Quote:
Originally Posted by IanWatson
Certainly there is a financial component to the "lottery win" comment, the most obvious being the "cash-out-and-move-to-a-cheaper-locale-to-perpetuate-the-problem-on-them" opportunity. However, even if someone is looking at it just as a home there are obvious financial benefits that should be recognized. This includes the security of knowing you will have funds for a nice retirement home or to pass on to you kids, and the ability to borrow against an asset to fund renovations or in an emergency. With our property tax cap in place there is no personal downside (certainly there are societal downsides) to having your home become a million dollar asset.
All that being said, my comment was more about the fact that people such as these (and myself if we're being transparent) have won the housing lottery. No one is coming and taking our detached homes away. We are in an elite club. We have the sold out tickets to the Taylor Swift concert.
That's not to suggest that change is not a very real impact on people's lives or emotional state, or that people shouldn't advocate for themselves when change happens around them. But I think there is some duty there to recognize how lucky we are, and to be thoughtful and introspective in that advocacy.
To Keith's post, I myself have very strong concerns that HRM (and particularly Halifax Transit) will not properly plan for and manage the transportation implications of this development. However, that's precisely what this kind of engagement is for - to identify those concerns and to hold their feet to the fire over them. In my experience, the alternative (come back with a fully fleshed plan that shows all the parks and everything) ends up with anger along the lines of, "you planned everything without asking us".
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There is absolutely truth to what you are saying, but I will hold my position on the 'lottery win' concept. Nobody is winning here to be truthful, in the sense that we are all impacted by the negative effect upon society. Colin's posts above touch on at least part of the negative aspects, but as you allude to, it's more far-reaching than that even.
I'm trying to take a more holistic view of things, in that the 'protesters' have legitimate reasons to be upset, just as the pro-development people do. I think it's missing the point to say that they should shut up and be happy because they 'won the lottery' with their home values (just as I think it's amateurish of Councillor Cleary to present them in a negative fashion to the media). I think Keith explained it well.
TBH, I'm always left with the impression that the 'lottery win' comments are more about resentment of people who already have homes in a difficult market than anything else, when IMHO the resentment should be focused on our politicians and planners who allowed this to happen in the first place - but it's much easier to focus ire on some misdirected little old lady with a bullhorn than the people who allowed this to happen in the first place.
That said, it's also clear that there is a 'greater good' in play here, whereby the development has clear value to a number of people (future residents), and to the city in general. 'The city' will benefit from more density, maybe some pressure off of housing (unless future population increases outpace housing starts - making these developments even more important), plus benefit to bus transit. Over all, the benefits to the city outweigh the detriment to the locals, so this should go through. And it will, but it doesn't mean that we can't all be a little more understanding about others' points of view in these cases.
However, I realize it's complex, and we will all have different opinions and methods of processing what it means to us, so I'll leave it at that.
I agree with yours and Keith's concerns about transportation, as well. It's telling that the city is able to present a development such as this, espousing the importance of density, etc., yet not be able to come up with anything greater than adding more buses (and bike lanes, which are great and important, but honestly they will never be a method of moving large volumes of people in Halifax). I hope that things like this will be addressed, and that planning will future-proof us from potential negatives of continual population growth at greater than historic rates, but the myopic thinking of council doesn't provide me with a level of confidence in them to believe that it will all work out.
There. I've said enough. I won't even talk about how there seems to be little planning for better communities that provide a good mix of high and low density housing supported with walkable streets and local retail... it's way easier to scold the people who live in houses because their values have increased while we've decided that there will never be another SFH built in the city...
Stop, I say!