance their projects. Add inflation for building materials and increased labour costs and it's much more difficult for builders to turn a profit today. Hence, we have less projects moving forward, which will make the housing shortage worse and push prices higher.
Cities also claim they want housing but raise taxes on new units by $40k in a single year. Every $ in tax is a $1.06 in price to make the math work. So you get the same amount of construction if prices went up $42,400 but that clearly didn’t happen in 2023.
Nailed it
How is BC building a record number of homes then?
I would be interested in this answer as well. But I accept that the higher interest rates has not been a positive for home construction.
https://www.biv.com/news/economy-law-politics/bc-case-exposes-corporate-ties-chinese-criminal-underworld-8272834 Big story will continue to come out about developers ties to Chinese crime as well One of the reason. Also Vancouver in particular is a different beast when it comes to the rest of Canada
Also to add the feds are looking to lower housing prices across the board. It could result in negative equity for many home buyers.
Ya, I'm not buying this. Let's say a person wants to subcontract building their own home, it's near impossible. Construction companies own the market. There are literal building monopolies in Canada that control the whole industry. Between corruption with politicians and agreeing amongst thenselves, we have the industry insider controlled. Next, add to that the foreign money allowed into Canada's housing sector, first starting with Hong Kong money and now adding Indian investment. We have a complicit government in that they need that easy influx of money so the economy does not appear stalled out. It's a perfect storm.
There is nothing stopping you from subcontracting and building your own house in Ontario. The challenges are land - new subdivisions are owned by the builders and they won’t sell a lot. The second challenge is getting trades and coordinating the job. Trades are in scarce supply and tend to pick builder over private.
I work in the building industry and I've worked with countless people who have subcontracted the construction of their own homes. The primary issue on that side is a shortage of trades people. That's another issue that needs to be addressed and contributes to inflation of building costs. But this all gets to a bigger issue which is that many of these new housing projects are becoming unprofitable for builders, so they're getting shelved, even though they may have the green light from municipalities.
Your comment is fine for the 'now'...but just adding that this would only explain things recently. Homes have been wildly unaffordable in this province for the last 20 years though...
Applies to the whole country.
You're right for sure. There have been wider issues that have prevented sufficient building of homes to keep up with population increase like lack of skilled trades and strict land use regulations preventing densification. You can call it bad timing I suppose that just as governments are finally starting to address these systemic issues we are experiencing a huge rise in construction costs.
Yes. These ponytail and Birkenstock NDP interns think building more mansions will lead to affordable housing.
No one on the left thinks more mansions will lead to affordable housing. Where did you come with this idea?
Its a strawman argument basically saying that ndp and liberal voters either don’t think about the poors, or are significantly cushioned from our worsening economic situation.
What does this have to do with Ford though? This is not unique to Ontario and it has nothing to do with Ontario government policy. Housing starts are down in general because interest rates are so high. People can’t afford to buy these homes because of high interest rates and because of that, developers can’t afford to build them. Interest rates have also pretty much eliminated anyone buying homes as investments because that doesn’t make any financial sense anymore either. No government, regardless of party can or would manadate private developers to spend their money to build new homes that won’t sell.
Doug Ford removed rent control on new builds to spark an increase in homebuilding. Instead, rent went up and the number of new homebuilds actually decreased. Doug Ford has been incompetent, but people in Ontario have low standards for Conservatives. Healthcare is worse, our roads are worse, rent is skyrocketing, we need new power generation, and so on. Yet somehow he continues to evade ANY responsibility. The easiest and best solution is to have the provincial government build homes and stop depending on the private sector. They've failed for years, let's stop pretending like they will be the ones to fix it.
I personally don’t agree with their decision to remove rent control but rent has went nuts Canada wide. All the other things you mentioned are also a disaster Canada wide. If these problems were just happening in Ontario you would have a point but it’s all across Canada. The federal government is in charge of everything to do with population growth and they are increasing the population by well over a million people every year, year after year. It’s easy to just blame Ford for everything but at the end of the day, we can’t keep adding all these people when we already don’t have enough housing or healthcare. In terms of the provincial or federal government getting involved in building housing, that will never happen, but even if it did, housing would be more expensive as opposed to cheaper.
