I posted a link to this article on a local subreddit. It raised discussion---unfortunately to a large extent more heat than light, unfortunately. I wonder if you'd like to address one statement that I've heard raised several times. There's a counter argument going around that says cities have already OK'd over a million new housing platforms across the country but developers are just sitting on them because they are just hording land to increase the cost of housing, or, there just aren't enough tradesmen in Canada to build the housing. (I've heard both statments.)
I haven't taken these claims seriously because I've never seen any mention of this in the academic papers I've read on the subject. But it is a counter-factual that has gained a lot of traction and I don't really have an answer to this. Have you looked into the issue? I'd like to hear your response.
On the need for skilled trades, there's a couple counter-arguments. One is that we have some evidence from past building booms: before the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, there was a lot of building, and the construction workforce did increase quite sharply. https://morehousing.ca/bc-economic-model
The other is that when labour is scarce, it's more important than ever to make sure we're building housing where it's most needed. In Vancouver there's a lot of old single-detached houses being torn down and replaced with ... new single-detached houses. People could be building multiplexes instead. We could be building more high-rises in Vancouver instead of out in Langley (a long way from the centre); the reason we're not building more high-rises in Vancouver is that the approval process in the city is extremely slow and painful.
On approvals vs. housing starts: Ontario planners (RCPO) are claiming that 1.5M homes are "approved or proposed," so they're not the bottleneck. This claim is bogus. More than half of that total is proposed but not approved. https://x.com/alexbozikovic/status/1635789047908933632?s=20
My understanding is that the biggest reason for housing to be approved but not built is that costs are way up. If housing is approved but costs are too high, it won't get built: the value of the new building minus the cost of building it, has to exceed the current value of the property with its existing building. I wrote up an explanation for the Metro Van Regional District, as a diplomatic way of saying that raising their development charges was a bad idea: https://morehousing.ca/metro-van-slides
I see that Ontario municipalities are saying it's unfair for them to be evaluated based on housing starts rather than approvals, because they don't control housing starts. The counter-argument is that they *should* care about economic viability, and they do have the ability to lower their development charges (which in Ontario are quite high) to compensate for stronger headwinds in the form of higher interest rates, higher cost of materials, and higher wages.
I posted a link to this article on a local subreddit. It raised discussion---unfortunately to a large extent more heat than light, unfortunately. I wonder if you'd like to address one statement that I've heard raised several times. There's a counter argument going around that says cities have already OK'd over a million new housing platforms across the country but developers are just sitting on them because they are just hording land to increase the cost of housing, or, there just aren't enough tradesmen in Canada to build the housing. (I've heard both statments.)
I haven't taken these claims seriously because I've never seen any mention of this in the academic papers I've read on the subject. But it is a counter-factual that has gained a lot of traction and I don't really have an answer to this. Have you looked into the issue? I'd like to hear your response.
Hi Bill, thanks for posting it to Reddit!
On the need for skilled trades, there's a couple counter-arguments. One is that we have some evidence from past building booms: before the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, there was a lot of building, and the construction workforce did increase quite sharply. https://morehousing.ca/bc-economic-model
The other is that when labour is scarce, it's more important than ever to make sure we're building housing where it's most needed. In Vancouver there's a lot of old single-detached houses being torn down and replaced with ... new single-detached houses. People could be building multiplexes instead. We could be building more high-rises in Vancouver instead of out in Langley (a long way from the centre); the reason we're not building more high-rises in Vancouver is that the approval process in the city is extremely slow and painful.
On approvals vs. housing starts: Ontario planners (RCPO) are claiming that 1.5M homes are "approved or proposed," so they're not the bottleneck. This claim is bogus. More than half of that total is proposed but not approved. https://x.com/alexbozikovic/status/1635789047908933632?s=20
My understanding is that the biggest reason for housing to be approved but not built is that costs are way up. If housing is approved but costs are too high, it won't get built: the value of the new building minus the cost of building it, has to exceed the current value of the property with its existing building. I wrote up an explanation for the Metro Van Regional District, as a diplomatic way of saying that raising their development charges was a bad idea: https://morehousing.ca/metro-van-slides
I see that Ontario municipalities are saying it's unfair for them to be evaluated based on housing starts rather than approvals, because they don't control housing starts. The counter-argument is that they *should* care about economic viability, and they do have the ability to lower their development charges (which in Ontario are quite high) to compensate for stronger headwinds in the form of higher interest rates, higher cost of materials, and higher wages.
Your best post yet. A real tour-de-force. Have you been sending it out to the media?
Thanks Bill! I haven't done much in terms of trying to reach the media. Maybe I'll post it on Twitter.