Colin Mahovlich @ColinMahovlich

Housing is still the biggest long-term issue facing Canada (and much of the developed world). I also wholeheartedly believe that the our approach to modern planning is the underrated cause of many of our problems today. But we have the power to change it👇 - - - 🇨🇦 - - - 1) We must treat housing as a necessity from a tax perspective, and remove taxes on new homes and mobility. In Toronto, taxes now represent a nearly $250K cost for any new home. Sales Taxes (HST), Development Charges, Muncipal Fees, Land Transfer Taxes all add up. When the median family can only afford a mortgage of around $500K, it’s downright evil that governments have saught to profit off of a housing bubble of their own creation by confiscating half of what a normal family can afford. Taxes like LTT discourage people from selling or moving, which also limits labour mobility and regional productivity. Simply put, housing will never be affordable to middle class people again if half of what they can afford is taken before anything actually involved in building housing happens. There is no universe where affordability returns if we don’t address this. 2) Governments and the public must understand that we can’t have economic growth if it isn’t allowed most places. Zoning regimes are far too strict (and messy) in Toronto, Ontario, and frankly the entire country. We have made some progress on this in Toronto but not nearly enough. Zoning restrictions on infill and aggressive greenbelt restrictions are both problems, driving up the cost of land and reducing the amount of viable land to build on. The entire point of rezoning is to reduce land scarcity imposed by policy. This has to change. For a city like Toronto, I do not see why 6-storey buildings should not be a default allowance anywhere in the old city or within 2km of a LRT or subway. This is not going to mean everywhere gets an apartment. Many families still desire a backyard in the suburbs. And it is possible to build suburban patterns that are not economically inefficient. We must allow more urban and greenfield land to be developed and allow consumer choice to determine where growth happens. 3) Our Building Codes are a mess and put tertiary considerations above primary considerations (ie affordability). In Ontario, we stubbornly refuse to allow single-egress buildings above 3 storeys, despite it being fine basically everywhere else. We have allowed an oligopoly in elevators to form, by prohibiting much more space and cost efficient european elevators be used for small and midrise buildings. These are just some of the many simplifications and changes to the building code we need. We have also made green building standards far too aggressive. We have lost sight of the reality that the alternative often means a worse/less efficient buildings and commute for residents. If you agree, you should sign the petition by @MoreNeighbours to get Ontario to change these things. moreneighbours.ca/campaign-singl… 4) We should be far more deliberate in making it easier for young people to attain homeownership. For first time homebuyers under the age of 40, we should drop downpayment requirements to 5% or even 0% and still allow CMHC insurance. You could even tie 0% to families with kids under 12. Either way, a homeownership should be an option for many couples by their mid-twenties. 5) We should be deliberate about a goal to reduce housing prices another 20-40%. And that means having financial mitigations for banks and owners who carry larger debts than the value of their property. There are many solutions here to keep good people whole as we adjust to a corrected housing normal. - - - 🇨🇦 - - - Of course, policies like normalizing immigration rates will also help with affordability. But Canadas immigration boom largely exposed the flaws of our system, we still need to fix them.

I do think it's funny that every single proponent here included tolls as part of their strategy and that's the one thing the province has legislatively prohibited.

Isaac Callan @isaaccallan

a year ago

Years before Doug Ford announced his Highway 401 tunnel plan, it appears to have been sparked by bids from private companies. #Onpoli This is the government's summary of what they said: globalnews.ca/news/11315431/…

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Ah yes, liberalizing land use so markets determine what gets built is “really left”. And that’s why @drewdilkens is defending the conservative position, where mayors and city hall bureaucrats centrally plan everything around housing. - - - What is even more absurd is that this mayor is angry about an opt-in program. Nobody is forcing Windsor to change. If Windsor doesn’t want fourplexes, then it doesn’t need to accept federal money. Reminder that Mayor Dilkens was appointed to the provincial Housing Supply Action Plan Implementation Team in 2023. Years later, basically nothing has been implemented and housing starts are falling faster than any other province.

Note that the City did this despite their own consultants telling them that angular planes make building Garden Suites needlessly difficult. Mayor Chow's adminstration is on a roll with coming up short on housing.

🏭🏘🏢Sean Galbraith🗻❄️🥏 @PlannerSean

a year ago

lol Provincial regulation says no angular planes allowed for garden suites or laneway suites. So Toronto deleted the requirement (as they are required to do) and replaced it with new zoning that would do the same thing as angular planes.