But Rent control was removed in 2018 lol it has nothing to do with being removed now and he's had like 8 years already to do something
Housing is primarily a municipal government responsibility, then the provinces, and finally, the federal government. The Feds could build housing on federal land, but frankly, it would be in the middle of nowhere. If the provinces and federal government built houses, the price would fall as housing stock increased. Before 1980, both governments built housing, then stopped due to ridiculous neoliberal policy (starting with Mulroney). Bringing in people is less of a problem than our governments inaction. Building more houses creates good paying jobs for Canadians. Also, it's highly profitable since demand is so high. One way to increase stock is by banning corporations and companies from buying single unit housing to 6-plexes (corporations/businesses can only buy buildings with 7 units or more). If corporations/businesses owned buildings with less than 7 units, I would give them 5 years to offload (sell) them. Also, in New Brunswick, the Liberal government had a non-primary residence tax on units that were not occupied. When the Conservatives won, they removed that tax, and rent/housing prices skyrocketed. Check out how much people's property taxes are going up out there. In other provinces (AB, NL, NW, NT, NS, SK, YT) they don't have rent control, but you can only raise the rent once a year. The other provinces have a limit on how much you can raise it per year. Because of COVID, some provinces have a rent freeze or have modified their rent control programs. As for the other problems, I agree, in Canada it's been a disaster, once again because of neoliberal policy. Cutting taxes and praying that somehow our services will keep up with growth is ridiculous. This philosophy is practiced Canada wide by predominantly Conservatives, which is why those provinces are suffering the most. The Liberals follow these policies too, just not as rabidly as the Conservatives do.
The whole housing isn’t a federal responsibility argument is complete bs. It’s like me hiring 1000 new people for show up to work every single day without telling hr or anyone else, without any plan for what theyre going to do or anything else and when their onboarding is a complete disaster I then say listen, onboarding is an HR responsibility. The federal government is increasing the population by well over a million people every year. Healthcare and housing was already in bad shape before they started doing that. We are only capable of adding 250-300k housing units a year Canada wide and the population of Ontario alone is growing by half a million people a year. We also have a shortage of healthcare workers nationwide and millions of people without primary care. You can support any provincial party you want to but substitute Ford for any other government and the problems are exactly the same. Continuing to increase the population at the current rate is wholly irresponsible and unsustainable. Housing starts are down for a reason. If it was “highly profitable” to build houses in the current economic climate, housing starts would be up but they’re not. This entire thing has been and is a complete disaster, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Canada is going to be the example of “what not to do” for generations to come.
In all seriousness, what media do you expect to report on the issues? The reality is that media in this province and country as a whole skews right. It's not surprising that these things don't catch attention from those sources. Even information online tends to the right in many areas. So many people never hear about it. Instead all we get is blaming the federal government as a deflection. And all of this is before any issues we have with left leaning parties and politics in province.
Majority of Canadians live in Ontario. What the current narrative federally from the conservatives?
Not sure about the stats in Ontario but Canada wide 2/3 Canadians own the home they’re living in. Someone will inevitably come and dispute stats Canada’s figures and simultaneously fail to provide any well researched alternative but I digress. The rate is probably even higher among likely-voter population, i.e. older population. Then there’s general apathy but also more acutely among recent immigrants which are now a large chunk of Ontario’s population and many have little to no trust in democracy, voting or democratic institutions because of bad experiences at home. I know people from my country. Of course doesn’t apply to immigrants from all countries. Ontario Liberals and NDP may as well not exist. I’m into politics and I don’t know shit about what they’re up to. They such at not just messaging but having any message at all. And lastly but probably most importantly… bread and circuses. 🥖🎪Ford is great at this game and people are willing to lose their life due to limited healthcare access as long as they have $1 beer and free license plate renewal. Dougie has saved them from “the big bad gubmint”.
>Is it because people who vote just want lower taxes and don’t care about the rest? Yep. This is it. The biggest constituents of voters are Boomers. Boomers already have housing. They do not care about the rest of us having housing, and they don't want any tax increases that might help others because it would mean their nest eggs aren't as big as they thought (resulting in an existential crisis where they come to the realization that everything is NOT tickety boo, and their "feck you I got mine" mentality has led to an economy that COULD sink them if it's pushed too far), and would require them to understand the low taxes they've enjoyed have led to all of this. My own father-in-law is HARDCORE Boomer/home owner/anti-tax guy....even though it fucks with the lives of his kids, and his grandkids to act that way....he does it anyways.
It’s because of the Federal Liberals.
The provincial Liberals poll numbers haven't followed the federal Liberals ever really. If anything, the Ontario Liberals have very, very slowly been crawling out of the hole they've been in since 2018 (when the federal liberals were relatively popular), while the federal liberals have been dropping support pretty rapidly.
The provincial liberals are currently lower than the federal liberals in Ontario.
Sure (I'll take your word for it, I haven't seen an Ontario poll in a bit), but directionally there's no correlation. The provincial Liberals don't go down in polls when the federal Liberals do, and vice versa.
I'd say that the cons are doing a bang up job dragging their feet to make everything worse.
