This was supposed to fix the housing crisis…
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
- Thank you so much to Small Housing for partnering with me on this video. Discover their work on missing middle housing policy at their website: smallhousing.ca or check out their channel: @smallhousingbc7625
Video edited by Alex Potvin (sorry I accidently deleted his credit in my final pass of the video!)
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Don't miss Edmonton! We recently did away with single-family zoning, and we did away with parking minimums a long time ago. Height restrictions have also been eliminated, with 3-story housing approved in all residential zones.
What are some good neighborhoods for missing middle in edmonton? I need to do some looking around
Same for Quebec city, since forever has allowed multi-units up to 4 stories high in residential areas, no parking minimums, and lots of mixed zone usage making stores always available nearby without the need for a car.
@@F4URGranted Oliver is very mixed. Old homes, duplexes. Townhomes, 4plexes, 8plexes. 3-5 story apartments, high rises. All the stuff.
Garneau, Strathcona, Ritchie, westmount, inglewood, west jasper place.
Tons of new suburbs also have a lot of density. Not as good on walkability and other urbanist ideas. But tons of stacked townhomes, garage suites, 5 story apartments, duplexes, basement suites, etc.
It's incredible to see Edmontons transformation and the fact they're leading I'm truly changing regularly measures its incredible
Doesn't matter when you add massive immigration.
Back in the day, when I purchased my first home to live-in; that was Miami in the early 1990s, first mortgages with rates of 8 to 9% and 9% to 10% were typical. People will have to accept the possibility that we won't ever return to 3%. If sellers must sell, home prices will have to decline, and lower evaluations will follow. Pretty sure I'm not alone in my chain of thoughts.
If anything, it'll get worse. Very soon, affordable housing will no longer be affordable. So anything anyone want to do, I will advise they do it now because the prices today will look like dips tomorrow. Until the Fed clamps down even further, I think we're going to see hysteria due to rampant inflation. You can't halfway rip the band-aid off.
Home prices will come down eventually, but for now; get your money (as much as you can) out of the housing market and get into the financial markets or gold. The new mortgage rates are crazy, add to that the recession and the fact that mortgage guidelines are getting more difficult. Home prices will need to fall by a minimum of 40% (more like 50%) before the market normalizes.If you are in cross roads or need sincere advise on the best moves to take now its best you seek an independent advisor who knows about the financial markets.
this is definitely considerable! think you could suggest any professional/advisors i can get on the phone with? i'm in dire need of proper portfolio allocation
Certainly, there are a handful of experts in the field. I've experimented with a few over the past years, but I've stuck with ‘’Melissa Terri Swayne” for about five years now, and her performance has been consistently impressive.She’s quite known in her field, look-her up.
I am on her site doing my due diligence. She seems proficient. I wrote her an email and scheduled a phone call. Thanks for sharing
Because so many people overpaid for homes even while loan rates were low, I believe there will be a housing catastrophe because these people are in debt. If housing costs continue to drop and, for whatever reason, they can no longer afford the property and it goes into foreclosure, they have no equity since, even if they try to sell, they will not make any money. I believe that many individuals will experience this, especially given the impending mass layoffs and rapidly rising living expenses.
I advise you to invest in stocks to balance out your real estate, Even the worst recessions offer wonderful buying opportunities in the markets if you're cautious. Volatility can also result in excellent short-term buy and sell opportunities. This is not financial advice, but buy now because cash is definitely not king right now!
Soon, cheap homes won't be cheap anymore because prices today will look like dips tomorrow. I think inflation will cause panic until the Fed tightens its grip even more. You can't just pull the band-aid Off half way. Booms and busts are the ups and downs of the economy, and they will affect any investments. If you are at a crossroads or need honest advice on the best steps to take right now, it is best to get counsel from a financial expert.
How can I participate in this? I sincerely aspire to establish a secure financlal future and am eager to participate. Who is the driving force behind your success?
Jessica Lee Horst is the licensed fiduciary I use. Just research the name. You’d find necessary details to work with a correspondence to set up an appointment..
I just googled her and I'm really impressed with her credentials; I reached out to her since I need all the assistance I can get. I just scheduled a caII.
I’m in Ohio and the housing market here over the last 7-8 years is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Homes that were bought for $130K in 2015 are now being sold for $590k. I’m talking about tiny, disgusting, poorly built 950 square foot shit boxes in quiet mediocre neighbourhoods. Then you’ve got Better, average sized homes in nicer neighbourhoods that were $300K+ 10 years ago selling for $750k+ now. Wild times.
Home prices will come down eventually, but for now; get your money (as much as you can) out of the housing market and get into the financial markets or gold. The new mortgage rates are crazy, add to that the recession and the fact that mortgage guidelines are getting more difficult. Home prices will need to fall by a minimum of 40% (more like 50%) before the market normalizes.If you are in cross roads or need sincere advise on the best moves to take now its best you seek an independent advisor who knows about the financial markets.
Personally, I can connect to that. When I began working with a fiduciary financial counsellor, my advantages were certain. I got into the market early 2019 and the constant downtrends and losses discouraged me so I sold off, got back in Dec 2021 this time with guidance, Long story short, its been 2years now and I’ve gained over a million dollars following guidance from my investment adviser.
This is huge! think you can point me towards the direction of your advisor? been looking at advisory management myself.. seeking ways to invest and make more money with the uncertainty in the economy.
Certainly, there are a handful of experts in the field. I've experimented with a few over the past years, but I've stuck with ‘’Aileen Gertrude Tippy” for about five years now, and her performance has been consistently impressive.She’s quite known in her field, look-her up.
Thanks a lot for this suggestion. I needed this myself, I looked her up, and I have sent her an email. I hope she gets back to me soon.
All top policy makers are homeowners who never want to see their home value drop or neighborhood disturbed. There is an inherent conflict of interests
Sure, but more important is that functionally the majority of reliable voters are NIMBY boomer conservatives and neoliberals who don't really understand the world, and sure as fuck don't care to, and they absolutely do not want to see the value of their only meaningful "investment" (their property values) decline. As far as they're concerned the world is a confusing place and one of the few things that makes sense is that they own property and it's "theirs." These are the average cishet caucasian boomer, so that's who government kowtows too, when they're not bending over for and licking the boots of capital owners (that own actual capital, shareholders).
TL;DR: Capitalism.
They don't want any traffic in front of their home, so they live in the suburbs where they can't do anything, so they drive to denser areas to do daily errands, bringing their suburban traffic to communities where families without a car are living. And they wonder why we are sick of it all.
Exactly the disgusting "trickle down" mafia pull up the ladder behind me "my my my all mine screw society" "home 'values'" nimbies are criminals as far as I'm concerned
which is why they'll never make housing affordable or fair.
