Someone Explain This So Called Housing Crisis?

[avenue94]

In a way that is true since services like water, sewage, power, and roads are stretched across suburbia in a way that means much higher costs to service a smaller number of people.

That's true, but what I was getting at was the point we both have I think in that these resources are not finite. They are very doable by the standards of government projects, whether urban or rural. It's just a matter of cost and political will.

The avenue to homebuilding. Economically. Whether it be through zoning problems, labor problems, logistics/availability. Investors, developers. All kinds of things being done as inefficiently as possible before shit hit the fan the last 3 years.

Throwing heads at situations that are already dire is a surefire way to put a nail in the coffin. Cart before the horse, as always with most "progressive" worldviews.

I think we agree on the fact that the roots of the housing shortage go back decades. But that doesn't mean everything needs to grind to a halt until all the issues are fixed. That's just not feasible, not to mention, politically, if demand for housing magically dropped, you can bet that homeowners and government would do even less to increase housing supply.

If the US can manage the Manhattan Project 80 years ago, building a shit ton of housing is certainly feasible. It's just a matter of political will at this point.

We're talking about building apartment complexes in upper middle class neighborhoods. That's not going to do much to make housing cheaper.

That would literally improve housing access and reduce cost, even if only by a small bit.

Yeah if I own a home, I want it to keep its value. If you are a builder and you're looking to make millions of dollars while devaluing my home, I'm going to want to put a stop to that. Sorry but that's the market at work. Not only do I not want my home devalued, but I don't want to have to start worrying about people breaking into my vehicles and stealing in my neighborhood.

Why are houses the only thing exempt to market forces and depreciation then? Why not other staples, like cars?

 

[Sinister]

Adding more housing supply is how you make housing cheaper. I'm not saying that we need to add a 15 floor apartment complex in the middle of a suburb but adding things like multiplexes and accessory dwelling units is a way to add density that better matches the character of existing neighborhoods.

The more you lower the barrier to building housing the more likely you will see small developers fill in these niches. In practice that looks more like your neighbor adding a granny flat to their yard to accommodate an elderly parent or converting their SFH into a duplex to rent out the other unit. Maybe a fourplex goes up with units that new grads can afford to live in, maybe someone converts their garage into an additional unit for their adult children to move back in while keeping some independence. These are things that the current laws make difficult to acheive and the more you make this kind of thing harder the more reliant the market is on big developers who can bear the costs that NIMBYs impose on new developments.

It's always hilarious to me how things like the housing market are skewed to appeal to regard for the people with the means to take advantage of how things are currently leveraged, meanwhile families are living in cars and tents, but f*ck those people if it means my house gets valued at what it really should be worth considering its location, and the condition it's in.

 

[terrapin]

Isn't this thread about housing? Not really off-topic.

I did embellished your position for dramatic effect, because I found your position a bit ridiculous with your threats of violence and resistance to using actual legal means of accomplishing the same thing.

you lied a little is all.

 

[Sinister]

you lied a little is all.

I purposely made fun of you, that doesnt require scientific precision.

 

[terrapin]

I purposely made fun of you, that doesnt require scientific precision.

I purposely made fun of you, that doesnt require scientific precision.

I hardly even care man.... you can lie all you want.

 

[Sinister]

I hardly even care man.... you can lie all you want.

Lol, what's up with this "I dont even care" stuff when people respond to something 3+ times?

You care. It's alright to care. It doesnt make you a p*ssy.

 

[terrapin]

Lol, what's up with this "I dont even care" stuff when people respond to something 3+ times?

You care. It's alright to care. It doesnt make you a p*ssy.

I really do barely car man. and if you want to keep lying go right ahead. its very trumpian of you. @Sinister you know "alternative facts" and all of that. the "assault on truth"... "post fact world". all of that seems very important these days but you do you.

 

[Sinister]

I really do barely car man. and if you want to keep lying go right ahead. its very trumpian of you.

You barely "car"...? Great for the environment. Walkable cities FTW.

 

[terrapin]

You barely "car"...? Great for the environment. Walkable cities FTW.

I mean really man. if you want to be like trump intentionally telling lies... if that's what you want to stand for... go ahead. personally I NEVER tell lies on purpose. I have a terrible memory and do get things wrong but not on purpose as @Andy Capp did and you did in support of him. and if somebody points something out I have stated directly as if it were true and it wasn't I usually go back and edit and admit that on the forum.

I see it as the best way to stand against the post fact world trump has ushered in and combat the profound dishonesty he stands for.

 

[STRYDG]

The main issue is that the US has such car-centric design that adding density leads to traffic which leads to more roads which means more wasted land and more traffic and so on. The solution is to strongly incentivize new developments to be transit oriented so the increased population is funneled into public transit rather than put on the roads. Where I live its relatively sparsely populated and even here I see lines at stop signs as late as 07:00pm. Unacceptable.

Yeah a big part of this was to get people into public transport but our city is so spread out and the transport so unreliable.

