Comment 86169

By Shawn Selway (anonymous) | Posted February 11, 2013 at 22:03:22 in reply to Comment 86155

Nice bit and brace. With a properly sharpened augur bit, those things practically pull themselves through the wood.

As you point out, these 80-100 year old houses are quite solid. Lower Hamilton from Dundurn to Gage is two and a half storey brick. This housing stock is one of the most valuable assets we have as a city. It's solid but not indestructible, needs to be rehabbed every twenty-to-fifty years, but conservatively. Sooner or later the logjam at City Hall will give and lower city arterial traffic will be calmed, complete streets and walkable commercial corridors will break out, Barton will pick up, etc. The whole historic centre of the city will become very mixed income. As that happens the problem will be maintaining the mix as property values go up and people on limited or fixed incomes, and renters, start to be squeezed. There are ways to pre-empt this problem eg ensuring that the elderly can stay in their homes and keep them in good repair by deferring property tax increases that arise from rapid assessment increases until the property is sold. I think the Social Planning and Research council is looking into these things. It would be encouraging if there was some public conversation about this today though, before the problem gets out ahead of us.

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