@ohiasdxfcghbljokasdjhnfvaw4ehr exactly. It's disgusting the media, tv, internet, etc. everywhere even much of the public, falsely call it a "housing market." When you really look at it, it's layer upon layer of syndicates and completely artificial sky high "pricing" from rents to houses, it's all rigged as they say and gets ever worse every single year.
The fact that there is already an excessive amount of demand awaiting its absorption, despite how everyone is frightened and calling the crash, is another reason why it is less likely to occur that way. 2008 saw no one, at least not the broad public, making this forecast, as I'll explain below. The ownership rate was noted to have peaked in 2004 in the other comment. Having previously peaked in the second quarter of 2020, we are currently at the median level. Between 2008 and 2012, it dropped by 3%, and by the second quarter of 2020, it had dropped from 68 to 65.
You're not doing anything wrong; the problem is that you don't have the knowledge needed to succeed in a challenging market. Only highly qualified professionals who had to experience the 2008 financial crisis could hope to earn a high salary in these challenging conditions.
@@hasede-lg9hj Please pardon me, who guides you on the process of it all?
I won't pretend to know everything, though. Her name is Vivian Carol Gioia but I won't say anything more. Most likely, you can find her basic information online; you are welcome to do further study.
Thanks a lot for this recommendation. I just looked her website up, and I have sent her an email. I hope she gets back to me soon.
@@hasede-lg9hj I smell a scam. Noone drops a name and then "but I wont say any more you'll have to look them up!" Like that. I bet you don't give any details because you couldn't think of any, or because you didn't want to write something that would scare people off.
In my opinion, a housing market crash is imminent due to the high number of individuals who purchased homes above the asking price despite the low interest rates. These buyers find themselves in precarious situations as housing prices decline, leaving them without any equity. If they become unable to afford their homes, foreclosure becomes a likely outcome. Even attempting to sell would not yield any profits. This scenario is expected to impact a significant number of people, particularly in light of the anticipated surge in layoffs and the rapid increase in the cost of living.
I suggest you offset your real estate and get into stocks, A recession as bad as it can be, provides good buying opportunities in the markets if you’re careful and it can also create volatility giving great short-time buy and sell opportunities too. This is not financial advice but get buying, cash isn’t king at all at this time!
That's awesome! Diversifying your 350K portfolio with the help of an investment coach has really paid off. Making over $730k in net profit from high dividend yield stocks, ETFs, and bonds is quite impressive. Your investment strategy seems to be working wonders for you!
I just started a few months back, I'm going for long term, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, who’s this advisor you work with?
When ‘Carol Vivian Constable’ is trading, there's no nonsense and no excuses. She wins the trade and you win. Take the loss, I promise she'll take one with you.
She appears to be well-educated and well-read. I ran an online search on her name and came across her website; thank you for sharing.
The issue is that either the renter or the owner must in some way pay insurance and property taxes if they want a "permanent roof" with utilities like electricity, gas and water. Because of this, many people-at least in California, where I currently reside-are living in tents. No taxes, rent, mortgages, or insurance. The number of people who tell me they live in their car that I meet amazes me. Its crazy out here!
That's fascinating. How can I contact your Asset-coach as my portfolio is dwindling?
Credits to 'Natalie Lynn Fisk' she has a web presence, so you can simply
She appears to be well-educated and well-read. I ran an online search on her name and came across her website; thank you for sharing.
So true. And look at Florida, where insurance companies are increasing homeowners insurance rates over 100%. They are also dropping clients who have paid on time for years.
Can’t slip in California
I'm in Auckland and was so surprised to see us used as an example of how these housing developments can work successfully! Yes, there is heaps of construction going on, especially of rows of townhouses and small apartment buildings, but there is still nowhere near enough housing for everyone. To be fair, a big part of this is also the fact that so much of the existing housing stock is old, run-down, and not healthy to live in
We've got high density housing being built aplenty, but if we could incorporate Auckland's success with middle density housing developments on land not suitable for high density, we'd be doing much better.
@@downhillupside Good point
Vancouver has lots of old housing too, but with high land prices, and restrictions & extra costs on additional density, the people paying $2M+ for a smaller home that needs asbestos remediation are going to replace it for something bigger rather than build multiple units.
There's some hope on the horizon particularly around the province's transit-oriented-development areas allowing up to 8 stories at their limits, where a small land assembly of those older homes that wouldn't pencil for a fourplex could actually be built up to provide more homes.
Don’t assume that’s not true in Canada too! Tons of $1M+ houses in Toronto are actually super old and substandard
@@rlwelch I never claimed to know about housing quality in Canada. I just said I was surprised to see Auckland used as an example
My in-laws were going to build a second building on their property for myself and my partner to live in until they retire, then we were going to swap and they would live in the smaller single story new unit. We decided not to proceed after we learned that we would be very limited in terms of the size of the unit that was allowed.
For context, they live in a rural area outside of Halifax with plenty of room. If their house happened to be located within the very dense city of Halifax proper, they would actually be allowed to build the full size they wanted on a much smaller plot, but somehow the rules for the much less dense area they live in with much larger plots state that the max size is much smaller than what is allowed on the Halifax peninsula.
We approached the government about changing the by-laws and were told that they would not be adjusted.
Lovely!
Not about housing laws, but this is basically the arrangement I have with my mother regarding her basement suite, lol--only way I'll ever be able to own a home is to co-own with her 😅
I like the idea of having a basement apartment to rent out and living in the upper two stories. I don't have a lot of parking and i don't want to park on the street,so id probably get rid of my car and just use a bike. Id have to fix up my basement though.
Then you are lucky. First rule of relationship. LIVE FAR AWAY FROM YOUR INLAWS AND PARENTS. Do never, EVER, live in their property with your family.
@@suiyan6297Hah. Hahahahaha. No. Lots of people live with grandma and grandpa.
Is it possible that since you live in a rural area, it’s the county that regulates your house’s zoning code instead of the city’s? Maybe the flexible zoning code that allows more housing space with less land is subject to a different set of rules?
This is one of the most meaningful videos that I had come across in addressing housing shortages problems that are facing Canada. Thank you 👍🏻
If you allow for height, you can build ground-level parking. That's what's been done in a number of places in Seattle. I've seen quite a few 3-story townhome developments with ground-level (garaged) parking and flat roofs for outdoor space.
I do like the model Seattle is implementing. Narrow and tall, and with parking! Just wish they all didn't look so ugly, and were actually affordable
Flat roofs would be a bad idea in Minnesota. If you didn't keep up shoveling off the snow during the winter you'd run the significant risk of the roof caving in from the weight.
@@Devin_Stromgren I agree. In Minnesota the top floor should probably have an open design with a steep angle metal roof that would both last a long time and be smooth enough for snow accumulation to more readily slide off. You could have a balcony on one side that could be cleared with a snow pusher but you definitely wouldn't want a flat roof in any area that can have heavy snow accumulation. There are some expensive systems for keeping a flat roof clear of snow (heating coils, automated rake systems, etc.) but that would not be practical for a smaller building.