The fact your allowed to build a 4-6 bedroom house and have 1 or even no car parks is ludicrous. The streets are clogged because you get big family or multiple people in one house that all own cars. It's actually becoming dangerous

 

[Sinister]

There is a reason municipalities fight tooth and nail to block though, the more condo towers in an area the more it's a gridlocked shithole with potholes and drug addicts waiting outside shoppers to mug you, takes 20 mins to drive anywhere, ER wait times triple, etc.

For now it seems like removing barriers will be the main tactic, we will have to see how that plays out.

Have you seen the havoc minimum parking requirements have brought upon cities and towns? And they're also mostly imaginary nonsense. They're not based on any sound math and have made living in North American towns a logistical nightmare. Even the Cities with good public transit here in the US dont have it optimized, they're using systems that were created before the highways. Because we've been catering to like 4 industries forever. We've built our entire lives and identities around them. Driving cars, owning a home, gas powered everything (look at the gas stove stupidity that happened recently), nuclear Family. Most of those ideas started out largely as marketing ploys to get Americabs committed to buying sh*t they weren't even sure they wanted, and definitely didn't need.

You cant eradicate crime, or traffic problems, but they can surely be managed better. We have a staggering number of traffic deaths. Vehicles are so big I dont worry about my kids getting hit by a car and having to go to the Hospital anymore I worry about them getting crushed under a giant truck and not surviving.

 

[My Spot]

A combination of red tape and NIMBYism.

 

[Kassitus]

Have you seen the havoc minimum parking requirements have brought upon cities and towns? And they're also mostly imaginary nonsense. They're not based on any sound math and have made living in North American towns a logistical nightmare. Even the Cities with good public transit here in the US dont have it optimized, they're using systems that were created before the highways. Because we've been catering to like 4 industries forever. We've built our entire lives and identities around them. Driving cars, owning a home, gas powered everything (look at the gas stove stupidity that happened recently), nuclear Family. Most of those ideas started out largely as marketing ploys to get Americabs committed to buying sh*t they weren't even sure they wanted, and definitely didn't need.

You cant eradicate crime, or traffic problems, but they can surely be managed better. We have a staggering number of traffic deaths. Vehicles are so big I dont worry about my kids getting hit by a car and having to go to the Hospital anymore I worry about them getting crushed under a giant truck and not surviving.

That's interesting. Can you tell me about the minimum parking requirements?

Crime and traffic will always exist of course, but population density seems to have an exponential impact on these things. It's not such a big problem in metro cores where these conditions have existed for 100+ years and everything is fairly adapted, but the towns getting their population tripled in a few decades are absolutely wrecked. The roads are tiny 2 lane roads yet have to accommodate hundreds of thousands of cars crushing them day after day. I don't blame the mayors who defend their communities from this. Their towns are much better off because they buy themselves much more time to adapt smoothly.

Even when they do have time though, there's the fundamental problem that if you have tons of dense housing without the other elements of a core that traditionally justify such density you end up with extreme commuting situations. There are thousands of people living somewhere for the reason that if they live there they can drive to Toronto within an hour, or at least they could when they first moved in.

Overall, it looks like exactly the mess you would expect where there is a wild west of competing interests instead of a top down plan which prioritizes the quality of life of the citizen.

 

[Halifax]

So it sounds like increased supply of labor would help here...aka immigrants would probably boost this.

The housing crises you see today aren't a random stroke of bad luck, they are complex problems with longstanding issues (like I said, usually policies meant to gate homeownership and benefit existing homeowners at the expense of new ones), but they are also known and very solvable.

TLDR: Immigration isn't the problem here, and if anything it will help. The core problem is just a failure of government policy to address a politically touchy problem.

Sounds more like the federal government going back to funding building affordable housing and legislating things like developers needing to use labor that have things like..... safety rules, Standards that they say "slow down projects".....wages, health benefits that take pennies away from their billions. Mulroney and Chretien deserve blame for phasing out affordable housing from the federal mindset and every politician since has just given more power to developers. its time to go back to the past and resurrect it. Daniel Blaikie would have been a great NDP candidate for leadership had he not resigned

I get the appeal of using apprentice labor and cheap newcomers instead of fairly paid union labor for developers. Can't be making 1 penny less on their billions of dollars in revenue. The labor exists currently without bringing more people in to strain the already low housing supply. its just not utilized. Its laid off while they wait for the cheap labor

 

[Andy Capp]

Sounds more like the federal government going back to funding building affordable housing and legislating things like developers needing to use labor that have things like..... safety rules, Standards that they say "slow down projects".....wages, health benefits that take pennies away from their billions. Mulroney and Chretien deserve blame for phasing out affordable housing from the federal mindset and every politician since has just given more power to developers. its time to go back to the past and resurrect it. Daniel Blaikie would have been a great NDP candidate for leadership had he not resigned

I get the appeal of using apprentice labor and cheap newcomers instead of fairly paid union labor for developers. Can't be making 1 penny less on their billions of dollars in revenue. The labor exists currently without bringing more people in to strain the already low housing supply. its just not utilized. Its laid off while they wait for the cheap labor

Re: that last paragraph, do you have any empirical data to support your assertion that "The labor exists... its just not utilized."?

