Comment 27640

By A Smith (anonymous) | Posted December 01, 2008 at 13:59:44

Robert_D, if you want to make housing cheaper for poor people, the best way to do that is to increase the supply of land that developers can build on and reduce restrictions on what structures they can build. By allowing government to tie up land under the guise of saving the environment, you are ensuring that poor people find it harder to purchase their own house.

The great thing about letting the market work in an unrestricted way, is that it forces people to put their money where their mouth is. If it's true that having large swaths of green space is important, environmental groups should find it easy to raise the funds to take them off the market, without having to resort to government interference. If the green belt does not enjoy wide public acceptance, then the market will show that as well. Let's remove the artificial restrictions and see how people really feel about this idea of removing prime land from development.

Furthermore, when city council figures out that their zoning rules are nothing more than barriers to growth and removes them, you will see many great developments take root. Since politicians are not God, why do we expect them to be able to plan a city from the top down, when the real world involves ever changing business plans, consumer demands and needs. Whoever thinks they do have the ability to plan better than the marketplace suffers from the same arrogant attitude that led to mass starvation and wasted human potential that we saw last century.

If Hamilton politicians are smart they will stop thinking, stop trying to help and sit back, collect their paycheck and let nature take its course.

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