[drpgq]

Originally Posted by HamiltonForward

The Greenbelt has not been the main cause of rising housing costs.

There has been one direct causation of rising housing costs: supply.

There have been factors influencing lack of supply, and the Greenbelt is one, but the positives of protecting the Greenbelt far outweigh the negatives of letting it be developed. Additionally, the abolishment of the OMB, the strengthening of rent control by the OLP, the increase in development charges, increased usage of Section 37 "community benefits", inclusionary zoning, etc. have all had impacts on the supply.

I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion the province needs to take more planning power away from cities. Places to Grow should be updated with higher density targets in more areas. The OMB has to be brought back or cities like ours will run high density development out of town unless it appeases every onerous request. Section 37 has to be reformed, or ideally, repealed. In it's current form, it's essentially legal extortion of new development where the local councilmember can bargain for anything they want from developers of which the costs get passed on not to the general community that the "community benefits" are benefiting, but on to the few people who will buy or rent in that development. I was watching TVO last night and the Green Leader Mike Schreiner called for 20% inclusionary zoning provincewide. If you want to kill the housing market even further, thats how you do it. The costs inclusionary zoning, like "community benefits", gets passed on to the buyers or renters in that one building. The only inclusionary zoning that would have a truly minimal effect on the housing market, in my opinion and research, would be one where the city or province has the right to purchase/manage say 5-10% of the new units at their market price and then rent them out, otherwise you are unfairly pushing the cost of those on to a select few and driving up the cost of new market housing which should never be the goal.

I agree. Why should buyers and renters of a new building have to pay for social housing? That should fall on all of us. Although it is very convenient for current taxpayers.