There are very, very good reasons to limit the pace at which downtown densify - limited infrastructure ...
AoD
As usual I agree with most of what you have to say. I would note freshcutgtrass’s post and say we shouldn’t let any level of government off the hook if they are failing to invest as they should.
As to the matter of "fairness" - well, the purchaser of the property knows full well that not all sites are equal, and hence caveat emptor.
AoD
I was merely answering Uptowner using his own terminology.
He seems to believe there's a right to the city, so I decided to discuss rights to the city.
I am sorry but I did try to understand and I have no idea what you mean.
And the only rights I'm referring to are the ones Uptowner was referring to...
I honestly don't have a simple answer for you as to what rights people should have. But if Uptowner is going to whine about building height restrictions, he best be sure to whine about the people who the condos price out too.
This seems to have been a matter of unclarity for a couple of people and I think I need to take most or all of the blame for that.
I wasn’t talking about fairness for developers. I wasn’t talking about ‘rights’ for anybody. In fact I never mentioned the word “rightâ€. I want to plant that flag very clearly where everyone can see it. I am not defending either of those propositions. I did say the
opportunity to live downtown should be afforded to as many people as possible.
Further, I meant that if we limit the number of places to live downtown rents in market driven properties will necessarily rise at a rate higher than any less desirable part of the city. Does this mean that building at our current pace will prevent an increased relative rise? No, clearly it has not. What I am considering are differing outcomes where, holding everything else constant with respect to the demographic pressures downtown faces as a high demand area, we build various numbers of units downtown.
Scenario 1: We build whatever the projected number of units is over the next five years downtown.
Scenario 2: We build 50% more than the current projected number of units downtown.
Scenario 3: We build 50% less than the number of units now being projected.
*Please note these are hypothetical situations I am considering and key to his thought experiment is the idea of holding everything else with respect to demographic pressures on downtown as a relatively desirable place to live constant. *
Is there any doubt that scenario 3 would result in higher average rents in market rate properties in the downtown area than scenario number 2? I feel it would be patronizing to explain why scenario 3 would result in higher prices and fewer people having the opportunity (not the right) to live downtown than would scenario 2. Now all you need to do is slide along the spectrum of possible outcomes to realize different numbers of units built have different consequences. Put more generally, actions have consequences and I think there is still room to optimize consequences.
Also, as I said before this whole avenue of discussion was started down, the question of investing in and mandating subsidized housing is an entirely different matter. And, if you accept that there is an optimal ratio and you think we need far more subsidized housing you should actually be arguing for more market rate units downtown so we can build more subsidized housing while maintaining desirable ratios.
I hope that helps clear up what I meant. I have tried to be more clear though when people quote one as using words such as “rights†when one clearly did not it has hard to know if I can rightfully shoulder all of the blame for the misunderstanding. As always, I have tried not to be condescending or in any other way rude.