@@brianh9358 It doesn't necessarily have to be steel. The wind still blows the snow off of shingled roofs as long as they're 45 degrees or steeper. Also, at -30 heating coils have an tendency to just turn snow into ice.
What do you mean by ‘flat roofs for outdoor space’?
Great video. I’m an architect in Los Angeles California. The initial change in density is just the beginning. The other shoes will drop as things progress. The ADU laws were resisted and rendered useless when initially passed. In fact ADU laws had been on the books here since 2003. But they kept changing them and making it easier and easier to build them. Recently City of LA eliminated parking requirements completely when a property is within half a mile of a transit hub. That’s essentially the entire city. So I am hopeful that they will continue to adjust standards to facilitate more SB9 developments.
Why aren't you doing anything about the homeless crisis?
@@notsans9995same reason why no-one else in America is doing it: there's no profit in doing so.
@@sirnonapplicableThere’s a ton of people making millions off homelessness, almost exclusively Democrats. The cuomo family makes a fortune.
@@notsans9995making housing more available and lowering costs will help that (wow shocking!)
You should probably also mention home owners associations. Where I live State has passed laws allowing for a detached dwelling if the land is sufficiently large (there's a complicated formula for how much square footage a home is allowed based on the land size). Unfortunately, most of the single family homes are locked into HOAs that don't allow these detached dwellings to be built. It doesn't matter if the restrictions and requirements become less burdensome and it becomes financially viable if its just not possible because of HOA regulations.
Unfortunately, many HOAs in my area are old. Which means they were set up with voting % requirements for changes that expects every home to have a voting resident (newer neighborhoods tend to have lower % requirements to change the bylaws because they recognize this problem). Now days there's a lot of landlords who are renting it out and the ballots go to the renters who can't cast them (or the house is vacant and waiting for renters). Or there's not enough base level participation even from the residents who live there, so the minimum to change any rules, much less change a rule as potentially controversial as allowing detached dwellings, can't be met. My HOA even tried to change it on a much less controversial subjects, with the full support of the board, where because of the decade of drought everyone from the State was saying to please stop watering your yards. We wanted to change the bylaws to allow non-grass lawns (e.g. rock gardens or drought resistent native shrubbery) and no one I spoke to seemed to disagree that was the smart thing to do over everyone having a dead grass lawns (or sticking out as the non-complier who has the green lawn). We couldn't get the votes to change the HOA rules because not enough people turned in a ballot.
Could you have a lawyer dissolve the HOA for negligent governance? Something like, HOA has 6 months to vote to remain in effect, else it is assumed the HOA does not have ability to function? I wonder if that would hold up in court.
If they have to pass a vote to remain in effect and cannot do so, especially with 6+ months notice, seems like they would not be able to govern the neighborhood effectively
@davidyalacki2599 I don't think so. From what I have read online since the cost of upkeep of common areas (e.g. road and sidewalk maintenance (including tree trimming), trash removal, snow removal, etc) would revert to the local government you actually need the approval of local government to dissolve an HOA. Given how this increases their expenses it would probably require good lobbying to pull off.
Also, you generally need buy in from mortgage companies (who may sue over the possible fall in property values especially if you're not following normal procedure for dissolution), and finally the governing documents normally require a supermajority approval for dissolving an HOA. It would be hard for me to imagine a judge voiding that contract just because there was insufficient voter participation. At minimum it sounds like an extra long legal battle and these dissolution at minimum cost $50k for clean dissolution where there are no issues. This could easily run into the 6 figures, so are people going to vote for dissolving the HOA and being slapped with a special assessment for the cost?
Time to dump tea in the harbor and declare independence from the HOA.
A State Government can circumvent HOAs really easily. Problem is most politicians probably got their start in HOAs so they probably don't see them as the leeching dead-weight that they can be.
I've been following this issue for over ten years. I've moved from Vancouver to Montreal and changed careers in search of affordable housing. How did I finally manage to get it? By leveraging my career in Canada to save up and move to Japan. While I miss Canada deeply, with each passing year, I feel less and less invested in an issue that there clearly doesn't seem to be neither the public nor political will to want addressed.
The public that wants it fixed is all the people who currently cannot even think about affording a home. The ones that don't are the people who worry they might lose a million dollar evaluation on the home they don't plan to sell anyways, absolute morons. If they actually put some effort into fixing this a decade ago we wouldn't be absolutely fucked. The government needs to resolve this issue instead of pretending it doesn't exist while allowing more and more immigration which is only compounding the already existing issue. I don't hate immigration into Canada, but we don't have homes for the people who are already here bringing more people in isn't helping, maybe fix the housing crisis first.
@@DiviNazuphusAmerica has a housing crisis too yet nothing is being done to fix the problem. It’s sad because I want to be able to buy a house at some point.
@@DiviNazuphus Immigration is a necessity to prevent the aging population from bankrupting the government. But agreed, something desperately needs to be done about housing. I'm in a medium sized city 2 hours away from Toronto and still you need a 5-figure salary to afford a home.
A storm is brewing that cannot be ignored. A lot of millennials and gen z are rightly pissed off. We are almost at the tipping point where millennials will take the majority of leadership roles in politics. That's when real change is going to happen and it's going to happen fast. I just wish it would come sooner.
Japan is depopulating fast and homes are not seen as a good long term investment. Bullet trains also allow you to avoid the middle housing need by enabling farther commutes. Too many differences at the cultural fabric to ever work in North America. Sadly, we have more flat buildable land than Japan several times over. Yet we continue this nonsense of overbulding suburbs in the same overpriced markets
Housing crisis triggers a market crash or a financial crisis, it could send shockwaves through the stock markets worldwide. I’m worried about my investment of over $600K stocks. Is this a time to consider diversifying my portfolios?
Having an investment advisor is the best way to go about the stock market right now. I was going solo, but it wasn't working. I’ve been in touch with an advisor for a while now, and just last year, I made over 80% capital growth minus dividends.
Amber Dawn Brummit is the licensed advisor I use. Just research the name. You’d find necessary details to work with a correspondence to set up an appointment.
It’s scary to me that these people can buy thousands of bots just to shill on UA-cam.
@@hithere5553You don't buy thousands of bots. You make or buy one and just copy it. That's very cheap to do. Low initial cost, pretty much no running cost, potential reward if someone is dumb (and there are dumb people) ... And one bot can be diversified to make easy to debunk investment advisor but same time easy to debunk cryptocurrency sale and easy to debunk conspiracy bot that get paid to promote chaos
Personally i would advise you to sell the stocks and give the money to me. Imagine the good karma 🙂
We eliminated minimum parking requirements and enabled lot splits where I am in California and it's helped a lot. A few people in town have been complaining that "we're turning into Amsterdam" but it's been way less than I anticipated
Amsterdam has beautiful architecture, reliable public transport, vibrant neighbourhoods, and tons of cultural activities. Saying a city is becoming like Amsterdam is a compliment in my book ;)
Oh no! Not Amsterdam! What could be a better fate Lmao
Yeah, but parking now sucks there.
