5833 replies to this topic

[LeoVictoria]

It may or may not be a supply issue.   In order to know you first have to crack down on speculation in the market and then see if the supply issue persists.    

It's very interesting to look at what happened in Phoenix before the market crashed.   There was desperately little inventory and everyone was crying about how much more supply was needed.   Then suddenly the market was awash with supply that had come out of the woodwork when the speculators found they could no longer make a profit.

 

I'm in favour of more supply, but you have to ensure the supply is actually used to house people.  

Edited by LeoVictoria, 26 May 2017 - 08:58 AM.

[Nparker]

...you have to ensure the supply is actually used to house people.  

How much of the local supply is NOT being used to house people? Despite Sid Taffler's outcries, do we really have an abundance of empty housing stock? 1%? maybe 2%?

[jonny]

It's absolutely a supply issue. Not enough has or is being built to fill the demand for family housing. Similar to the TO market that has also over supplied the speculation demand....

"Call it the tale of Toronto's two housing markets: on one side are the million-dollar-plus single-detached homes, and on the other, those tiny boxes in the sky.

What's missing, is everything in the middle."

https://www.google.c...a/amp/1.4126751

 

Yes, of course it's a supply issue and it's not an issue that a few new buildings in Toronto or Vancouver can fix.

[jonny]

How much of the local supply is NOT being used to house people? Despite Sid Taffler's outcries, do we really have an abundance of empty housing stock? 1%? maybe 2%?

 

The "thousands of vacant homes" angle is routinely brought up. Thousands of vacant homes in a sea of hundreds of thousands or even millions of occupied homes. One person's vacant home is another person's vacation property. It's all relative.

 

There is no one cause and no easy fix or silver bullet to high housing prices.

[dasmo]

So here is my question, do cities and developers work to limit supply so prices stay high? Thus increase developer profit and cities property tax revenues?

I don't think there is a conspiracy here but they are both to blame. A developer is in business to make money. If micro lofts are selling at $1000/sqft instantly that is what they will build as anyone would. Government makes the rules that dictate what will be built. larger Government creates the environment that allows for easy credit and an environment of speculation in residential real estate. In part because they are handed a torch of an economy that is propped up by this activity. As I have said a million times, Local government could stop with the spot zoning that does equate to collusion and cronyism.... They could help with actually zoning things properly on a wide scale. It would create certainty. The garden suite thing is BS. There should be no single family zoning in Victoria city at all. No new build is built single family anyway. They are all suited. The house next door has three suites I'm sure even though it's not allowed. It was built a few years ago. We need way more row houses and mixed developments. Especially along the future tram line. Condos downtown yes. Condos on Bear mountain no. 40 story towers Uptown to the Hudson yes, in James Bay no.  It's really simple and the city would suffer the battle once as opposed to every single time something is proposed because every proposal needs rezoning.... Oh, and government should influence the university and colleges to build residences through tax rebates or something. That alone would free up thousands of basement suites and tame house prices in GH.  

Edited by dasmo, 26 May 2017 - 09:51 AM.

[jonny]

Housing supply locally here in Victoria has been hampered by municipal incompetence, feet dragging and intentional blocking of projects by special interest groups and politicians. Dasmo pretty much hit the various nails squarely on their heads.

 

Take the modest 14 unit townhouse complex on Cloverdale in Saanich. That project has been ongoing for many months and shovels aren’t even close to hitting the ground. It’s absurd. Meanwhile, the homes that are to be razed have been sitting vacant (or so it looks from the street). This is all a part of our greater Canadian culture of seemingly never ending analysis and consultation, though, from energy to housing projects. We have created a bureaucratic nightmare where nothing can move forward in a speedy or efficient manner.

 

On a federal scale, we currently have some of the highest levels of immigration in history. Every year, our population is increasing about 1% (300,000 people or so) just from immigrants alone (nearly the population of Greater Victoria). To boot, our focus has shifted more and more to accepting economic migrants. These aren’t just poor people moving to small towns, these are educated professionals who already have some money moving to places like Toronto and Vancouver. We have not been building enough homes on a municipal scale to accommodate the federal government’s population growth levels. 

Edited by jonny, 26 May 2017 - 10:21 AM.

[Nparker]

... Condos on Bear mountain no. 40 story towers Uptown to the Hudson yes, in James Bay no....

Why not James Bay? It seems well-suited to greater density to me.

[jonny]

Why not James Bay? It seems well-suited to greater density to me.

 

Because the locals seem to think they live in Cowichan Bay rather than in an urban neighbourhood adjacent to a growing major Canadian city's downtown core.

 

Pick your fights, I guess. Leave that one for another day and focus on downtown, Harris Green, the arena district, Rock Bay, Uptown, etc.

Edited by jonny, 26 May 2017 - 10:20 AM.

