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Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

leftist heap posted:

I think we should start bulldozing existing homes :colbert:

This is the fear mongering in Oak Bay in regard to housing targets. They say all this upzoning is just a prelude to THE STATE FORCING PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR HOMES. How it would be impossible to do enough missing middle replacements in Oak Bay without forcing people out, because apparently houses never naturally change hands in Oak Bay. Oak Bay is "built out" and can't possibly add anything else. I've pointed out dozens of empty sites or commercial properties where Oak Bay could actually build a handful of 10-ish story apartments and not have to suffer the loss of a single house, but that's also a no-go because "towers would destroy oak bay".

Oak Bay, they've tried nothing and they're all out of ideas.

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qhat
Jul 6, 2015


Forcing people out of their homes by giving them a fuckload of money on paper, for free, what a goddamn shame.

Boot and Rally
Apr 21, 2006

8===D
Nap Ghost

leftist heap posted:

I think we should start bulldozing existing homes :colbert:

Start with the rich part of town.

Mr. Mercury
Aug 13, 2021



Fidelitious posted:

Are you asking if the government is going to forcibly bulldoze all existing homes in the upzoned areas? No, of course not.

When people say to get rid of SFH zoning, they mean exclusive zoning. You can still build a SFH there if you want, it just makes no sense for a developer to do that if they're also allowed to build a 10-unit mid-rise or something.
SFH will slowly convert to denser forms as redevelopment happens but the owner has to actually want to redevelop it first.

And there will most definitely still be SFH enclaves.
No, I'm not asking that, obviously.

Was more worried about my landlord having more motivation to sell, not so much the bulldozering. But thank you for the clarification.

Femtosecond
Aug 2, 2003

Lead out in cuffs posted:

If you're renting in a SFH you were already at risk of it being turned into a duplex, or more recently a multiplex. There is now no such thing as SFH-only zoning in Vancouver. That said, the stock of SFH greatly exceeds the construction industry's capacity to turn it into multiplexes or apartments, so it could be decades before you get renovicted. It's a lot more likely the house will be sold and the owners will want to move in. There is no such thing as security of tenure when renting SFH in Vancouver.

Yeah very much anyone renting a SFH is going to inevitably get screwed anyway here.

tbh I think what we've seen is that those renting a house are in even more danger of the house simply being bought by some very rich yuppie couple and everyone getting evicted as the new owners heavily renovate it and turn it into some luxury mansion.

I've seen it happen a few times where some pretty run down house affordably split up by like 3-4 working class artists is bought up, renovated, and then occupied by a family. Pretty much a net neutral if not decrease in the occupancy, and at the expense of making the lives of a few working class people more miserable.

There's either the Fast Gentrification of your affordable rental SFH being bulldozed for brand new expensive condos, or the Slow Gentrification of literally no new housing being allowed, and every house being slowly bought up by ever more wealthy people, and current rental occupants being evicted that way.

This is something that in retrospect my own positions on housing were pretty wrong on. Way back in 2013 I had tons of working class artist friends living in these sort of shared SFHs in East Van and so I was pretty skeptical of the YIMBYs calling for "four floors and corner stores" because it seemed like it was pretty much going to gently caress over my working class friends. Maybe so, but as it happens, by doing nothing those working artists all inevitably got evicted anyway as wealthy people bought up their SFHs.


So I was a bit opposed to new apartments (at least affordable East Van) and was pushing more for apartments in the rich areas of Vancouver. In the end this distinction didn't matter at all.

So would I rather have a bunch of exclusive wealthy SFHs or expensive condos? I'd rather have the latter, because it at least brings the vacancy up.

I dunno if those yimbys were clued into what was going to happen and I missed it, but yea those yimbys that ignored the issue of "affordable" SFHs had the foresight and correct approach imo.

