4 years after Toronto's Housing Now plan, there isn't a single new affordable unit in the city

[shockedcanadian]

Average rent in Toronto for a 1 BR apt. is over $2400 a month. In 2019 the city said it would build affordable housing, Social spending in Toronto is a fraction of the police budget, so people thought "hey, maybe these guys are starting to get it".

4 Years later, not even one apartment has been constructed as our tent city expands.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-affordable-housing-1.6845196

When Toronto launched its ambitious new housing strategy in 2019, it aimed to transform valuable city-owned lands into 10,000 affordable homes — but more than four years later, not a single shovel is in the ground.

Housing Now was designed to convert surplus city-owned properties, such as parking lots, into new housing developments, with a minimum one-third of those units affordable or at no more than 80 per cent of market rent.

The first 11 properties, all near transit nodes, were identified in early on. The plan was to build and hand back the projects to city-aligned housing agencies for management within four years through a fast-tracked approval process.

So far, that hasn't happened. Now, some developers blame what they're calling the city's onerous construction approval process — including the Toronto Green Standard (TGS), which adds several levels of new regulation, on top of the provincial building code.

"We're calling it 'Housing Later,' or 'Housing Maybe'," said Richard Lyall, of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON). "It's not a surprise, in a sad kind of way."

 

[1srelluc]

So, the Hoser version of "shovel ready"?

 

[DGS49]

If everything is as it should be, the Government should have no role in the production of new housing. By demanding that the rents be "affordable," no rational developer will want anything to do with it. If housing stock increases organically and rationally, rents will gradually be reduced with no public money required.

And of course, Leftist city governments cannot help but fuck up the works with absurd zoning and regulatory requirements.

The key element of all Leftist city governments, regardless of what country you are talking about, is that none of the decision-makers have ever had a real job - defined as a responsible position in a private-sector business entity that's mission is to make a profit.

 

[shockedcanadian]

If everything is as it should be, the Government should have no role in the production of new housing. By demanding that the rents be "affordable," no rational developer will want anything to do with it. If housing stock increases organically and rationally, rents will gradually be reduced with no public money required.

And of course, Leftist city governments cannot help but fuck up the works with absurd zoning and regulatory requirements.

The key element of all Leftist city governments, regardless of what country you are talking about, is that none of the decision-makers have ever had a real job - defined as a responsible position in a private-sector business entity that's mission is to make a profit.

Your assumptions about organic price increases only work if demand is organic. It is not, since Toronto receives the vast majority of new immigrants, while we cannot build more land.

Thus, the actual reason for the price increases is that the government slowly approves development, the unions take years to build a low rise building, and as this story illustrates, years to simply START the development.

Thus, you cram millions of new citizens into the same area, plus new births, while little to no new units are created, and what used to be $1400 a few years ago is now $2400. You see anyone wages doubling?