@@merelk.9530 Then move to Amsterdam if that's what you want and leave our communities alone.
@@computernerdtechmanI'd be in favor of the government confiscating your community, and creating a replica of Amsterdam. If someone were to campaign on that I'd vote for them.
3:53 Tent cities are worse for the appearance of a neighborhood than the most ugly building could ever be and weren't these neighborhoods farmland at 1 point.
This phenomena is called "Pulling the ladder up behind you" or "Fuck you, got mine". These people got what they want and they don't want anything to change. Everyone else can get fucked in their mind.
Exactly
Tent cities are a leftist invention. They didn't exist when the laws were enforced or before the left convinced people they should stay in places they can't afford.
Yeah, we're being slowly "priced out" and returned to our feudalistic beginnings.
@@southerncyan4098 When people were sane we lived in places we could afford. Demanding to live in a four star city with a 1 star income is stup!d.
The bottleneck isn't zoning and space. It is labor cost, existing sewer infrastructure, and in some states, water availability. More toilets and sinks mean the sewer lines have to be upgraded to handle it. In SoCal, 1 1/2" water tap fees on a new tri-plex can run into 6 figures. This is the cost just to hook into the city water system.
Sort of crazy to hear that places like Vancouver still have all these regulations. Very thankful that Edmonton has been leading the charge nationally with a lot of this. No parking minimums, 8 units and up to 3 stories allowed on all lots, 4-8 story buildings allowed around most arterials and district nodes, and lots of high density areas. This is partially why Edmonton has had some of the highest population growth, yet has stayed the most affordable big city in Canada.
No Vancouver doesn't have "all these regulations" he is using examples from all over different cities and restrictions.
Parking will be a real issue in a place like Edmonton. If new developments are freed from a requirement, it will push parking to streets that aren't well equipped to handle it. You can see this in some neighborhoods that have just had a couple of infills go in where there was previously just one house.
@@gordosomewhere816 Vancouver still has many of the regulations he discussed…. But yes, some are not related to Vancouver and just other cities. But Vancouver has significantly more red tape than Edmonton, be it units per lot, development fees, approval processes, zones, etc. The recent changes the province announced were a good step though.
@@Hyperpandas I think people should pay to store their private goods on private property. Hopefully the new curb side management strategy Edmonton is developing will bring in permits than limit or charge fees for using street parking overnight/continually. If you have a car, you should need a garage.
But similarly, if you don’t have a car, you should be able to buy homes or apartments that are built without parking that increases the unit price by 50-80k.
Choice and variety is good. Lots of different needs for different households.
People need to stop feeling entitled to street parking for their homes though. It should be for visitors, deliveries, and temporary use (retail/business, etc)
@@Hyperpandascities should not be required to regulate the storage of private vehicles.
These are some of the best researched, slickly scripted and shot video's I have ever seen. And your sense of humor comes across too. Keep going, you'll get the recognition you deserve
I’m a small developer in Tacoma, Washington and your points you’ve made are very valid. The development fees are killing me and I’ve had to look at surrounding cities.
Something else to take into consideration is the rental law that I need to contend with after I develop the property and that right now is my biggest hurdle. With the new law that went in place called Measure one, I can’t evict someone during the school year if there is someone in the home under 18 or I can’t evict during the winter for everyone else. This is Tacoma Washington we’re talking about, it’s not that cold in the winter. About 40°F. So I’m not going to risk my retirement to build a property that’s not gonna make profit and is probably going to be a liability. Keep up the great info.
Civil Engineer here.
Doubling or tripling a subdivision occupancy also would require a LOT of utility upgrades or exceed the systems capacity altogether
Yeah stormwater management alone makes this a nightmare. These videos have good intentions but don't realize our current regulations take a number of things into account.
Better than doing nothing.
@@claudiadarling9441 I don't under your reply. I'm stating that if the system capacity can't handle a subdivision doubling in density, then it can't handle it. Perhaps rain-water collection, if that wasn't red-taped.
@@mrcompisawesome Expand the system's capacity as the population increases? Sure it might be costly, but if it needs to be done then it should be done without question. These are utilities after all, not luxury cars and handbags.
@@Aquatarkus96 again, stating that quite often regions simply can't without an overhaul. Said overhaul is so ludicrously unrealistic and expensive it's more feasible to just build a new economy near another supply. This kind of work is literally my career.
My HOA is currently committed to legal action to prevent an apartment complex nearby because we got a ton of Californians that moved to Arizona and they hate affordable housing for some reason.
So you want your property value to go down.
@devengudinas1649 if keeping my property values up means kicking dirt in my neighbors face and spitting on their pursuit of happiness that I have achieved then the system is broken.
Property values do not decrease because affordable housing, apartments, or hotels happen to be nearby. What's the point of million dollar homes being the average if no one can afford to live in them? California much?
@@devengudinas1649 The "value" of your home going up alongside everyone else's due to poor supply means you're not actually profiting when equity becomes bigger number. It's just a bubble. Sorry u were stupid enough to think that tho.
@@JUGGERNAUT____ Unfortunately, yeah... California sucks that way. There are too many people who are defensive about their home value here, so that's going to drag onto whatever place those people end up moving to. There are far too many things in California that are broken. We've had homeless shelters shut down before -- and guess what, we had a homelessness issue for decades and still do. There are numerous different things that can be done and need to be done to help resolve these big issues - and we just... brush them off on the floor and sweep them under the rug. "Deal with it some other day, or leave someone else to pick up the mess" was apparently the mentality
@@devengudinas1649 Yes. That's a reasonable solution. Today's home construction is based based largely on labor cost, rather than material cost. Because of this difference, a $2,000,000 mansion is built with the exact same standard as any $100,000 home you can find on the market today. Yes, they are "bigger" and "more complex" in layout, but the materials and construction are the same. Should they really be valued so highly?
That's a bigger picture. The value is in the land, rather than the home. And that is the reason the homes are grossly overvalued. The land is an investment, meaning the home becomes a fixture to increase its price, rather than have value of the home itself.
However, the conflation of home value and land value has caused a home affordability crisis. However, basic economics dictate supply and demand, therefore there should be enough supply that the local blue-collar worker (whose support maintains society) be not homeless.
If housing density doesn't increase, then property value must decrease. That's an idea of how to help the situation.
What are your opinions on the subject?
When I was in Glendale, CA, it began filling with apartment buildings which were not close to fully occupied, but somehow didn't seem to lose money. Real estate firms are holding an awful lot of empty property.
I'm in a teeny-tiny village in southern Germany. There's like 50 houses. One neighbor built a 4-apartment house in her mom & dad's decent sized yard. But what really surprised me was when our neighbor a few houses down built a house in their backyard for their grown-up child. They now have basically no backyard, but they still have a front garden. This type of stuff is allowed here and I love it! And the houses here last hundreds of years.
