Quote:
Originally Posted by patm
I'm about to start the process of looking for my first place to live and until someone shows me a condo or townhouse that is affordable and has sound insulation that is good enough to allow me to host a large party or play music really loud, I will only be looking at small single family houses.
Call me greedy, I don't care. I'm paying for it and will continue to pay for it if utility costs rise and I'm not going to be limited by what my neighbors think is acceptable behavior.
Plus with some of the condo fees I've seen out there, an increase of those would probably hurt just as bad.
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Well that's thing, people purchasing single family dwellings in new subdivisions aren't really paying for it. Based on the structure of municipal finance in most Canadian cities, these types of developments are being heavily subsidized by those individuals who choose to purchase smaller lots, condos, locations in the inner-city or in general dwellings that demand and utilize less infrastructure and services. It's one thing to want to purchase this type of dwelling, and that's understandable, but purchasers really aren't paying the true cost pertaining to infrastructure costs, costs of providing services to these dwellings, costs of providing utilities to these dwellings and so forth.
This is a long discussion that I can't fully expand on here - but if anyone is truly interested I highly recommend the book "Preverse Cities" by Pamela Blais. It's a real eye opener and just goes to show how much of a failure the structure of our municipal finance system is.