 

[avenue94]

Sounds more like the federal government going back to funding building affordable housing and legislating things like developers needing to use labor that have things like..... safety rules, Standards that they say "slow down projects".....wages, health benefits that take pennies away from their billions.

I didn't say that. There is plenty government can do to improve housing supply that doesn't cost a dollar. Having said that, the best use of money for government here would be incentivizing provinces and cities to get off their asses, make zoning less restrictive, etc. I can't imagine how lowering minimum wages or eliminating safety guidelines would improve housing supply given one of the bottlenecks is that most developers aren't willing to pay market wages for construction workers.

I get the appeal of using apprentice labor and cheap newcomers instead of fairly paid union labor for developers. Can't be making 1 penny less on their billions of dollars in revenue.

Again, not what I'm saying. Whether Canada is or should be closed chop/open shop is another issues and frankly one I haven't looked into a lot.

The labor exists currently without bringing more people in to strain the already low housing supply. its just not utilized. Its laid off while they wait for the cheap labor

They aren't waiting for cheaper labor...no one runs a business like that outside of places you can outsource. And clearly you can't outsource most construction labor.

 

[Jack Reacheround]

I dont understand this. Especially in our area a developer will buy a property , good house and good sized yard, bulldoze that bitch then fill it with 4 to 6 houses.

How in the fuckiscle do these houses cost 800k each (when the original house/land cost around 1.5mil) when you get fuck all land, can basically high five your neighbour through the windows and dont even have a space to park your car?

This infill housing is ruining our area and infrustrature cant keep up. Would be nice if the greedy fucks could just make regular 3 bedroom houses or even 2 bedroom units but everything is profit now.

Idk. But from what I understand, while they are cramming houses closer together, they also don’t want to build starter homes. Maybe their profit margin increases if the houses they build are above a certain square footage. But either way, there really isn’t so much a shortage of houses as there is a run on houses by Wall Street.

 

[Islam Imamate]

That's interesting. Can you tell me about the minimum parking requirements?

Crime and traffic will always exist of course, but population density seems to have an exponential impact on these things. It's not such a big problem in metro cores where these conditions have existed for 100+ years and everything is fairly adapted, but the towns getting their population tripled in a few decades are absolutely wrecked. The roads are tiny 2 lane roads yet have to accommodate hundreds of thousands of cars crushing them day after day. I don't blame the mayors who defend their communities from this. Their towns are much better off because they buy themselves much more time to adapt smoothly.

Even when they do have time though, there's the fundamental problem that if you have tons of dense housing without the other elements of a core that traditionally justify such density you end up with extreme commuting situations. There are thousands of people living somewhere for the reason that if they live there they can drive to Toronto within an hour, or at least they could when they first moved in.

Overall, it looks like exactly the mess you would expect where there is a wild west of competing interests instead of a top down plan which prioritizes the quality of life of the citizen.

Part of the solution is to have mixed use developments with a high density of commercial units so that many of the new residents do not have to commute outside of the area to find work, they can find it within walking distance.

In its most distilled form its classic Asian building with the commercial unit on the bottom floor and the residential one on the top floor. This type of urban form makes it really easy to start and maintain a small business as your rent for both your business and home are rolled into one. Its no wonder that in Japan you have a thriving middle class of business owners whereas in the US the economy is dominated by corporate owned big box stores. In fairness you pay higher prices at the register but I think overall its more than worth it since it minimizes the need to drive.

 

[Halifax]

Re: that last paragraph, do you have any empirical data to support your assertion that "The labor exists... its just not utilized."?

You want statistics that Contractors in Nova Scotia want cheap apprentice labor and a lot of tradespeople are laid off if their union doesn't get a bid in on jobs? I don't have those for you off the top of my head. Its Nova Scotia Specific. I can tell you while recruiting that I see hundreds of age 28-35 red seal tradespeople applying for labor jobs on career sites every week for the last few years and when i interview them, they are laid off all the time and not used in residential construction. A lot of them also get to within 1 month of completing their apprenticeship after years and close to getting red seal only to be suddenly let go just before they can when they are due for red seal certification.

Anyone who looks on indeed can see the wages being offered in residential construction in NS

And why is it only 43% of graduates of the Trades programs finish their apprenticeships? oh wait, they get ejected right before they get their red seal.

Nova Scotia is also shitty with overtime laws, particularly for construction workers. Construction workers are not entitled to overtime until they have worked over 110 hours in 2 weeks. Unions don't roll that way and have bargaining in place for OT after a threshold much lower so Contractors in NS will use them minimally as possible, if at all.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

A combination of red tape and NIMBYism.

Red tape is a much bigger issue. The NIMBYISM is actually due to the red tape since developers have such limited options of where they can develop.