evandyk
Senior Member
I think only one even admitted to struggling with mortgage payments!
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- Thread starter A Torontonian Now
- Start date
Northern Light
Superstar
evandyk
Senior Member
Yeah, though Chow famously lived in a coop before that, which was subsidized as many coops were. It's interesting that nobody really suggested anything to do with coops as a potential piece of the solution for housing, even though the model created tons of units in the past. For many of them the bills are coming due now and some are finding them hard to pay, but it should be one of the tools we use.
evandyk
Senior Member
I think Matlow was the one guy who talked about how it was hard to pay his mortgage. I think he's the youngest of the bunch, so entered the market the latest.
But the main point is that renters can vote, but have zero people on council (or running for mayor) with their personal experience.
But the main point is that renters can vote, but have zero people on council (or running for mayor) with their personal experience.
evandyk
Senior Member
Mitzie Hunter obviously knows things about renters and public housing. But maybe not the best things.
HousingNowTO
Senior Member
Co-ops are 100% useful as "part of the mix" as one of the tools we use in the 2020's -- BUT they never really "created tons of units in the past".
In Ontario, province-wide the old Co-op model created approx. ~1,800 units per year - and the average size of a Co-op was only around ~80 units per Co-op organization.
As mentioned, "for many of them the bills are coming due now and some are finding them hard to pay" - which makes it hard for a whole-scale reinvention of the Co-op sector in Toronto in the 2020's.
The number of Co-ops that could take-on the building and operation of a net-new 250+ unit apartment building in Toronto is really pretty small.
FAQ - https://chfcanada.coop/about-co-op-housing/facts-and-figures/
Northern Light
Superstar
Hmmm, how many units of affordable housing have we built each year for the last 10 in any form (RGI, Co-op, Mixed development?)
I'm genuinely curious, but also fairly sure its below 1,800.
Also important to scale the numbers from the previous model on to the current population; as all other things being equal, one would expect a correlative increase.
We have roughly 75% more people in Ontario than we did in 1975; (which I'm pegging as the co-op era, but you may wish to correct me on that); I would therefore expect 1,800 units per annum then, to equal 3,150 units per annum now.
Fair point, but begs an immediate question on whether Co-ops are or have been subject to rules to set aside enough funds for future capital repairs.
We see that there is nominally such a requirement for condos; but due to problematic boards, many older condos are now running into deep trouble.
It strikes me that all forms of multi-tenant tenure, including those under corporate ownership should face mandatory reserve levels that can't not be circumvented.
yrt+viva=1system
Senior Member
Trudeau says new housing-based long-term infrastructure plan coming this fall
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-housing-long-term-infrastructure-1.6856234
HousingNowTO
Senior Member
You can't really "scale the numbers from the previous model on to the current population; (with) all other things being equal" - Co-ops, Church groups, etc - all have much weaker capacity for scale and risk that larger institutional players.
First real test of new build Co-op at SCALE in Toronto will be the HOUSING NOW site at KENNEDY North parking-lot in Scarborough...
2444 Eglinton Avenue East, Housing Now
The RAINBOW VILLAGE folks got some coverage today - "Concerned about the CreateTO proposal, Kevin Kerswell, another resident, also said the loss of a Tim Hortons for subway work removed a key gathering spot. He sees others disappearing for condo projects."...
It will be a "Trial by Fire" for all involved.
afransen
Senior Member
Hopefully they are thinking boldly. This is really escalating to crisis levels.
evandyk
Senior Member
Yeah, maybe "tons" was an exaggeration. But it was a contribution, and it hasn't really been done again for the last 20 years.
Undead
Senior Member
Well yeah, because the same government is also pursuing unsustainable immigration policies... They have no interest in solving the problem; in fact, they and their banking/developer puppet masters benefit from things getting worse.
Undead
Senior Member
Ah perfect, I was waiting to bust out a StatsCan report from a few years ago questioning the "immigration good" meme:
Chapter 5: Projection of Immigration
This report aims to describe the methods used for the calculation of projection parameters, the various projection assumptions and their rationales.
"The sociocultural absorptive capacity for increased immigration may be approaching limits within some of Canada’s urban centres in particular."