Nothing like live right next to your inlaws so much fun lol
Yeah after living in Germany for the last 4 years, I can definitely say the US needs to get rid of this obsession with house uniformity in neighbourhoods. I live in a suburban style neighborhood in a fairly decent sized village. All the houses look radically different, and it's great.
If US homeowners could learn to appreciate it (or at least tolerate it), you could easily put more of the missing middle in existing neighbourhoods.
@@knocksvillee germany has literally cities covered with identical apartment buildings street by street.
@@V8_screw_electric_cars you talking about the old commie housing?
@@knocksvillee not just that every city is full of tenement buildings they're all exactly the same also have no trees it's a concrete ghettos, way worse than nice suburban houses in america with tree lined streets and backyards.
When it comes to parking, i think it's more important to house people than to house cars.
I disagree. People can live in tents or homeless shelters, I don't care, but my $150,000 Tesla Model X REQUIRES proper and safe parking.
Except you're limiting people on where they can work, where they can shop, etc.
Until a city has the transit system where anyone can reach any corner of town within a hour or less, and/or a supermarket within 5 minutes of walking.... car will always be a necessity.
There should be reduced parking space requirement for high density housing near major transit routes.
@@xylo5750 cringe
@@bentencho You tackle both problems simultaneously, obviously. You add housing, don't add parking, and expand transit service. It's not that hard.
FL has a weird problem (it always does) with these things: *developers* don't want to build these. It involves redesigning and changing how they build things, and they don't wanna do it because it costs money. Every new house, apartment, and condo is built *exactly the same* in FL, with little to no variation except that which is to accommodate the site.
The fact there is a housing crisis in a place as big as Metro Vancouver and with its population density is crazy. The government needs to step up and activate crisis mode and take immediate major action, not this patchwork developing they've been so slow to allow...Then they make speeches and pat themselves on the back when a few hundred units were built when we need millions.
i moved here from europe 2 years ago. And this housing crisis seems ridiculous to me. There is so much space here. It's not like Paris or something where there is literally no more space left and it's all historic multi-story buildings.
vancouver is not dense. lots of single family detatched homes
It's the nimbys who are preventing real housing reforms.
@@nicktankard1244 I was just talking a couple months ago with a friend, while we were driving across BC, that it's crazy how much space there is and we have a housing crisis going on, and yet there's so many small towns and endless stretches of unsettled lands, yet so much of our population is crammed into MetroVancouver. We don't have a frontier spirit anymore to actually build up new cities, we just keep cramming more into existing cities.
The positive is that a lot of nature is preserved. And we don't need to tear down more nature to balance out development between smaller towns and the already-big cities. I mean, why are Hope and Merritt still as small as they are, when Hope is so close to MetroVan, but still has so much potential for growth... and Merritt is so central at the four-way juncture of major routes in the province. It should be way bigger than it is by now. But I feel like it's a situation where because it's still so small, a lot of people don't want to live there. I think it's a "If you build it, they will come." situation, where if you built up some big city-like developments and some towers, etc... a lot of people would suddenly be like, "Oh wow, I'd live here! It doesn't feel like the middle of nowhere anymore!"
But the problem, at every turn of this issue, is the whole "Return on Investment" issue... where if we leave this matter in the hands of for-profit developers and capitalist investment interests... then of course anything that isn't immediately seen as profitable is not going to happen. Regardless of where we decide to build it, we NEED to have more government-built development and it needs to be built and operated at-cost, not for-profit. It could even be at a loss, as it's our tax dollars paying for it anyway... as long as it benefits us, we shouldn't see the government "losing" that money as a bad thing... the money just goes to the people working on the projects anyway. As long as you pay decent wages to attract Canadian workers, you won't have to use TFWs that will take the money out of the country. The money will just come back to us taxpayers, having been used to make good things happen in the meantime. That's the way things are supposed to work. That's why properly run and funded government programs will always be better than private businesses when it comes to the essential needs of the people.
We just need to be vigilant against corruption, which begins by getting money out of politics. Donations to politicians should be outlawed completely, and every running candidate gets a set, equal amount of money from the government for their campaign. There's no reason we should be using money as a form of political support. It just gives the edge to whichever candidate pleases the most monied interests that are willing to donate. It's an inherently corrupting system. We need better conflict-of-interest prevention, so that people are not allowed to work in government concerning matters that involve any financial/business interests of theirs, and they can't go into after they leave office either, so there's no revolving door. We need to start seriously tackling these corruption issues and get the corrupting factor of money and self-interest out. This is the main reason we can't trust politicians and therefore the government. We get rid of money in politics, and it will prevent the greedy from being attracted to becoming politicians. Only people who actually want to serve the people, while making an average wage (tie politicians' wages to the average or mean wage of Canadians, giving them a self-interest to help all Canadians) would want to do the job. So if your issue with putting things in the hands of the government is "But how can we trust the government to do the job properly when we can't trust politicians and they're all greedy selfish assholes who don't care and are incompetent and... blah blah blah" (as though that isn't all true of private business owners as well)... Then THIS is how you fix that problem. Money is the corrupting culprit that you seek... not government itself. Government by the people, for the people... works. But we have to be vigilant about keeping the corruption out.
So yeah... a lot to do. Shall we get started?
@@AWSVids building new cities is much much harder than adding density to existing big cities. All the jobs, entertainment and infrastructure is here in Vancouver. If you build houses somewhere in rural BC very few people would want to live there. You can adopt policies to help with that but it’s a very slow process.
For example I work remotely so I can live anywhere in BC but all the stuff I like is only available in Vancouver.
I work with a bunch of single family developers/builders in Vancouver. They are working very hard to solve the puzzle of the six plex on these sites. They did pretty good with front to back duplexes with rental suites. I've seen good design with larger lots where there were infill options already.
That's cool
Requiring 2 parking units per unit is insane. High rise towers have no such requirement and some dont even come with parking anymore. Granted, if i were to pay say 1 million for a unit, i would expect atleast ONE parking spot is its built in a SFH area.
I live in Nashville where a lot of the "single family" zones actually allow two detached homes or duplexes, and thousands of these have been built in the last decade (I live in one and love it). This is presumably because there are very few of the restrictions that you mentioned in the video. On one hand, it has added a lot of housing units, but there are valid criticisms as well. The original homeowners are often heavily pressured to sell their homes (typically longtime residents in ~1000 sq ft houses), but then can't afford any of the 2-3 houses that replace them, which each sell for 2-3x the original home's cost (not that they're necessarily a ripoff, they're just much larger to maximize value). This displacement effect is coupled with many new houses being bought as investment properties or short-term rentals, plus the original residents often had more people living in the house compared to the buyers of the new homes. As a result, based on census estimates, the population of my neighborhood has barely changed over the last decade despite probably a net increase of 500 new homes. The point of this is that yes, to get developers to build the homes, there need to be the right incentives, but it's also possible to go too far in the other direction. Not every one of the new homes had to be 2000+ sq ft - some 1000 or 1500 sq ft homes would have gone a long way to allow longtime residents to stay in the same neighborhoods if they so choose, or give middle-class folks the chance to buy a starter home. And real people, not short-term rental corporations from out of state, need to have priority in actually buying the homes.
