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How the left and right can build housing

Tell us if you’ve heard this one: Doug Ford, Pierre Poilievre, Justin Trudeau and David Eby walk into a bar

One can imagine a few comedic punchlines – but in a more serious telling, this seemingly divided quartet of federal and provincial leaders sits down and … agrees on a major policy direction.

Upon what difficult issue does this rare left-right consensus coalesce? Housing and the idea that municipalities are moving too slowly in expanding supply. All four leaders, to varying degrees, have slowly come to the obvious conclusion: Canada needs to build a lot more housing. Cities have failed, by leaving in place decades-old zoning rules that prevent needed homes from being built. It’s forced higher levels of government to intervene.

The intentions and ideas from Ottawa, B.C. and Ontario are good. But the policies, in process and proposed, are too little, and the pace of action is far too slow. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. last year called for a massive supply response – 5.8 million new homes by 2030, triple the number built in the 2010s. That’ s the sort of scale necessary to sap the housing mania, a market in which it is difficult for many people to buy or rent in the country’s big cities. Left or right, the provincial and federal interventions don’t come close to a framework that could achieve what CMHC proposes.

Last week, Mr. Eby’s B.C. NDP tabled an outline of its plans – with legislation coming this fall. It’s perhaps the most comprehensive yet. A central idea is one that has jumped into the mainstream: to replace zoning that allows for only detached homes with one that permits a fourplex on a single lot. The B.C. NDP would override cities, and institute this template provincewide.

It is a welcome change, and it goes further than legislation last year from Mr. Ford’s Ontario Progressive Conservatives – but it remains stuck in what political leaders like to call “gentle” density. Gentle is inadequate when the cost to rent a twobedroom apartment in Toronto or Vancouver has shot 20 per cent higher to well more than $3,000 a month.

The trend to legislate housing from above started in places such as California and New Zealand. Oregon did likewise but early data there suggest that permitting fourplexes has only a small impact.

In Ottawa, where the federal Liberals have upped immigration to record levels, the focus on housing is wavering. Mr. Trudeau put up $4-billion to get cities to “tackle NIMBYism” but the plan’s goals have already been pared back. Mr. Poilievre proposes a similar idea, to withhold federal cash and levy a “NIMBY penalty” on big cities that don’t allow enough density. Some cities are resisting interventions from above. Others, however, are doing more. Victoria this year opened its zoning across the city to allow six homes on one lot with 12 townhomes on some corner lots.

This space has long advocated for more housing density – along the lines off our-to six-storey apartment buildings, with multibedroom homes fit for families, legal to build across all Canadian cities, especially near public assets such as schools (too often half-empty in old neighbourhoods) and parks. Political leaders still want to consign such density to busy streets. That mindset must be broken.

The need for major changes is multifaceted. Foremost, expensive housing hinders Canada’s economic potential. Cities thrive when people are able to move to them. Housing costs undermine that success. Then there’s a question of fairness: Many Canadians under 40 face a housing market where buying looks impossible and the high cost of rent makes it difficult to save.

The call for a lot more housing encompasses different needs. Build more homes near the centre of cities for people of middle and higher incomes. But there also has to be a big government-supported push for purpose-built rentals, available at reasonable rates, and especially for affordable social housing for lower incomes, as detailed in January by the Bank of Nova Scotia. There also must be new rules to quell speculation. Mr. Eby’s plan includes a “flipping tax.” More moves on those lines will help. Housing should not be a financial asset. It should not be the pillar of people’s retirement plans. Prices to buy and rent should, at most, tick up modestly over time.

A cross-partisan consensus has emerged, after a long debate while prices shot ever-higher. The real punchline has to be urgent action.

EDITORIAL

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2023-04-10T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-04-10T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://globe2go.pressreader.com/article/281689734092977

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