"The economic benefits of immigration, often used to justify planned increases, may be questionable and could be held up to increasing scrutiny if levels continue to increase in the future. Most advocates of the economic benefits of higher immigration do not support their claims with evidence, nor quantify the additional investments needed for successful integration (Grubel 2016a, 2016b; Griffith September 1 2017; Todd 2017). As Hou and Picot (2016) note, measuring the net benefit of a given immigration level is difficult since the various costs and benefits associated with the diverse goals attached to immigration cannot be compared on the same scale."
"Immigration has both negative (added competition for jobs and housing) and positive (larger consumer base and increased businesses) effects (Riddell et al. 2016). An increase in overall gross domestic product resulting from a larger population is arguably only beneficial if it also translates into a rise in quality of life for an average Canadian. However, increasing the size of the economy does not necessarily create a proportional increase in individual wellbeing (Riddell et al. 2016, Beaujot 2017)."
"The demographic benefits of immigration, often used to justify planned increases, may be questionable and could be held up to increasing scrutiny if levels continue to increase in the future. While international migration can partly reduce old-age dependency ratios, it cannot reverse the trend of population aging (United Nations 2016). It has been found that immigration to Canada has both rejuvenating and aging effects on the population, resulting in very little net change in terms of population aging (Caron Malenfant et al. 2011; Riddell et al. 2016; Robson and Mahboubi 2018)."
"Furthermore, certain Canadian demographers such as Beaujot (2017) have recently argued that as an alternative to continual population growth through sustained high immigration, stabilization of the population (also known as a stationary population) would in fact permit the achievement of greater quality of life standards, social cohesion and longer-term ecological goals. According to Romaniuk (2017), immigration has been wrongly considered a “palliative solution for all problems, real and imaginary, that beset Western societies” (p. 168). He argues that rather than increasing immigration—which in his view does little to combat population aging, has no proven record of economic benefit and holds potential negative societal and ecological impacts"
Confirming what many people already understand intuitively and based on their observations.
Some more required reading:
Opinion: No, immigration is not some magic pill for saving the economy
‘When all you have is a hammer, all the world’s a nail’ appears to capture Canada’s immigration policy
www.theglobeandmail.com
Opinion: It’s not racist or xenophobic to question our immigration policy
You can be pro-immigration and still ask whether in attempting to solve one problem, we are creating others
www.theglobeandmail.com
The industry is already at max capacity. How exactly are you proposing to get more? And remember those thousands of units you're enamoured with are mostly studios appropriate only as student rentals.
Yeah and there's the problem lol. Extremely politicized and to be taken with a truck load of salt.
Nobody's refusing to build anything. If anything, we're building at record levels, at least in Toronto. Was there ever a time we were consistently building 20,000+ units a year?
And? Are you really arguing "well that's always the way it's been done"?
People from second and third world countries don't maintain their higher birthrates when they come here. The cost of living is so exorbitant that their birth rates align with the existing population over time.
Not to mention the entire world is going through a major demographic transition which includes falling birth rates. Many countries which we might have considered "younger" and with higher birth rates have changed significantly. Latin America, South East Asia, even India are experiencing falling birth rates. In fact, India has now reached below replacement level fertility (2 kids per woman). So this weakens even further the claim we need immigration to sustain birth rates.
Besides, wasn't the left all concerned about overpopulation leading to climate catastrophe a few years back? But doesn't seem to apply on this issue.
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afransen
Senior Member
Making low-rise easier and more economic to build ought to help. It's largely a different supply base for low-rise construction vs high rise. Improving the economics ought to help bring in more resources to build at a higher throughput.
Northern Light
Superstar
My contacts in the industry suggest the difference will be fairly marginal. We're very short of trades.
Its true, that the Crane Operator shortage (severe) and likely to worsen, would have less/no impact on lowrise multiplexes.
But there are additional staff shortages in most, if not all trades.
Supply chains are also constrained; even SFH builders will tell you about delays in getting windows, flooring, even tiles that aren't among the top sellers.
That's not to suggest the lowrise/multiplex reforms aren't beneficial; insofar as they will produce results which cost a bit less per ft2, re-balance some intensification geographically, and may work better as purpose-built rental.
But its unlikely to generate a lot of net new supply in the near term. Any new uptake on trades/supplies from new builders is likely to come at the expense of timelines for larger projects. There's a bit of wiggle room in as much as some suppliers don't have the scale to sell to the bigs; but might be able to upsize just a bit to meet the needs of smaller builders; but that's a pretty marginal gain....