Experts say Ottawa’s role in housing sector has grown (Richard Raycraft · CBC News)

  • Dearche@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    While I agree that it’s the municipal responsibility to actually get the zoning laws and passing new developments, it’s also the responsibilities of the governments higher up to do something when the lower governments are starting to fuck around.

    I imagine that the provincial government is within its rights to force the change of zoning laws so that single residentiary zones no longer exclude townhouses and multiplexes. A simple change that’ll have radical effects in the long term, though admittedly limited effects in the short term.

    Both governments are able to simply purchase land and build what the hell they want on them as well. Government subsidized housing doesn’t have to mean that the government has to subsidize the rent, but instead just subsidize the land sale and force multiplexes and low-rise apartments to be built on them.

    It’s a brute force method that’ll piss off certain groups, but it’ll make others shower them with praise as the basics of living become affordable.

    • Powerpoint@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      The provincial government can also pass legislation to stop domestic speculation. If we are being real here we have Canadians doing this to other Canadians. It needs to be stopped. We need to build more AND prevent domestic speculators from buying it all up and sell the stock their currently sitting on.

      • Dearche@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        The only way to stop speculation is either price fixing, or to make sure that there’s enough supply that market forces won’t bring any notable profit to those who treat land like an investment. The first one’s definitely the one that’s not going to help, as it doesn’t address the issue of a lack of housing, but it’s basically the one we’re getting with how subsidized housing is done right now.

        Honest, if it’s possible for there to be a law that states the government is required to build and expand high density housing every time the prices go above something like 30% minimum wage, it would be a solid solution. Either that, or the housing bubble crashes so hard that everybody who invested in housing basically loses their entire life savings, like how it’s going on in China right now.

        • EhForumUser@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          There is also the option of simply making housing something people don’t want to own again. It worked for most of human history. Turn our cities back to how they looked 50-60 years ago and you’ll scare the people away from owning homes pretty quickly. That is easily within the hands of municipal/provincial governments.

          • Dearche@lemmy.ca
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            11 months ago

            Can you explain? From what I know, the reason why housing wasn’t a big issue 60 years ago was because they actually made enough homes so prices were low and pretty much anybody could afford one with 3-5 years’ wages.