Ottawa matches funding for BC Builds

$2B in low-cost loans for Singapore-style middle-income public housing

The federal government is matching the loans in BC's new Singapore-style program ("BC Builds") to build middle-income public housing on public and underused land. This doubles its size from 4000 homes to 8000 homes over the next three years, with the aim being to build them relatively quickly - construction beginning on the first projects later this year, occupancy in 2026.

Brent Jang, Globe and Mail:

The federal government says it has agreed to provide $2-billion in low-cost loans to spur the construction of rental units in British Columbia, forging a deal that focuses on building on municipally owned land.

Ottawa expects that the federal loans to developers and other groups will help lead to the construction of more than 8,000 rental units, or double the amount originally envisaged under the B.C. government’s BC Builds program.

My take on non-market housing is that everything helps, but non-market housing is limited by people's willingness to pay taxes. It costs about $500K to build an apartment, so even $1 billion will only build about 2000 apartments. Building one million apartments would cost 500X as much, so $500 billion ($12,500 per Canadian). Given people's opposition to tax changes like combining 5% GST and 7% PST into 12% HST, or a carbon tax that rises every year, it seems extremely unlikely that people would be willing to pay that much.

To build housing rapidly and at large scale, what we need are a ton of low-rise market housing developments, like the multiplexes that BC is requiring all municipalities to allow, starting June 30.

Reddit thread with some further discussion.

Poilievre: always be attacking

Pierre Poilievre’s known for attacking municipal gatekeepers, but he sent out a tweet yesterday attacking David Eby (and Trudeau).

The two men who have doubled housing costs and made Vancouver the world’s 3rd most overpriced city are “working together in collaboration” to inflate costs further.

Eby is overriding exactly the municipal gatekeepers that Poilievre diagnoses as the problem, passing legislation requiring municipalities to allow multiplexes everywhere, and high-rises near major transit exchanges. Meanwhile, Doug Ford is basically doing nothing, despite having similar recommendations sitting on his desk for the last two years. (Municipal governments are created by provincial legislation, and thus the province has full power to override municipal gatekeepers. In fact they can dissolve municipal elected bodies and appoint people to run them instead, as has happened multiple times with the Vancouver School Board.)

This suggests that Poilievre’s isn’t particularly concerned about actually fixing housing, and more interested in using it as a stick to beat his political opponents. On climate policy, Mark Jaccard talks about the difference between politicians who are sincere about wanting to cut emissions (because they’re willing to impose taxes or regulations on emissions), and those who pay lip service but are insincere. Similarly, we know that David Eby and Sean Fraser are sincere on housing, because they’ve been willing to dismantle regulations and reduce taxes on new housing. Ford evidently isn’t.

And Poilievre? As Eric Lombardi of More Neighbours Toronto points out, Poilievre has been silent on Doug Ford’s failure to act. Will Pierre Poilievre stand up to Doug Ford, Canada’s biggest gatekeeper?

Few examples highlight the shamelessness of the Ford government’s gatekeeping like the saga at 175 Cummer Avenue in Toronto’s affluent Willowdale neighbourhood. In 2021, amidst a severe homelessness crisis, Toronto City Council nearly unanimously sought a Ministerial Zoning Order from Ontario to construct a 56-unit supportive housing development on public property.

Of course, they encountered resistance fueled by typical NIMBYism. What was different however was that it was actually facilitated by Progressive Conservative MPP Stan Cho, who undoubtedly exerted backroom influence to stop his government from issuing it. The result? A two-year delay due to a frivolous appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal that was ultimately dismissed this January. This pointless obstruction cost Toronto hundreds of thousands of dollars and delayed crucial housing for thousands of its chronically homeless residents.

In this particularly egregious case, the federal Conservatives weren’t just silent. They’re reportedly keen to have Cho to run for them. Progressive gatekeepers rightly get scorned, but apparently, conservative gatekeepers are put up for a possible promotion.