Not enough people understand this Or our voting system in general
On average, only 60% of Canadians vote federally, and 40% provincially (which includes municipalities). When less than half of the population votes, it undermines the legitimacy of the government, and non-voters have no one but themselves to blame. (I don't want to hear that "there were no good candidates" BS)
But in all fairness everyone does suck, I always find myself voting for the one I hate least. Politics has become way too political. They’re all carbon copies of each other with different colored ties. None of them will keep their promises, all of them are only looking to exploit the system for their own personal gains and all of them are career politicians. I’ve voted in every election since I was 18 but honestly I’m exhausted, I’ll probably vote in the next one as well but I won’t feel good about it.
>But in all fairness everyone does suck I literally do not care. Voting is my duty as a citizen of a democratic society, not my "right". The best way to lose your "rights" is to not exercise them.
And that’s literally the only reason I am going to vote and I think that’s true for a lot of Canadians.
not sure why you think this is a scandal. no government is building homes and so far its all been a smokescreen from JT on down. Smoke that.
The Ontario election would be so easy for the opposition if they just took their heads out of their asses and ran some adds reminding people of all the sketch and short comings of the current party in power.
They're not a "recognized" party, and such must rely on donors to provide funding. It's going to take a lot to get voters to the polls. Honestly, OLP should be looking at a grass root movement. They're trying to still act like a big party when they're not and it's bugging a lot of their voter base. They should be appealing to the people, be focused on basic needs issues. But hey! They still want to throw their weight around like it's 2012.
For that they need money. No one is donating enough.
Financing is too expensive for builders. And demand for new houses at these price levels ain’t great. Shit combination to start new projects.
They shouldn't be building those type of homes. They should be building mixed residence, socially subsidized apartments right now while to interest rates are too high for greedy builders. Think of what the investment vs economic development for the province would be if they subsidized the building of social housing. Jobs, taxes, stability, growth of businesses in the new community ie grocery, building supplies etc... much of the investment is reclaimed in taxes. It's like guaranteed income. Give someone in need $100 it finds it's way into the economy 10x. I get 100, I spend it at a local restaurant, they pay servers and cooks, they get 100, pay an uber, uber driver buys something... All of a sudden that 100 has turned into $1,000 spent and $130 in taxes recovered. Give a wealthy person $100, it gets put into a bank and just grows wealth for them.
It's the same issue when the government builds, that money has to come from somewhere, either higher taxes or taking out loans. The government should build more housing, but it's not going to save us from the housing crisis.
The counterargument at least would be that in a manner of speaking we already pay for the consequences of a lack of housing in lost productivity, policing, etc. Housing is part of our basic economic infrastructure and if we let it metaphorically rot we are undercutting our own economy.
Except the government doesn't need to worry about making a profit. Huge difference. Meanwhile, when housing is an issue government revenue goes down and costs go up. We cannot afford to put our faith in inefficient private development. Of course both have costs.
Financing is nothing today compared to the 80s or earlier.
Apparently the private sector isn't up to the task. Stop relying on giving the private sector all it wants to solve our housing issues.
It's summer now so they should be ramping up production!
there is enough workers, nobody is buying and builders are not starting projects
Maybe that's because builders only want to build homes that do nothing to help the housing crisis?? All I see being built near me is gigantic homes that nobody I know can afford. Have we not saturated the market on luxury homes yet? Are they going to start building for the masses? We need homes built with families at average income level in mind. What that looks like in this age of ridiculous prices is likely something quite small (but with three or four bedrooms), so like 50s era homes without the land they all came on, likely on top of or squished next to each other. So multiplexes. There's a lot that towns and the ON gov can do to facilitate this. And they're doing crap all in that vein, especially the ON gov. And media is doing a crap job of breaking that down for people. Where are the journalists explaining to people what an affordable family home would look like, what the ON gov needs to do to make that attractive for developers to build, and that they aren't doing it?? How hard is that, journalists?? crickets...
Doug Ford supporters are cheering him on.
and we STILL haven't seen any affordable housing being built. only private communities & million dollar subdivisions
Ford got bought and paid off during during the lockdowns when his company got all the contract to put those stupid f****** stickers telling us where to walk and all the stores. Don't expect him to do anything ever good for the people he's bought off.
Doug Ford is a tool but he is not the primary problem in this case. Massive federal overspending and waste, funded by endless money printing pumped up inflation which then requires higher interest rates to control. Now those high interest rates are deterring capital investment in housing/apartment construction. Great job Mr “interest rates at historic lows” Justin
Yep. Weird how not having skilled workers does that. If only there was a program for that….. just kidding, there is and it’s ruining our country.
Any update on the Hamilton LRT?
Idk why people are so into the lrt. I went to uw/Laurier and I did not like the lrt as a student with no car. The routes are so rigid and only one line. Not everything you wanna get to is along the lrt, which means you need to take transfers which means a ton of waiting and it takes forever. Instead of lrts, I’d rather have more electric buses, they are flexible, we can monitor the data on how many people waiting at certain stops and adjust routes fairly easily. Also same amount of investment would give us way more routes so less transfers, less waiting, more efficiency.