Ultraklystron
May 19, 2010

Unsafe At Every Speed
Was informed this particular mess might be of thread interest, so:

from the OSHA thread:

Details - it was up in the Burquitlam area: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/jaw-dropping-video-shows-collapse-at-coquitlam-b-c-construction-site-1.6668311

I used to live a couple blocks from there. Place has been under heavy redevelopment since I left as they finished a new Skytrain line there, and yeah, that hole exists where once was just low rise apartments, strip malls and single family housing. It's on a hilltop kinda at that, so I'm shocked it slumped like that. Wonder if it'll have eyes on the other huge developments that sprang up at Burquitlam and Lougheed.

Otoh, high rises in the province in more lawless municipalities have been built and then evacuated for retrofits, repeatedly, before so, maybe not too shocking: https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/incredibly-frustrating-langford-highrise-evacuated-again-due-to-safety-concerns-1.6369459

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane
The side fell off. That’s not very common, I’d just like to make that point.

Serotoning
Sep 14, 2010

D&D: HASBARA SQUAD
HANG 'EM HIGH


We're fighting human animals and we act accordingly

Boot and Rally posted:

Start with the rich part of town.

Then do your house next

qhat
Jul 6, 2015


Fortunately I don’t have one. These things must be related.

a primate
Jun 2, 2010

Here’s something that will make houses get built faster:

Ontario to end mandatory coroner's inquests on construction site deaths

quote:

Ontario intends to do away with mandatory coroner's inquests for workers who died on construction sites, the government said Thursday.

Instead, the province will conduct an annual review of construction site deaths in an effort to alleviate pressure on overloaded coroners, Solicitor General Michael Kerzner said.

Inquests of all kinds usually take years from the time of deaths until they are conducted, and similar deaths are often examined together.



Families and the construction industry can ask for an inquest by the Office of the Chief Coroner, which has the discretion to call one.

Countdown to the Coroner saying “nah we don’t need an inquest on this one, I’m sure everything Ellis Don/Aecon/PCL did was above board.

Femtosecond
Aug 2, 2003

My uncle was staying over at my parents while I was there the other night and our conversation about housing went over all the boomer hits:

* Upzoning Shaughnessy shouldn't be done because it won't create ~affordable~ housing.
* People need to get over it and leave Vancouver for other more affordable towns [citation needed that there are other affordable towns]
* There's lots of jobs in other towns around BC [citation needed]

MickeyFinn
May 8, 2007
Biggie Smalls and Junior Mafia some mark ass bitches

Pvt. Parts posted:

Then do your house next

You start with the rich part of town because the lots are larger and support more units and the land values are higher giving a better reduction in housing prices.

Turning a 4-unit building into a 6-unit building isn’t as helpful as turning a large SFH on a giant lot into a 20-unit building. It displaces fewer people, as well.

Subjunctive
Sep 12, 2006

✨sparkle and shine✨

It also conveniently keeps the profits from density increasing land value nicely focused on the most wealthy!

T.C.
Feb 10, 2004

Believe.
I understand people who might not want to upzone Dunbar or whatever. Within people's living memories those places were affordable and had communities with working class people and things. They have an image in their mind of it that isn't what it is now.

I don't loving understand Shaughnessy. It was built as the fancy place for rich railway people and their friends. Unless you are those people, why is this a battle you're having? There's a block or two around the edges that were more reasonable family homes at one point, but the whole core has always been estates.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

I think a great metric for upzoning should be average rents in the area. It's a great market signal showing where people value living but there isn't enough housing to meet demand. Rents pretty much exactly track proximity to jobs/amenities so it's a pretty easy way to see where more housing is needed.

Serotoning
Sep 14, 2010

D&D: HASBARA SQUAD
HANG 'EM HIGH


We're fighting human animals and we act accordingly

T.C. posted:

I understand people who might not want to upzone Dunbar or whatever. Within people's living memories those places were affordable and had communities with working class people and things. They have an image in their mind of it that isn't what it is now.

I don't loving understand Shaughnessy. It was built as the fancy place for rich railway people and their friends. Unless you are those people, why is this a battle you're having? There's a block or two around the edges that were more reasonable family homes at one point, but the whole core has always been estates.

