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Originally Posted by C.
Canada and especially Toronto are in a housing crisis. Yet I'm shocked there isn't more of an outrage from the populist for the government to do more. Instead, it's almost like the blame for the housing crisis is being cast on foreigners and not the artificial supply constraints created by zoning and other planning regulations designed to preserve single-family homes. As I mentioned in another thread, since when did it become the responsibility for private developers to build affordable housing and not governments. No wonder market rate housing is so expensive to build and there is a shortage of subsidized rentals.
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The populist are extremely frustrated. Building more doesn't address the root cause. It is, at best, a band aid solution. It will, however, make the largest contributors to the Ontario PC very happy.
The province is heavily indebted and the cost to build subsidized units is at a ridiculous high in Toronto. It's simply not possible for the province to build housing to make an impact without private partners. Quite frankly, market, non market rented and owned units mixed in a development is the way to go over the failures of segregating incomes.
It's within reason to question why the immigration numbers continue to increase as the housing situation becomes more dire across more and more of Canada. Again, it doesn't address the root cause and is another bandaid. It would be easier to reduce potential demand over increasing supply. We are already near production capacity. Any major increase in construction will blow up inflation which will only negatively effect pricing. The honest people convinced to move to Canada for a better quality of life are not necessarily improving their quality of life as advertised and it gets worse every passing year.
There's hundreds of thousands of units waiting approval but, there are also tens of thousand of shovel ready units that aren't breaking ground. We do need more as of right zoning over this piecemeal case by case inquiry in Toronto. However, red tape isn't as big of an ordeal as you make it out to be.