Raise the Hammer

Closely tied to the issue of affordable housing is the current lack of housing choice in Hamilton. We are denied housing choice and cannot choose to live in a car-free neighbourhood.

Needless to say, forcing everyone to live in a car-dominated neighbourhood and lifestyle is a major cause of lack of affordability.

Comment edited by KevinLove on 2016-04-19 14:47:01

Hamilton has a range of privately built housing, ranging from newer projects in the suburbs, existing housing stock at a range of price points from less desirable homes in the north end to housing in the southwest, to condos now in the downtown core, and large quantity of apartments near the core.

If you are talking about social housing, the hard costs of building social housing, consisting of building costs, land, and soft costs such as development fees, architectural, engineer, various studies, OMB appeals, legal fees,interim financing, etc., all add up to something that is not affordable. Social Housing is heavily dependent on subsidies.

The big issue who is going to provide the subsidies, generally either the provincial or federal government.

If the City is looking for a local subsidy, or means of addressing this problem, perhaps they need to offer deals with developers to increase density, in exchange for cash or a certain percentage of units to be built and geared to income. Increasing zoning density, can if a project is designed properly be a win win for the City and Developer.

As for car free neighbourhoods, this doesn't sound very realistic. How do fire trucks, or ambulances reach such a neighbourhood, or how do you handle renovations with material and equipment deliveries? (Or Pizza delivery?) Downtown Hamilton does have Condos where parking is not necessarily provided.

Roads are a social benefit for all. Think of that the next time you buy your groceries, and fresh produce.

Comment edited by GWW on 2016-04-20 20:29:02

This is a somewhat strange comment. If you really want to see how car-free neighbourhoods deal with those issues, I suggest that you go visit the Toronto Islands

Or if you have a bit more time and money, see the car-free downtown Utrecht.

There are a gazillion urban car-free zones, and an entire car-free city, Venice.

Comment edited by KevinLove on 2016-04-21 08:41:05

Isolated pockets with car free areas may exist, but they are heavily dependent on infrastructure outside the enclaves that exist. Toronto Island is a static community with no growth or change, with residences not owning the land, with an average of only two home sales a year in a very convoluted structure. Venice by contrast has seen its population drop in half in the last thirty years. If you want to cater to an elite minority, but catering to the one percent does not cut it.

Show me a free standing community in North America that is successful without a solid infrastructure (ie roads c/w cars)system.

Comment edited by GWW on 2016-04-23 08:06:47

in the sense that affordability has decreased in neighbourhoods that have good transit access and proximity to jobs, you are correct. the movement of individuals back to urban centres has forced many of the working poor away from services that they rely on and into the poorly planned and car-centric suburbs.

there are limited choices for those who are low-income, if you have money you can live in more walkable and transit friendly neighbourhoods. there are people who choose to live in these neighbourhoods and also use their personal vehicles a lot because they have the resources to make that choice.

So gentrification is evil. We should never gentrify a neighbourhood, especially a stagnant and dangerous one like the downtown, and just let it be since poor people can't afford to live elsewhere. Yeah, riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

lol you certainly have nuanced and well thought out opinions! having mixed-income neighbourhoods tend to be more economically productive and promote health to a greater extent than those that are skewed to more extremes of the income spectrum.

maybe you forgot that people have generally lived in urban areas so they can access transit and work opportunities more easily? perhaps ensuring those less fortunate continue to have these opportunities while those with greater resources and mobility can also enjoy the benefits of urban life would be beneficial to our community as a whole?

or maybe we can just make our cities enclaves for the rich so you don't have to be disgusted by the sight of some working class person waiting for a bus while you sip on a 15 dollar cocktail on some trendy bar patio.

HeeHaw. You'd be a great guy to live next to with all that live and let live going on in there (provided everyone near you agrees with you.)

i don't see how this at all relates to what i am arguing but i'll just assume that your life is so sad you have to go personally trolling people on a blog of an interest group so i won't really try to stoop to that pretty pathetic level.

"or maybe we can just make our cities enclaves for the rich so you don't have to be disgusted by the sight of some working class person waiting for a bus while you sip on a 15 dollar cocktail on some trendy bar patio."

Prejudiced and bigoted people don't recognize those attributes in themselves - i.e all non-poor people think the same. Anyone who is not desperate is a user. All people without money are mooches. etc. etc.