Maybe cause you don't let your enmity and/or jealousy of the rich dictate your politics?

Femtosecond
Aug 2, 2003

If rich folks want to spend their money building a single big mansion that is fine by them and their right as owner of the land.

The big problem is specific government regulation that restricts in their neighbourhood and theirs alone specific building types, including building forms of the sort that would provide access to the neighbourhood by people that cannot afford to buy single massive lot themselves.

Barring some exceptional few cases there's no reason why the residential zoning, the sorts of buildings that are allowed to be built, shouldn't be largely the exact same across the entire city. If it's reasonable to allow a small apartment in Hastings Sunrise, it's reasonable to allow a small apartment in Shaughnessy.

It could make sense to step down allowed density in relatively remote parts of the city, poorly served by transit, with few amenities. This is however absolutely not Shaughnessy, which is in the centre of the city, well served by amenities and at the edge of what will be the backbone of Vancouver's transit system.

StealthArcher
Jan 10, 2010




leftist heap posted:

I think we should start bulldozing existing homes :colbert:

Bulldoze everything in West Point Grey except Jericho base, it'll be hysterical.

MickeyFinn
May 8, 2007
Biggie Smalls and Junior Mafia some mark ass bitches

Pvt. Parts posted:

Maybe cause you don't let your enmity and/or jealousy of the rich dictate your politics?

Keep carrying that water. One day they’ll let you in. I’m sure of it.

Precambrian Video Games
Aug 19, 2002



I love rich people, and their money, and specifically taxing it all.

qhat
Jul 6, 2015


Pvt. Parts posted:

Maybe cause you don't let your enmity and/or jealousy of the rich dictate your politics?

Lol. What’s with all this enmity against the rich and their ten million dollar mansions?? If only someone in the world would stick up for the rights of excessively wealthy people.

Guest2553
Aug 3, 2012


e. nm this isn't the cspam one

Guest2553 fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Dec 3, 2023

Fidelitious
Apr 17, 2018

MY BIRTH CRY WILL BE THE SOUND OF EVERY WALLET ON THIS PLANET OPENING IN UNISON.

qhat posted:

Lol. What’s with all this enmity against the rich and their ten million dollar mansions?? If only someone in the world would stick up for the rights of excessively wealthy people.

He's trying to speed-run getting banned from every canadian politics thread. Hurry it along I say.

Femtosecond
Aug 2, 2003

quote:

‘Luxury condo’ is a slur the left wing needs to drop if it wants to help the housing crisis

What is luxury?

To some it’s a Tuscan villa, a fancy SUV, or VIP bottle service at a club. For a lot of the old guard left, though, luxury is a tiny box in the sky called a condo.

I’ve learned this fact following Canadian housing and development politics for a couple decades where, inevitably, somebody utters the phrase “luxury condos” as a kind of gotcha slur during community meetings or on list serves and social media.

Look a little closer and the “luxury” in question are the generally small or tiny condo units that the very same people will denigrate as unlivable, a place unfit for a family where even a full-sized bed won’t fit. Funny how that works both ways. Which is it: luxury or Dickensian?

Less funny was seeing NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and the federal NDP lean heavily into this kind of rhetoric recently. While discussing building housing on public land, Singh said it should be 100 per cent affordable and shouldn’t be used to make developers rich or build luxury condos.

Let's unpack this a bit.

Over and over, the people referring to condos as luxury often live in houses they own that are far bigger, have more outdoor space and are more expensive than those "luxury" condos. It’s the weirdest thing and most warped of perceptions, but a given among a large part of the population: they personally don’t live in luxury, but other people do.

The notion of luxury is connected to class. That complicates things because class identity is often subjective and shifty: an awful lot of people who aren’t middle class think they are middle class. Middle class means “normal” or “regular.” It’s why the government endlessly talks about the middle class, as both upper- and lower-income folks all think they’re in the middle. Apart from muddying our perceptions, it means the actual working class have lost their constituency and advocates.