So. Much. This. ☝🏻👏🏻
I don't fully understand what you are saying, but you sound right. I think that people putting out these videos are looking for a simple push-button solution, and aren't thinking about the consequences of pushing the ideology too far.
Having more units sounds great, but what happens when people move out of their 1 home into 2 new homes? Also, what kind of a neighbourhood would it be like after? Those new New Zealand homes look ugly and car friendly. Will visitors to a new neighbourhood just park near by and clog up the streets? Surrey BC tried reducing parking minimums, and people bought the houses, but invites tons of friends for family gatherings? Are they just going to circle the block all night long?
Just to give some numbers to support my statements, for my census tract, in 2000 there were 1859 housing units and a pop. of 4540. In 2021, there were 2311 housing units and pop. of 4427. So a huge win for increasing housing density, but no corresponding change in population density. And no, that is not a COVID effect - in 2018 there were 1921 housing units and a pop. of 3575 (this is when the redevelopment was in full swing, so probably didn't capture all the new people moving in but already accounted for everyone who moved out). Once all the redevelopment is finished and the new residents make their babies, it'll probably be a 25% population increase but at the cost of the average home going from maybe $100-150k in the mid-2010s to $700-900k now. To some degree, over-building has blunted the rise in housing cost, and certainly not building any new housing would have made things even worse. But just handing the keys to developers is also not the solution.
@@symphwindThank you for the numbers.
@@symphwind Our City Hall is owned by developers, who've managed to make this narrative dogma. So you've got the poors convinced that edging feudalism and living in a garage while eating the middle class boomers - not the rich - is the answer. Divide & conquer.
The problem in my eyes is building affordable housing to close to city centers. Instead of forming new areas of commerce and housing altogether and talking with local companies to expand their areas of operations or allow work from home.
Food for thought, sometimes when companies are 100% remote, the companies find that the employees would rather not even live in the general area in the first place. Not a problem with that to me.
I love wfh structures when possible. The thing I've seen is in my life circles when people have 100% wfh, many look to move to way more remote/ rural areas where their money stretches further, better access to nature and a lot less of the stresses of living in a city. For better or for worse, most high income jobs in the US require being in geographic proximity of cities
@@theempirestrikesback "Employment requires that you must live within state and county limits. Must be able to attend in office events, meetings, etc..." Companies can do it.
@Ameion They can do it. I'm just saying when companies have gone full remote, I've seen a lot of people move to more rural places because they aren't required to show to an office.
UN Agenda 21/30.
This is what they're doing in Utah and Idaho, but especially Utah. If you look at western Salt Lake County and Utah County, there are whole developments that just consist of hundreds of townhouses or thousands of new low-rise apartments, with new shopping centers popping up as the area fills out. It's pretty amazing, frankly -- where I live was just alfalfa farms 5 years ago, and now there's a neighborhood with multiple thousands of people living here, with more than 4/5 of the housing units being townhouses, with a small sliver of single family homes along the edges. It's way more cost effective than infill development.
I grew up in a development of three-story attached apartment buildings going block by block for many blocks. The surrounding neighborhood was a mix of 2-3 story attached private row houses and 3-5 story freestanding apartment buildings. Subways and buses, everything within walking distance (my family never owned a car). It was a very congenial mix: enough density to support lots of retail and mass transit, but enough space for parks and schoolyards. It was urban life at its best, especially for kids who could walk everywhere. At least here in the US, there is too much stupid prejudice against density and height.
Too much prejudice??? not enough of it if you ask me. Humans are not designed to be stacked on top each other like the at. I was raised in a Single family home in suburbia and apartments and townhomes make me shudder at the thought. I felt outright pity for the people who had to live like that when I did deliveries to them. I would rather be homeless than live in an apartment like they had to.
Seriously?
@@jalend9974 The "humans were also not meant to" argument is hilarious. You think humans were meant to drive cars? Work in offices? Live in climate controlled dwellings? Watch youtube videos? It's all artificial.
The NIMBY bullshit of not being able to make the buildings larger than the surrounding residences, as well as the 2 parking spaces per unit is incredibly, incredibly short sighted and ridiculous.
Those restrictions need to be removed, or at least modified so the buildings can be larger but only up to a certain size, say 2x.
Vancouver made a slight improvement, in that they actually reduced the maximum Floor Space Ratio for new single family development (0.65 IIRC, and correspondingly increased it for laneway houses), while increasing it for multiplexes. However, the 1.0 limit for multiplexes still limits the units to likely be small and expensive like he outlined in the video. Some estimates were that it needs to be at least 2.0 for rental multiplexes to be viable.
It would be great if there was an incremental policy, that any new development on the block can be a limited multiple of the height and/or floor space of the median property on the block, but individual units can only be so large so that building taller requires building more units. Building bigger incrementally over time couldn't be stopped, but each step wouldn't be "out of scale" with the existing properties.
They do that to protect "property values" - and eventually created a situation where actually resolving the housing shortage is now politically toxic, because most families own their own home, and resolving the shortage will wipe out more than 50% of people's property values. 51% of the population is voting to make property values go to the moon, and fucking over the other 49% in the process.
Municipalities will do literally anything to cater to rich property owners.
The outright density penalty is even worse.
They would be appalled if they were transported back to a late 19th century or early 20th century American city such as Detroit, Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York City, Brainerd, Philadelphia, Denver or even little Lawton, Oklahoma.
We recently moved into the River Terrace development in Tigard, OR, a suburb of Portland. The plans include a mix of single family, duplexes, and triplexes all on the same street, all 2 story, and the multi-family buildings blend in really well with the single family houses. There are 4 and 5 unit row houses nearby, too. I definitely notice that the triplexes are similar in size to the single families, but a lot of those are bigger than ours at roughly 3,000 sqft, so the triplexes are a decent size. I feel good about buying into this neighborhood that really listened to the community while designing it, and it’s enjoyable to watch the new houses pop up around us and see new neighbors move in. I think that it’s healthy to have housing at a wide range of price points all within a few blocks of each other.
The key here is THEY WERE DONE NEW AND TOGETHER. Which means people bought into the concept knowing what was around them. This is very cool. What's not cool is going into exiting single family zones, where people bought in with the expectation of only having other single family homes as neighbors, and changing thte zoning - thereby fucking over existing homeowners.
@@bikebudha01 I can certainly be sympathetic to that point of view, and you’re correct that cities like Portland can still expand outward some before they become excessively sprawling like Los Angeles. I can still get to downtown in maybe 20 minutes. Do you have any thoughts for larger, established metro areas where decades of single family housing policies and redlining have lead to the housing shortages they currently experience?