I think there is more NON working poor then WORKING poor in this city. And in that case the NON working poor is living in the same place they always lived in and it passes on from generation to generation. They will never leave until they sell the home they bought for $20 000 20 years ago, to a Toronto hipster who wants to ride his bike to GO to spend all his time and money in a city he does not live in because its cheaper to live here...but for a $450 000 profit. These newcomers don't come here because of how awesome this city is, they come here to live because they cant afford to live where they came from, and its ruining the affordability of the city.
I will leave it to you guys to clean up lower Hamilton. Ill drive my vehicles and live in the quiet backyard a plenty area called the Mountain.

You think that because you never bothered to look it up. (It's not true... go look up the numbers.) But, of course, you won't actually "leave it to you guys to clean up lower Hamilton". With that attitude, you'll be vigorously blocking, anyway you can, literally everything done to improve the quality of life in the lower city.

One issue left out from the article was the mention in the federal budget of a goal for the national housing strategy for the social housing sector to become self-reliant.

As the article points out there have been many recent steps toward increasing affordability. Finding feasible implementations locally will define how much progress to the goal of affordable housing for all the community we will attain. In my attempts to understand how local leadership thinks, I found them fixated on using the issue to gain more funding from senior levels of government when all signals point to this being ever more difficult. And blinded to opportunities to increase housing affordability by looking at the housing market of the community as a whole and how we may make injections to that market by policy.

To me that blinkered perspective is the most limiting factor to achieving more of the goal of affordable housing locally.

The other side needs to be about adding supply to the regular housing stock. As long as we let fussy bylaws about shadows and parking block intensification developments, we're never going to make supply meet demand without paving the whole Green Belt. As long as supply never approaches demand, housing prices will constantly climb upwards.

If the Provincial Liberals had any credibility, I'd want them to adopt the Japanese model of zoning:

http://urbankchoze.blogspot.ca/2014/04/j...

Comment edited by Pxtl on 2016-04-20 11:46:23

this point also has to be repeated to those who for some strange reason have taken up the fight against condo buildings in our city, as if adding more housing options is a bad thing. The same people who whined and cried for decades when the only housing being built was low density, out on greenfield lands, are now trying to oppose urban housing.
Condos are a fantastic way for young people to get into home ownership and start building equity. They are also a great lifestyle choice for downsizing seniors who don't want to mow lawns or shovel snow anymore. If we prevent people from building different housing options, we guarantee ourselves an unaffordable future.

supply side economics is not going to solve housing prices because it's clear that condo supply has limited bearing on affordability when looking at other markets in this country. i don't think you need to be in support of large scale condo development to support increasing density.

there are few options for people to choose from aside from a small condo in a tower or a SFH. we have completely neglected medium density development because developers do not want to build it. due to our housing bubble, a lot of condo units are built for investors so we see a ton of 1 and 2 bdrm units that are easy to flip for people to climb up the property ladder, but not good if you have a family.

Comment edited by highasageorgiapine on 2016-04-20 12:33:55

Condo developers will build what will sell. Once you get to a three bedroom unit, you are approaching the cost of a low end SFH or a townhouse, at that point most people would prefer SFD or a townhouse.

The supply side of social housing is dependent on subsidies. When you look at some of the issues in Hamilton, where there are vacant social housing units, how much as a society do we spend? We have federal and provincial governments both running deficits. The city has limited financial wherewithal. The City however controls Zoning/density which can create windfalls for developers or owners of property. The City needs to consciously skim off some of these potential windfalls, that only they can create, and direct it towards social housing.

Comment edited by GWW on 2016-04-23 08:31:16

My pockets have already been picked clean. I can't afford any more HST, property or other taxes, or increased hydro rates or use fees or hidden costs or whatever. I am sorry but I have enough trouble keeping my own house in order and have no more room left to give.

You need to keep your house in better order, hoss.

Let's leave it to the experts why don't we? That strikes me as the best possible plan. We're in this together. Let's trust together in the collective expertise about how to build a successful and inclusive community.

P.S. if you've got a problem, since you seem to know who I am you know where to find me. Always happy to talk such things out.

The "attitudes on this thread" you're complaining about are a recognition that the city needs to grow its affordable housing stock and pushing back against people who say "I got mine, Jack".