[Nparker]

I often wonder why the JBNA seems to have such sway with Victoria City Council. 

[rjag]

I often wonder why the JBNA seems to have such sway with Victoria City Council. 

 

You simply have to look at the composure of the JBNA as well as the demographics of the area. Its changing but ever so slowly, but there is probably a disproportionate number of public sector government workers and retired public sector living there and Fernwood etc, I'm sure that has something to do with it, also its already pretty dense compared to other parts of the City. If anything the focus should be on the other side of City Hall along Government and Douglas which could easily handle height and still be well within the core

[Nparker]

..If anything the focus should be on the other side of City Hall along Government and Douglas which could easily handle height and still be well within the core

IMHO the focus needs to be on all areas west of Cook Street and south of the Victoria-Saanich border.

[LeoVictoria]

My impression is that Victoria seems to be doing a good job with approving new developments recently.   Mostly condos of course.

[Nparker]

My impression is that Victoria seems to be doing a good job with approving new developments recently.   Mostly condos of course.

There's really no location for new SFH developments in the CoV anymore. We could use more townhouse and/or row house developments, but they won't be cheap.

[jonny]

My impression is that Victoria seems to be doing a good job with approving new developments recently.   Mostly condos of course.

 

The City of Victoria, or Greater Victoria?

[LeoVictoria]

The City of Victoria, or Greater Victoria?

 

City of Victoria mostly.   

[jonny]

City of Victoria mostly.   

 

I would say the City of Victoria is doing a better job. They were horrible, say, 15 years ago. Now they are passable to slightly development friendly. Saanich, Esquimalt and Oak Bay are still horrible.

 

My main complaint with the City of Victoria is they could be more proactive, and you don't get the sense that they are excited about growth. They are more taking it as an inevitability and dealing with it as opposed to embracing the type of city we could become. They are still in the mode of reacting to projects as they are proposed as opposed to being more forward looking and laying the bureaucratic groundwork down well ahead of time.

 

Saanich and others are still in the mode of taking every project as a one-off.

[VicHockeyFan]

My main complaint with the City of Victoria is they could be more proactive, and you don't get the sense that they are excited about growth. They are more taking it as an inevitability and dealing with it as opposed to embracing the type of city we could become. They are still in the mode of reacting to projects as they are proposed as opposed to being more forward looking and laying the bureaucratic groundwork down well ahead of time.

 

For example... we have new car dealerships being built on Douglas, we have an auto shop being built on Bay, we are looking at a new pool and fire hall.  Why are we not seeing how we can use the footprint of these to put residential above?

[aastra]

I've made this point before, I'll make it again: James Bay already has "greater" density. Imagine if Saanich were to have the same overall density as James Bay. The population of Saanich would be more than 600,000.

 

But aastra, obviously that would be impossible. The comparison between Saanich and James Bay is absurd.

 

Okay, so imagine if Saanich were to have the same overall density as OAK Bay. The population of Saanich would be more than 170,000! If that isn't food for thought then I don't know what would be.

 

Maybe people fear that Saanich might be ruined if it were to follow the Oak Bay model? Too dense and unlivable? Not enough parks and green spaces?

 

For purposes of comparison, if Victoria city were to have the same overall density as James Bay its population would be 117,000 (in other words, not all that much more than its actual population of about 86,000).

 

There's this popular notion that the central neighbourhoods aren't dense enough, they haven't done enough, they haven't changed enough... it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. If not for those neighbourhoods and the extreme transformations that occurred in them during the 1960s and 1970s (and the incremental changes that have occurred in them from the 1980s through to today) there would be no density in Victoria at all.

 

This is why I think people who obsess about knocking down every last house in the city neighbourhoods are way off track. The city neighbourhoods have already done more than their share. It's time for the other parts of Victoria to take the ball (including the underdeveloped parts of Harris Green and north downtown).

 

I'm not meaning to let Fairfielders and James Bayers off the hook when they make a huge stew about some (usually small) new building here or there. It's silly to be going overboard about the incremental drop-in-a-bucket stuff that happens in those neighbourhoods nowadays. But it's much sillier to be placing all of the focus and all of the seemingly unconquerable burden on those physically small areas even as the rest of metro Victoria adheres to the low density model.

[aastra]

Saanich is the municipality that needs to get its act together. All fingers should be pointed there.

 

Consider: all of the growth that happened in the west comms during the past ~25 years could have happened in Saanich. If it had, Saanich's population would be in that ~170,000 range today. And the west comms would be pretty much the same as they were in 1990.

[Nparker]

...I'm not meaning to let Fairfielders and James Bayers off the hook when they make a huge stew about some (usually small) new building here or there...

I suppose it's this that I object to in the core. Look at the opposition to that modest proposal for Montreal & Niagara Streets.