Housing Accelerator: Halifax, Mississauga, Vaughan
A lot of things are happening!
Sean Fraser is conducting negotiations simultaneously with a number of individual municipalities over their Housing Accelerator funding applications. It’s not easy to keep up! Previously: the federal plan.
Halifax
Last week, Halifax city council voted unanimously to accept Sean Fraser’s requirements, e.g. to allow four units on a single lot - except for the four-storey requirement. Haley Ryan, CBC: Halifax agrees to most federal tweaks for housing money — but not height.
Is that enough? Deny Williams thinks that four units on a single lot is the most important requirement, and that this is a pretty big win: Halifax budges on housing.
Previously: Sean Fraser asks Halifax to allow four storeys everywhere.
Mississauga
On Wednesday, Sean Fraser posted a letter to Bonnie Crombie, mayor of Mississauga, asking for four units by right city-wide, and four storeys by right within walking distance (800 metres) of light rapid transit (LRT) and bus rapid transit (BRT).
Claire Pasieka, CBC: Mississauga to consider fourplexes throughout city as pressure to increase housing supply mounts. City council will consider the four-plex motion on October 11.
Previously: four recent examples of opposition to new housing in Mississauga.
Vaughan
On Thursday, Trudeau and Fraser announced a Housing Accelerator agreement with Vaughan. This is the second one, after London.
Zoe Demarco, Storeys: Vaughan To Receive $59M Under Housing Accelerator Fund Agreement.
The funds will fast-track the building of over 1,700 new housing units and incentivize the creation of thousands of additional homes over the next three years. Over the next decade, the agreement will lead to the construction of more than 40,000 new homes in the city.
Vaughan’s HAF agreement will allow for high-density development near public transit, prioritize building apartments and affordable housing, and fix outdated permitting systems to speed up development. As well, the city will amend a zoning by-law to allow for the construction of up to four residential units on one lot.
$59M, if used directly to build housing at $500,000 per apartment, would pay for about 120 apartments. So 1700 homes (in just the next three years) is more than 10X as cost-effective. 40,000 would be more than 300X as cost-effective.
Good morning Russil,
Many people won’t make a connection between violence and housing; but a curious person will appreciate that actual housing and good neighbourhood design connects. Neighbourhoods have hard or soft borders. Law-abiding citizens respect them. Criminals do not.
Since we last connected there has been powerful testimony before the Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs. There is a lot to watch. Your time is valuable. Please watch the two five minute segments, totalling ten minutes of very powerful testimony, in the following CPAC links, and then explore if you have more time.
First, please go to the 2:03:50 hh:mm:ss mark of this video:
https://www.cpac.ca/episode?id=2eb199a3-ea47-4619-b8f4-97cbb4d110ee
Then, please go to the 00:56:30 mark of this video:
https://www.cpac.ca/episode?id=ae15922e-3a3a-4ac1-ace7-da29e9a811ed
All the best … Tom
Good morning Russil,
This is a more logical place to continue our conversation.
Tim asked what I told you that made you a follower on twitter, as you are an urban Liberal riding association chairman. I explained to him how it came about. Please be aware that Tim has to play the game on twitter, that twitter is not a complete representation of Tim, and that Tim is doing all of his gun file work completely for free so as not to have any conflict of interest. He does not even accept payment for his articles published in mainstream media or The Line, etc. The CPC consults him and wants him to advise them. He has been a member since highschool. He does what he can while still maintaining his neutral reputation. The gun lobby has offered to hire him. He wishes to remain independent as long as practical.
The gun file is similar to the housing file. The differences between urban and rural needs precludes a one size fits all solution. If you have time and interest for the gun file I can send you additional appropriate links. It is a complicated issue, made more complicated by emotions and politics. Being a mathematician and software developer you will appreciate the experts who are tackling the emotions with statistical analysis.
Dr. Caillan Langmann is an emergency room physician in Hamilton, a professor at McMaster University, and one of Canada's preeminent statisticians. He and Tim have teamed up on statistical analysis of the gun file. They are conversant with the academic literature from all the comparable jurisdictions. Their work illustrates over and over again that the Canadian government interventions in the gun file have no statistical effect on homicide rate trends and that the funds wasted on the interventions would be better applied to crime prevention and suppression initiatives.
If you Google Dr. Caillan Langmann on YouTube you will find excellent videos of his testimony before the SECU Committee. In the meantime here are two links to get you into the fold. The last one was compiled by the CCFR and has some "lipstick"; but I assure you it is completely factual. Dr. Langmann was online from his emergency department; so please cut him some slack. The second link bypasses the intermediate steps from the first link. It is a daughter link.
https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/?s=tim+thurley
https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/20230725_Aiming-off-target-SchwartzHurley_PAPER-v2.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOdy7jqbOCU
You have a hill to climb in Vancouver-Kingsway. The NDP have had a stranglehold on the riding ever since David Emerson crossed the floor and condemned the Liberals there to purgatory. (My humour is dry.)