If everyone is middle class, who’s struggling at the bottom? If everything is luxury, what are single family homes that cost more than tiny condos? There are surely many people struggling to get by while living in condos who don't think they're in the lap of luxury.

The developer and luxury rhetoric is aimed directly at a very comfortable and housed old guard lefty base who don’t like change — a dog whistle that can galvanize a lot of people for or against something. In this case, drumming up support for the NDP, but the collateral damage here is new housing support, because those phrases have a lot of weight and history attached to them.

There’s more than a century’s worth of tradition in Toronto of being anti-apartment. It’s why we’re missing a lot of the pre-war walk-ups other cities have. Today, too, we’re seeing teardowns of perfectly good rental apartments and displacement of their residents while vast amounts of house neighbourhoods are untouchable. Condo hate has the same roots.

Sometimes that bad developer trope can arguably be used for good, as in the case of the Greenbelt when developers were, in fact, being bad. I do wonder how successful the campaign to reverse the Greenbelt opening would have been without the built-in antipathy for developers.

Big bad developers don’t help themselves by hiring marketers who push every new project as luxury or use imagery and words that imply as much even when the reality is a tiny box. Yet unless you’re a carpenter with Jesus of Nazareth skills, it’s likely a developer built the place you live, big or small.

The 100 per cent affordable ambition Singh mentioned is good, one I wish was a reality across the country, but I don’t see it actually being fully funded anytime soon. In the meantime, a few generations of Canadians are looking for somewhere reasonable to live and not finding it.

In the past I've called for all levels of government to engage in a housing “war effort” and subsidize, fund and build like we did after World War II, creating the affordable and prosperous landscape baby boomers grew up in.

Even with the NDP holding the balance of power in the Liberal minority government, they haven't declared that war. Instead, Liberals have embarked on systemic tinkering, with Housing Minister Sean Fraser telling cities to open up their zoning to allow more housing or forfeit funding. That’s great. Not near enough, but great to see finally.

I beg the NDP and the old guard left to embrace more nuance when talking about housing and avoid the "luxury" rhetoric. Not because it’s annoying, but because it divides and alienates the people you should be trying to attract to the cause: you’re damaging yourself as much as the housing movement.

There are real critiques of housing policy and the market, like size, design, build quality and funding schemes. What’s often termed the “financialization” of housing, thinking of it as critical investment rather than critical shelter, has been a disaster for this country.

Continue to fight for affordable housing, please, but chill out with polarizing rhetoric.


I think a funny thing here to point the possibility that some of this notion that condos = luxury is tied to the heavy marketing by developers trying to sell their brand new condos. Of course if you're trying to sell these things you'll play up how nice they are! And boomers in old houses seeing these condos as "luxury" really highlights how inherently unstable and unviable the SFH form is. The only reason boomers can "afford" their "affordable" SFHs is because they're doing no maintenance or improvements, and seeing things gradually get worse than a typical new build.

tagesschau
Sep 1, 2006
Guten Abend, meine Damen und Herren.
If your tiny shitbox is outfitted with big sliding plastic panels instead of an actual door to the "bedroom" and has a minibar fridge and an Easy Bake Oven instead of real appliances, it is not a luxury condo and never will be, and anyone trying to convince you otherwise is most likely trying to swindle you. No amount of stainless steel or granite or repeating "best place on earth!/centre of the universe!" can change that.

The real complaint the left should be making about condos is that younger Canadian workers are being forced to overpay for garbage accommodations because their parents' retirement plans, as well as an outsized chunk of the economy, rely on number go up.

McGavin
Sep 18, 2012

Anything fancier than a brown paper bag in a septic tank is luxury.

MickeyFinn
May 8, 2007
Biggie Smalls and Junior Mafia some mark ass bitches

McGavin posted:

Anything fancier than a brown paper bag in a septic tank is luxury.

Look at money bags over here talking about bags.

cat botherer
Jan 6, 2022

I am interested in most phases of data processing.

