How can we make housing less scarce and expensive?
Legalize housing:
make small apartment buildings legal
allow 6-8 floors outright
legalize apartments
end strict zoning banning apartments in most of the city, ending decades-old racist policy
allow high-rises near SkyTrain
smaller minimum lot sizes in low density neighbourhoods
single stair buildings
adopt Edmonton’s zoning bylaw
Or not:
stop all the insane high-rise construction, allow people to sublet and rent out space
Speed things up:
give permits faster
robot prefabrication
The high cost of free parking:
require less parking, improve transit options
less space wasted on parking
stop using public land for parking (alleys, streets)
Build more social housing:
empower government development on public land
educate yourself and others on the actual benefits of more below-market rentals and low-end-of-market rentals and social housing options
co-op housing; restart CMHC investment in co-op housing
publicly owned social housing
small scale non-market housing (single site)
increase government housing funding
more lower income housing
government programs to help fund non-market housing, protect existing apartment and multiplex buildings and support single-dwelling homes to be converted to multiplex or land assembly for densification
Renter protections:
regulate renting costs for everyone
stop making it impossible to find housing without a pet
protect tenants who want to stay when a housemate breaks lease / leaves
Prioritize long-term renters over short-term visitors:
ban short-term rental
More investor-owned rental housing:
more purpose-built rentals
more rental housing, we don’t need luxury housing
Less investor-owned rental housing:
limit how much housing people own, no corporate owned housing
stop treating housing as an investment
ban corporations from buying housing properties
more high-rises, max of three properties per person
Colbert: “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.”
lower property taxes
raise property taxes, ban DCCs
tax land values not development fees
get rid of or cap primary residence capital gains exemption
Does this mean bringing down home prices, making a large mortgage less necessary; or lowering interest rates; or lengthening amortizations?
make mortgages cheaper