Comment 114391

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted October 28, 2015 at 10:39:51 in reply to Comment 114390

I agree that we need to set up guidelines and policies to achieve an good level of affordable housing. A good target is 20%, which is what France imposes on municipalities and corresponds roughly to the overall proportion of those on low incomes.

One lesson from Vancouver is that increased values give more latitude to cities to negotiate with developers to provide geared to income housing. If no one wants to build and values are low it is very difficult to achieve anything. Increasing desirability and values will provide the opportunity to improve conditions for everyone, if we take it seriously.

We also need to be careful about throwing around the term "rich". The current developments in downtown Hamilton are certainly NOT for the "rich": they are aimed mostly at middle incomes or lower (e.g. the Spallacci block and the Vranich rental apartment developments as well as the new rentals being developed on King William). At $250k to $371k the Connaught condos are certainly not aimed at the "rich"! (Compare to Vancouver where the average house price is now well over $2 million and the high end condos are in the $5 -20 million range. Now that's rich! http://www.realestatevalley.ca/vancouver... ... 24 pages of condos over $1 million.)

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2015-10-28 10:47:20

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