McGavin posted:

Anything fancier than a brown paper bag in a septic tank is luxury.
please don't use the L-slur

Syfe
Jun 12, 2006


I have vehemently hated Air BnBs since I first heard about them as anything more than renting out your primary residence. Nice to see that hatred well placed, now if only it could lead to aggressive policy

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/short-term-rentals-have-significantly-impacted-housing-affordability-desjardins-1.6672804

quote:

A new Desjardins report suggests short-term rentals likely contributed to the housing affordability crisis in Canada and around the world.

The report released Monday shows the proliferation of short-term rentals on platforms such as Airbnb and Vrbo has had a significant effect on the affordability and availability of homes by reducing the number of units available for long-term rentals and resale markets.

It's absolute insanity that this shitbag company has lead to a housing crisis the world over.

Syfe fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Dec 5, 2023

Subjunctive
Sep 12, 2006

✨sparkle and shine✨

I mean, AirBnB didn’t force people to buy condos just to turn them into by-the-weekend party shells. Let’s not take away the agency of the people who decided to actually take a piece of housing off the market.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Subjunctive posted:

I mean, AirBnB didn’t force people to buy condos just to turn them into by-the-weekend party shells. Let’s not take away the agency of the people who decided to actually take a piece of housing off the market.

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

I mean, it’s technically true but there’s still a lot of blame to be had by the enablers.

Subjunctive
Sep 12, 2006

✨sparkle and shine✨

Oh certainly, I just don’t want to forget about the people who chose to do this, especially after the harms had been pretty well-established.

(I think guns are an especially terrible parallel, but whatever.)

Precambrian Video Games
Aug 19, 2002



It's a lot easier to ban AirBnB than guns. Nobody is sneaking AirBnBs across the border or 3D printing them...

...yet.

Femtosecond
Aug 2, 2003

Hey there's plenty of blame to go around. How about all the cities that wouldn't allow hotels to be built for ~reasons~, thus creating a huge demand for Airbnb as the hotel alternative?

Femtosecond
Aug 2, 2003

:siren: it's happening! :siren:

https://twitter.com/kahlonrav/status/1732124363007377825?s=46&t=ruJSzwqECRxfc3oePbtIng

The nerdiest of nerdy urbanists and architects rejoicing right now.

BC NDP continues to deliver.

Truman Peyote
Oct 11, 2006



Femtosecond posted:

If rich folks want to spend their money building a single big mansion that is fine by them and their right as owner of the land.

The big problem is specific government regulation that restricts in their neighbourhood and theirs alone specific building types, including building forms of the sort that would provide access to the neighbourhood by people that cannot afford to buy single massive lot themselves.

Barring some exceptional few cases there's no reason why the residential zoning, the sorts of buildings that are allowed to be built, shouldn't be largely the exact same across the entire city. If it's reasonable to allow a small apartment in Hastings Sunrise, it's reasonable to allow a small apartment in Shaughnessy.

It could make sense to step down allowed density in relatively remote parts of the city, poorly served by transit, with few amenities. This is however absolutely not Shaughnessy, which is in the centre of the city, well served by amenities and at the edge of what will be the backbone of Vancouver's transit system.

I'd agree with this. If all of Vancouver was zoned to allow row homes and low-rises, you would end up with row homes and low-rises being built out wherever it was most lucrative to do so. There aren't many parts of town that wouldn't benefit from this.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Femtosecond posted:

Hey there's plenty of blame to go around. How about all the cities that wouldn't allow hotels to be built for ~reasons~, thus creating a huge demand for Airbnb as the hotel alternative?

Was that a thing?

I think a larger issue is that your garden-variety hotel was poo poo for extended stays or large groups. Which, again, is a problem with the hotel industry that could be addressed.

I look at it like Uber. I was a big fan, but now it's enshittified, and I'm back to cab companies that have fought tooth and nail to correct the deficiencies that led to Uber being a thing in the first place.

Lead out in cuffs
Sep 18, 2012

"That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."