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We could build a lot more Subways if we accepted that this is normal and can be found all over the world AND Canada - the price is like half that of tunneling even in bad cases

Alex Glista 🇨🇦 @AlexanderGlista

a year ago

Thorncliffe Park Station and Flemingdon Park Station on Toronto’s upcoming @OntarioLine. Great examples of elevated metro stations, which hopefully inspires future elevated transit in Toronto and the surrounding region.

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Incredible levels of lost potential and failures abound from Metrolinx.... so frustrating... thetrillium.ca/news/the-trill…

Can we build multiplexes and small apartments in the neighbourhood? @MikeColleTo: No, absolutely not! Ok :( can we build high rises along a subway corridor? Mike Colle: And block out the sun!?! Definitely not! Where should people live? Mike Colle: If your net worth is under $1M you should just fuck off, who cares!

Matt Elliott @GraphicMatt

a year ago

"God help the people of Willowdale," says Councillor Mike Colle. "Luckily, they've got Councillor Cheng there trying to do her best, but they are overwhelming her with a tsunami of condo warehouses in Willowdale. You will never see the sun in Willowdale in ten years!"

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I need liberal boomers to hear this - you're generation did not rely on 'affordable housing' for the middle class. Affordable housing is necessary, but entirely not sufficient. It's meant as a solution to help people with no path to the middle class have physical space in our most productive cities. To tell young people, who'd otherwise be middle-class **homeowners** if this were 20 years prior, that the solution to your housing woes is to be lucky enough to win the government-run lottery to get a government-owned home that you have little to no agency choosing, you're not going to find that message stokes a whole lot of voter confidence among young people. Even under the most ambitious affordable housing plans that have been proposed, market-rate housing still makes up the vast majority of homes. The new minister needs to get his messaging aligned with this reality - quickly. This isn't 2014 anymore.

Mackenzie Gray @Gray_Mackenzie

a year ago

When asked if house prices need to go down, new Housing Minister Gregor Robertson said, "No, I think that we need to deliver more supply, make sure the market is stable, it's a huge part of our economy. We need to be delivering more affordable housing." #cdnpoli

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I've been busy and federal politics isn't my focus but did we actually spend a day arguing whether the price of something needs to fall to become more affordable? This isn't even Econ 101, it's elementary school English.

If Ontario wants to expand the capacity of the Highway 401 corridor - extending the Sheppard subway as a regional express subway with new tunnels and elevated guideways would create both more capacity, faster travel times, and for far less than even a few more lanes would cost.

Do you know what day it is today?

“If you vote for people we don’t like, it’s going to be divisive? 🥺” “Why? 😟” “Because we’re going to be divisive. 👿” A silver spoon tantrum, if there ever was one.

Martin Pelletier @MPelletierCIO

a year ago

Alberta’s turn I guess, elbows up. What I expected. Division not unity. 🤷

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#ElectionCanada2025 #CanadaStrong #YIMBY

Congratulations to @MarkJCarney and the Liberals on their re-election. I'm glad to hear Prime Minister Carney focus on building more housing in his victory speech. Behind US Tariffs, housing remains the most important issue to deal with for Canada's economic future. #canpoli

Since 2010, TO development charges have increased 1000%. A 2-bedroom condo owes $80,690 in DCs alone, with more for parkland and community benefits. Where is this money going? Well, $3bn is sitting in the reserves, but About Here breaks down the rest. youtube.com/watch?v=ZEUR9b…

Fantastic reporting! The barriers to family sized urban housing are not due to demand. They’re a consequence of policy that largely forbids their construction.

Ximena González @XiMeNaKa

a year ago

Finding a family-sized apartment in Canada is not an easy feat. So even if they’d like to stay in the city, many families end up moving to the ‘burbs In my latest story for the Globe & Mail, i delve into what the City of Edmonton is doing to change this. theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/ar…

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Only 3 out of 25 GTA municipalities are on track to meet their 2030 housing targets. TRREB’s federal campaign demands action to increase supply and lower housing taxes. Add your name: FairHomeTaxes.ca #FairHomeTaxes #cdnpoli

Same. But it enrages me even more that the generation who inflicted this crisis on us through policy acts as it if is a result of mystic, unavoidable forces. Instead of the very well understood and obvious policy mistakes with clear, actionable solutions it actually is.

Reece Martin @RM_Transit

a year ago

Almost every day I have a moment of anger when I think of how our leaders have failed my generation on housing, and the enormous real cost that has on our lives.

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“Isn’t he a huge business success? Doesn’t he know what he’s talking about? No, he isn’t and no he doesn’t.”

Brandolini’s Law (also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle): The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.