Owen

You probably know about my thoughts on housing and Vancouver, but I want to hear from YOU!

That's why I'm starting Meet Peter, a regular small group virtual chat. Every Tuesday and Thursday at noon. Register here!

scheduler.zoom.us/peter-waldki...

Might have been a different Pete Fry.

Funded inclusionary zoning is great.

Unfunded inclusionary mandates are a tax on new housing.

yes, the likely result of this may well be to make everything more inconvenient for everybody, and especially for people who depend upon digital services. The vision of an internet entirely ruined and uninhabitable by humanity comes depressingly closer.

So sorry to hear this Rhi! Wishing you quick healing.

A chart showing traffic tickets issued in San Francisco, with a sharp drop that began in 2014, hit bottom in 2022 when just a few tickets were issued, and has now rebounded almost to 2014 levels.

We’re back, baby!

These photos are a great example of how unsustainable asset management is with single family zoning of this scale. There is no way to reasonably expect current rates of property taxes to fund the massive scale of infrastructure debt looming in communities everywhere. You can't refute the real data.

1. Polling best in July will still basically just be based on name recognition. Fundraising is probably more accurate.
2. I don’t think any of them expect that, even if you think it would win them the most (I’m not so sure that’s true)

Homeowners Refuse to Accept the Awkward Truth: They’re Rich | The Walrus Owners of multi-million-dollar properties still see themselves as middle class, a warped self-image that has a big impact on renters

ooh, B.C. is raising taxes on homes worth over $3 million, as well as the interest rates on property tax deferrals — two changes sure to aggravate many homeowners! time to ring the bell again: thewalrus.ca/homeowners-r...

Is there a reason the City can't enforce vacancy control for SRAs here? The lack of data on previous rents?

100%. Now is the time for senior govs to get in the business, not pull back!

I really don't see how 44,000 households getting to have a home is anything but an extremely unambiguously good thing. Does anyone think it would be a good idea to knock 44,000 new homes down? Where would those 80,000+ people live? Do they matter so little?

Haha, well, it's worrying to those same people going forward (& all renters)! Not to mention the seniors who need people to work in healthcare & need someone to pay income taxes to support healthcare.

Since you felt the need to ask:

The people who are living in the housing are the ones who it is working for. If it weren't valuable to them they wouldn't be willing to pay high prices or rents. Not to mention the people who's rent is lower thanks to more vacancies, & the homeowners who cashed out.

Driven by the drop in temporary residents for sure. Still surprised they expect a drop in absolute terms, and I don't get the labour force difference.

BC's population is forecast to drop 51k by July (YoY), and only half of that is non-institutionalized people over 15?

What if this is just wrong?

I think all of the 3 parties notionally want a unity candidate. The concentration of votes they will get is worth more than the votes they might lose.

Winnipeg's ski resort was a landfill!

I don't think it starves munis at all? IIRC the province holds the loan.

Prime + 2 is way too high. I don't see how it can be revenue maximizing & it weakens the argument that mortgage-free [allegedly] cash-poor multimillionaire home owners can just defer (although they still can).

Canada as a whole is doing better than the US and many peer countries on all levels net government debt (thanks in part to CPP), but I think BC is doing a lot worse than many provinces.

Yeah, I think compounding would be fair but Prime+2 is like they want to discourage people from using it and I don't see why the province should care either way.

I'll be clear that I'm fine with paying slightly higher income taxes at this point. Heck, if it happened before i bought my home it might not even make a difference to me. But it's not the best tax to raise, as we've known for 2 centuries now. BC should do the smart thing sometimes.

Like the Cowichan decision or something else?

Some pretty smart changes here but I think they stopped short, could have had even a small land value tax shift (away from taxes on improvements) & had land bankers chip in a little more without distorting the economy like other taxes.

The annoying thing is they're not even proposing removing the view cone. They want to remove a small part around the station & most of what is already blocked by trees. It would still be BIGGER than it was pre-2014!

They could have done something like cut the carbon tax in half and say they would work towards eliminating it as the deficit improves? I agree that we're in a political moment where lots of govs are hurtling towards a debt reckoning, but I don't think that just excuses recklessness.

Well, I guess that's a drawback of using party membership. They could restrict voting to residents I suppose, but then again, businesses can vote municipally in Vancouver! More practically, there are people who want to live in Vancouver who are volunteers no party would want to alienate.

No, I think the final terms will likely be different or there won't be a formal primary like this at all, but the $1 part is reliable!

It’s pretty sad that it’s still much faster for me to walk 400m to an Evo to get downtown than to catch the Rapidbus 100m away at Renfrew.

It might not be true at rush hour but without all day bus lanes and more frequent service, it's true the rest of the day.