Femtosecond posted:

If rich folks want to spend their money building a single big mansion that is fine by them and their right as owner of the land.

The big problem is specific government regulation that restricts in their neighbourhood and theirs alone specific building types, including building forms of the sort that would provide access to the neighbourhood by people that cannot afford to buy single massive lot themselves.

Barring some exceptional few cases there's no reason why the residential zoning, the sorts of buildings that are allowed to be built, shouldn't be largely the exact same across the entire city. If it's reasonable to allow a small apartment in Hastings Sunrise, it's reasonable to allow a small apartment in Shaughnessy.

It could make sense to step down allowed density in relatively remote parts of the city, poorly served by transit, with few amenities. This is however absolutely not Shaughnessy, which is in the centre of the city, well served by amenities and at the edge of what will be the backbone of Vancouver's transit system.

Lol see also the River District. Right at the furthest corner of the city, with only the most minimal of public transit or amenities, but 19-24 storeys are just fine. Heaven forbid we should do anything similar to Shaughnessy.

Femtosecond
Aug 2, 2003

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Lol see also the River District. Right at the furthest corner of the city, with only the most minimal of public transit or amenities, but 19-24 storeys are just fine. Heaven forbid we should do anything similar to Shaughnessy.

God this thing was the worst decision.

The existence of the River District really goes to show that either the entire notion of ~urban planning~ is a horseshit made up profession or that the "planning" that planners do is sadly irrelevant because politics will override whatever well made plans they make.

It's pretty clear that the only reason the River District exists is not for any good planning reason, but because it was bare industrial land, and thus easy and cheap to develop in contrast with redeveloping existing residential land. Developers asked politicians to allow it. Planners either rolled over, were forced into agreement, or foolishly went along with it without protest.

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Femtosecond
Aug 2, 2003

PT6A posted:

Was that a thing?

I'd vaguely heard that Vancouver had actually been losing hotel rooms and found some articles to suggest this has happened. The City has lost 1000 some rooms in the decade between 2008 and 2018 and more since then as during the pandemic the BC government bought some of the lousiest hotels and turned them into 600 units of social housing.

Google turned up this report from 2018 where the city was trying to do something about it, by allowing some further parcels of downtown to be places where hotels can be built, which suggests that there's significant areas where hotels are not allowed. Wouldn't be surprised if hotels are pretty much only allowed in Downtown, given that I can't think of any in Mount Pleasant or Commercial Drive or Kits or other neighbourhoods where someone would possibly want to stay. As a result is it any surprise that there's demand for Airbnb in these neighbourhoods?

City staff acknowledge the relationship between hotels and Airbnb here at the start of their 2018 report to council. https://council.vancouver.ca/20180710/documents/p2.pdf

quote:

Although the economy related to tourism and conferences has continued to grow, the number of
hotel rooms in the city has declined by 1,105 rooms over the past decade
. A further 1,674 hotel
rooms are at risk in the short and medium term for redevelopment, primarily to residential. This
will constrain job growth in the tourism industry and put further pressure on the use of residential
homes for short term rentals. Tourism Vancouver is projecting the city will lose our competitive
edge when competing for conferences due to challenges securing hotel room blocks at a price
comparable to other major centres.

Over the past few years, illegal short-term rental (STR) of residences in the downtown and
adjacent neighbourhoods have met some of the increased demand for tourist accommodation.
While staff acknowledges the benefit STRs provide to the tourism industry, in the face of an
affordability crisis and record low vacancy rates, the City had to prioritize housing to people who
want to live and work in Vancouver. In 2017 Council introduced new regulations on short-term
rentals to minimize the loss of rental housing to STR use by limiting STRs to those associated
with principal residences.

The last several decades of city planning seem to be a story of planners and politicians banning things and then being shocked by the negative outcome of their actions.

Edit: Just checking and hotel is a "conditional" use in the teeeeeny tiny amount of commercially zoned area in Kits and Mount Pleasant. Doesn't appear to be allowed in Commercial. lol of course it's conditional.

Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Dec 6, 2023

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