Comment 114706

By Selway (registered) | Posted November 06, 2015 at 20:23:42 in reply to Comment 114691

"Like food banks, the fact that charitable groups are having to try to create affordable housing is a sign of societal failure."

Well, it depends on your position in society. From the point of view of a large residential landlord and the property management outfits who provide the muscle, everything in Hamilton is going well. From the perspective of tenants, not so well. But then, if there were no lambs there would be no tigers.

You write:

"It's definitely time for Hamilton to start developing proactive policies around housing before we find ourselves in an affordability crisis, but we need to be careful not to fall prey to the misguided notion that keeping the downtown and lower city poor, run-down and unattractive is good social policy."

We already are in the affordability crisis, but there's not much point debating that at present. I wonder where you detect the "misguided notion." You provide no instances of anyone recommending such a policy. The fact is, tenants in many multi-residential buildings downtown and elsewhere have for years attempted to get their landlords to maintain the premises in better repair. Landlords have preferred to put their capital elsewhere. Where, exactly, no-one knows except they and their lawyers - and of course the financial institutions and municipal administrators involved when the reinvestment is in real estate.

But we can infer, for example, that DiCenzo, which recently sold off four high-rises in Riverdale after (according to some occupants) letting them run down for some years, has put their money into other development projects. Thus, last Saturday's "New Home Living" supplement to the Spec featured an inspirational photo of Anthony DiCenzo, flanked by Sam DiSanto and Vince Molinaro of the Molinaro Group, introducing the world to their shared vision for the final phase of Paradise Townes. Paradise Townes is number 151 in the Newhome Area Guide, and is located south of Rymal Road and just west of Garth, along with a great deal of other new no-rise building that is occurring south of Rymal. Hence the putative need for expanded capacity on the Red Hill and the Linc - a need which just became a little more pressing since Di Cenzo now has 50 million dollars from the sale of those Riverdale properties that must be put to work. Meanwhile, back at the old homestead in Riverdale, the new owner, Interrent Real Estate Investment Trust will bring in their property managers, CLV Group, to "reposition" the buildings in the market. In the context of apartment towers, "reposition", as we learned from the way in which Greenwin handled their Robert Village buildings, means practical "renoviction."

Of course we need new construction for affordable rental and other forms of tenure. It is very unlikely that private capital will provide it. But for the state to come in, the political situation has to change. IMHO, it would be helpful if those who are expressing a concern for affordability in the downtown would extend that concern through the whole city, and join with the current tenants of actually existing buildings to insist on value for their rent money. From that, the rest will follow.

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