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And doing so ends up creating ghettos that ultimately get underserviced and over-policed. We've done this all before with terrible results (see the aforementioned Regent Park 20 years ago). Doing so also ignores the point of IZ; mixed income levels in a given area.

Mixed income housing is sound city building.
You don't get durable mixed-income housing by awarding windfall gains to people by selling them a dollar for 50 cents. Wouldn't it make more sense to require geared-to-income rental?
 
JMFC, where did I say we’re building swaths of TCHC housing? Just build market value units across the entire city, with zoning to push a larger portion of 2-3 bedroom units and the market price will come down. Either you’re thick or I’ve lost the ability to convey an idea. I think we’d best part ways on this topic. Ciao.

Wouldn‘t the smarter move be for the city to buy those units and add them to the TCHC inventory and thus not saddle new home buyers with what‘s essentially a new levy?

For true fix for affordable housing is to follow Berlin's example and for the city to buy, build or expropriate more TCHC housing that the city will own and thus control the rents, creating market pressure on all rents
Yeah, I guess I'm just thick.
 
You don't get durable mixed-income housing by awarding windfall gains to people by selling them a dollar for 50 cents. Wouldn't it make more sense to require geared-to-income rental?
You're ignoring ownership and its benefits on a community and city in general.
 
You don't get durable mixed-income housing by awarding windfall gains to people by selling them a dollar for 50 cents. Wouldn't it make more sense to require geared-to-income rental?
It’s doesn‘t need to be RGI rental, but just city owned rental. Charge market rents, as supply increases those rents will come down. That’s what Berlin has done.
 
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You're ignoring ownership and its benefits on a community and city in general.
Ownership is great, but it should be market ownership. Giving families several hundred thousand windfall is crazy. Might as well give them a property outright in a secondary market.
 
It’s doesn‘t need to be RGI rental, but just city owned rental. Charge market rents, as supply increases those rents will come down. That’s what Berlin has done.
Ideally, we increase the supply enough that market rents are affordable. I don't think government is effective or competent at managing housing. Maybe if the city were to hire professional managers and run it like a REIT I would be open to it. Managed by bureaucrats is a recipe for the worst kind of slums.
 
Ideally, we increase the supply enough that market rents are affordable.
That’s definitely my top pick as well. We need to speed up housing construction. Last night I attended a Zoom meeting on the Regent Park development and it’s now slated to be completed in 2033, a full thirty years from the date the project was approved in 2003. While I’m sure someone will be compelled to tell us why that was a reasonable timescale, that‘s too long for what we need. As I mentioned above, we have huge areas of grey fields and parking lots along Eglinton from Laird to Kennedy. This needs to be expedited into housing ASAP.
 
Inclusionary Zoning is being geared towards low and middle income for a reason.
Please. My immigrant parents would never have been eligible for an affordable unit by virtue of both of them having full-time employment.

This does not help the middle income brackets at all. It only makes it more challenging to build new housing stock, reducing overall supply, and hurting the ability of new immigrants and middle income households of ever accessing the home ownership in Toronto.

This is a policy that hurts the middle 60% income percentiles to help support the bottom 5% and pat ourselves on the back because this city, the entrenched existing home-owner class, and the city councilors who serve them are all unwilling to rezone most of the city.
 
Polish-Independence3.jpg
From link.
 
...because this city, the entrenched existing home-owner class, and the city councilors who serve them are all unwilling to rezone most of the city.
I'm on the fence about rezoning existing SFH areas and then shoehorning towers amongst them, but done well I'd likely support it, especially more mid-rise. But the greyfields across Toronto should be rezoned today to dense residential. Look here, from VP to Birchmount, all parking lots and big box retail.... this needs to be rezoned tomorrow and begin clearing and building in 2022.


As for the Portlands, can we get building some housing before the 2030s?
 
Some people buy a house and create an apartment in the basement to rent out. They use the rental income to help pay down the mortgage.

Many houses in the old city of Toronto had a second kitchen on the second floor. My own parents did rent out the second floor in the 1950's. (My parents and the tenents did not have cars. We used the streetcars to get around town. We also went on church picnics, where the church supplied buses to transport us out of town.) Today, some removed that second kitchen to create more bedrooms, and more living space. Then they complain about being short on income.

I remember that the basement was not used because of giant gravity-air furnaces and gravity-water boilers that were used at the time, using coal as the fuel. The basement was for the heating equipment, water heater, and laundry. In winter, the basement was used to hang clothes on basement clothes line to dry (no dryer machines then).

Today, the heating equipment got smaller and coal was replaced by more efficient fuel. Today, there is space in the basement that can be used as an apartment for singles for first time renters.
 
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I'm on the fence about rezoning existing SFH areas and then shoehorning towers amongst them, but done well I'd likely support it, especially more mid-rise. But the greyfields across Toronto should be rezoned today to dense residential. Look here, from VP to Birchmount, all parking lots and big box retail.... this needs to be rezoned tomorrow and begin clearing and building in 2022.

I'd even argue that parking lot area around commercial should automatically receive a 4 to 6 floor-area-ratio residential zoning. The commercial building space should be protected (by default, variance applications allowed).
 

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