@@bikebudha01 They're screwed either way. If you tackle density, you betray their wishes. If you don't tackle it, you betray their needs. With insane housing prices, if you need a nurse or a lawyer or a car repair or even a grocery clerk/barista, guess what? You're going to pay for it. Everyone has to live somewhere, and now the lower mainland is all absolutely insane. At the end of the day, services are just going to cost tons more, so that you can still have access to stuff within a reasonable amount of time/distance. Those extra costs slamming into those home owners - that's screwing them over too. Probably more than whether they live next to a single family home or 4 townhouses.
@@bikebudha01 Cities arent fixed never changing entities, they change and grow as the needs of the populace and demand changes. Trying to fight that change is misguided and a big reason why we have this conversation. Maybe they could just stick it out and not be cowards? I'm sorry but you provide no good argument, just hand wringing
It is difficult to make exact projections for the housing market as it is still unclear how quickly or to what degree the Federal Reserve will reduce inflation and borrowing costs without having a substantial negative impact on demand from consumers for anything from houses to cars.
I recently sold my home in the Boca Grande area and am considering investing a lump sum into the stock market before the anticipated rebound, couple of folks have been discussing a potential rally, speculating on which stocks may experience substantial growth during the festive season. Do you have any insight into which stocks these might be?
With the help of an experienced coach, I made some changes in my investments. I started with $321k, and now I have more than $750k by investing in stocks, ETFs, and bonds. I think housing prices won't go down much until there are more houses available.
How can I reach this adviser of yours? because I'm seeking for a more effective investment approach on my savings?
How about we remove parking requirements and make walkable neighborhoods?
Hmm, I must have misplaced my magic wand.
You do a lot of what Edmonton is doing.
Easier said than done. Rich people who insist on driving their GMC tanks everywhere always complain when changes to parking are proposed. Gotta just exclude them from the conversation.
I think we're too late for walkable neighborhoods in many cities in North America.
They would have to be planned as walkable in advance. Difficult to retrofit that around a typical subdivision of single-family homes without tearing those homes down and starting from scratch. And that would require every single one of those homeowners to be willing to sell.
I love these videos so much. I live in Mackay, Australia and it is one of the worst designed cities in Australia. These videos encourage me to go to council meeting and demand change. I do wish the websites were international, not just Australia, :(
Another issue is, so many people don't want crowded areas to live in. The dream we were sold was our own yard, space, and neighbors further away.
I know I personally don't want to go back to having randos as people I share door space and walls with.
However, I definitely know some people I would be ok with sharing a yard space with. So, maybe that is more what they are going for here?
Not to mention the privacy issue of high-rise neighbors staring straight into your yard from their second or third-story window.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean your way of living should be favored over it via regulation. If some one doesn't mind a more affordable option at the cost of not having a yard why should that be untenable?
@definitelynotcole oh, I wouldn't fight regulations like this. I was just saying I personally don't want that, but if others do, then have at it. Probably could have stated that better. If it solves a serious problem, why are we fighting it? I have lived in apartment situations that are a house broken into 4-5 apartments multiple times. I prefer that style over the high-rise 20ppl per floor model for sure!
Also, it's not just 3rd story neighbors you have to worry about out there, lol. I have had 3 stalkers that I know of over the years. Some people have reasons not to want to be close to a lot of strangers, just saying.
@@definitelynotcole You act as if the government isn't doing everything possible to drive away single family homes. All that gets built is condos/apartments and attached housing these days. No person is buying them. You have venture capital firms buying them.
I don't think that's really true. I think 40+ years of special interests capturing our development process has convinced us that this preference is far stronger & more common than it actually is in reality.
Really love the quality of your videos and the topics you cover are really well thought out.
I'll give you the reason. Most people who chose to live in low density, primarily single family neighborhoods live there because they like that style of neighborhood. Just because they can start upping the density doesn't mean the want to. I live in a single house on my lot. If I were told that I could build another house in my back yard I wouldn't. I like having a yard. If you want to live in a town home, go a half mile north of my place, you'll find a giant development of them.
I'm one of those folks--I like being in a suburb because I have a yard. There's no incentive imaginable that'd get me to opt for *less* space than I already have. LOTS of people in these sorts of neighbourhoods would go "huh, okay cool I guess" and never give it a second thought because they don't want even more people close to them. Space is nice.
they could still add shops in your neighborhood so the single mom can walk 10 minutes to grab food instead of driving an hour both ways
This. Maybe people LIKE these beautiful older homes and don’t want to see them torn down so 6 brown families can be shoved in one lot. It’s a disgusting sort of plan.
You will not be forced to develop your yard, but your neighbour should be allowed to have a granny suite .
One issue that wasn't discussed in this video is the fact that many of these properties already have a house or other structure on them. This can also raise costs as older, existing structures are demolished to build new ones. It would be much more profitable to build in a place where there are either no existing structure or in a place where the existing structures cannot serve other useful purposes (i.e. a building that is abandoned or condemned). I can list half a dozen abandoned and empty lots within a half mile of where I grew up, some of which have been abandoned for decades. Yet, the city seems to be focusing their efforts on building new structures elsewhere, often over the top of existing housing and structures that can still be useful as they are. I know a lot of it comes down to private property owners being willing and able to do something different with these properties, but I can't help but think how counter-productive it is to tear down existing housing with the mindset of increasing density, especially when there are many areas where these structures could be built for a much lower cost and with far less disruption to the neighborhoods where they are located.
first, also Vancouver needs to relax the depth restrictions for development.
The two parking spaces per unit makes me shake my head.
I was renting a basement suite in Victoria recently. The homeowners lived on main level. They had their adult son and wife and two dogs move in on the main level. The extra residents came with two large pickup trucks. Guess where those pickup trucks were parked the numerous months they lived there? On the street. Single family homeowners can apparently do whatever they want. But those who want to develop missing middle housing are held to very high zoning standards.
I lived in a corner rental that had street parking spaces for five cars. I parked in my garage. Friends had trouble finding parking because of one house across the street that had a bunch of pickup trucks that never parked in their driveway or garage. Big family that all had extended cab trucks that never had a spot on them or a work box in the back. Plus they would have a giant "toy" trailer dirt bikes that blocked even more spots. The dad was a cop so the city never did anything about the trailer (illegal to have on the street more than a few days here). Super stereotypical Americans.
Mixed housing heights are a recipe for complaints about shady gardens, privacy and lack of space, and are easy for neighbourhoods to block. I think the best approach is to buy out whole blocks at once and densify them that way. With barriers like wide roads and trees you won't generally have complaints about residences being in the dark or having neighbours able to spy on you from above. That also gives you more flexibility in what you design, so you don't have to squash underground parking into tiny plots.
The problem then is you get the complaints about gentrification and destroying "historic" neighborhoods. You just can't win. Best to just leave it alone, especially as the suggestions in this video are basically set to ruin you financially.
Two parking spaces per residence in Coquitlam is a sick joke.
Freakin Historical
Get an Evo account and compass and stop being silly
Don't forget about significantly upgrading the water, gas, electric, cable-internet, & sewer lines - suburban residential infrastructure was originally designed for a single family dwelling on each lot. There is also additional local neighborhood costs like parking, traffic patterns, street sizes & embedded infrastructure, garbage collection, dump capacity, property taxes, schools, hospitals, fire fighter & police capacity, etc. These are all the "details" that were not well thought out by lawmakers.
The local politicians should have been thinking about that and planning for it 40 years ago.
It´s true there is an overhead, but not always that much. Compare a single family of four to four single person households. Plus, families used to be larger in the past, so on average now are less people living in each house.
THANK YOU! Everyone complaining about the home crisis and ive been preaching about zoning for so long and nobody gets it
I work in the industry and this is the best summation of the issue I have ever seen. I have to share this!
A major problem with California’s SB 9 (allowing lot splits plus a duplex on each new lot in single-family zones) is the owner-occupancy requirement. Not a lot of people buy a house they intend to make their primary residence and then want to go through a year-plus of construction to completely change the property they initially bought.
Translation: the original owners don't want to live there, either.
@@andyiswonderful Oh they might want to, just not with a family of 6 living upstairs...
I thought you guys vilified corporations buying houses? Just pick one side to hate
The idea is that they don't want entities other than occupant owners soaking up and maximally exploiting properties. It's a problem because occupant owners don't always have the capital to make those changes but that's more of a macroeconomic problem that people don't or can't build up any savings. Stopping corporations from overly commoditizing housing is a step toward fixing that problem.
How to not solve the housing crisis: letting investors buy what they will never visit.
Another way municipalities throw roadblocks in the way of people wanting to create gentle density increases is by demanding increases in water supply size. In Nelson, where I live, the City allowed 3 dwelling units to be built on properties zoned for one. They did this in 2018, patting themselves on the back for being "leaders" in creating affordable housing. However, they effectively prevent private individuals, who don't have "developer-deep pockets", from adding a suite to a duplex without upgrading water line from standard 3/4 inch to 1 inch - a very significant increase in water supply and cost of infrastructure! Rather than mandating water-efficient appliances, or limiting their number in each dwelling, the "old-school solution" seems to be mandating ever greater increases in supply. What makes this even more untenable is that we are facing drought conditions and are being asked to conserve water!
Edmonton has a fun new rule along those lines. If you add a basement suite, all the plumbing stacks for the fixtures in the lower suite have to be separate from the existing plumbing stacks in the original primary residence. That's make-work for plumbers and building inspectors.
You should also investigate the limitations of contractual regulation on land. Even when cities reform zoning to allow multi-unit housing, redeveloped lots inherently come with pre-existing private regulation of land through covenants, conditions, and restrictions. Basically, the prospective multiplex could violate pre-existing land contracts that dictate use. There are lots of slow and steady changes for retiring or just ignoring older private limitations - but it's the kind of problem that normally gets resolved through a series of lawsuits with decades of disputes and fees.
This was an excellent review of the lessons learned so far. I hope to highlight these concepts with my own local area's attempts to implement missing middle
One issue with removing parking requirements is that if you don't have adequate solutions for necessary facilities (like schools, grocery stores, etc) you can pack people really tight into places, but it'll be crap to live there because everything is so inconvenient.
I was thinking the same thing. I've been in neighborhoods where there's limited parking (because no one has a driveway), and it totally sucks. I know someone who had to get a designated handicap spot established on the street in front of their house just to ensure they had a place to park when they got home every day. A neighborhood that's already densely packed is probably not the right place for a 4-unit building.
Removing parking requirements doesn't imply zero parking. It implies the developer can choose how much parking to provide. It would make no sense to build car-dependent apartments without any available parking, but it would also make no sense to require parking for a building right next to major bus and rail lines.
Better to have a roof over your head in a relatively undesirable place than to be on the street. If you're increasing population to the point where grocery stores and schools can't keep up, in theory you have a lot more tax revenue with which to fund your schools and there's a lot more demand that can be met by a new (or expanded) grocery store. Cities are constantly expanding and they're able to meet demand for this sort of thing. This isn't a realistic reason not to build housing.
Great video! In Toronto were now allowed to convert single family to 4 unit plus a detached garden suite for 5 in total, with no min. parking except for 2 bikes. The main house can be bigger (3 stories). Also development fees are exempt for conversions up to 4 units.
You wouldn’t have to if Toronto hadn’t become an oversized Indian slum lmao. But that dump deserves it. What a stain on our beautiful country.
Hey great to see you here! I watch your videos as well. They mention underground parking in this video, and that it’d be cost prohibitive. Curious if you’ve look at this option yourself and if your pro formas have shown likewise
Congratulations to the newest board member of BC's Housing Commission!
Personally, there are 3 major problems that are never addressed when multi-housing units are built on land that once had only one house on it.
1: every single home looks the same, you turn a street from having unique homes into one full of copy-pasted "lego blocks".
2: you cannot park enough vehicles, they almost never build garages/driveways to account for families having an average 2 cars, there is no way your fitting 4-9 cars on the street in a space where 3 barely fit.
3: space inside the home, ive asked about 7 families who have come and gone from the 3 plex across my street, every single one said they felt like they were packed so tightly together, there is no room for reorganising your home, the walls are always too thin, and sometimes the home is built so thin and tall that almost every room is up another flight of stairs, ive seen a home with 5 levels and each floor only had 2 rooms.
I understand the need to build more housing in a small space but we cannot keep building 3 or 4 homes on the space that once had only 1, the better solution is to buy all 4-6 homes at the ends of a block and place an apartment building with ground or underground parking and every 3 blocks build a "strip mall" instead of apartments on the corners, that way the inside of the block has beautiful single homes, each corner can house anywhere from 14-20+ families with parking and every neighborhood gets their own mini mall within walking distance.
I honestly want a Tokyo-style anything goes approach to single family land, but maybe with a few restrictions that make it manageable. How about in Vancouver, we let any single family home owner build up to 4 stories, 8000 square feet, and 8 units out of their SFH land. Said units can be used for either housing or small business. These businesses might be a small office, art studio, cafe, noodle shop, small grocery store, electronics repair shop, book store, dollar store, clothing store, etc. You can have up to six 1000 square foot apartments overtop a cafe and book store in a quiet neighborhood. You could have four 1500 square foot townhomes with a yoga studio facing a local park. You could have Bob the boomer in his 2000 square foot SFH fulfilling his dream of running a bar and record store out of his garage. The point is that we have too much legislation, too much regulation, and we really need to get government out of the way of people building their dreams.
Having spent 30+ years in Tokyo and experiencing sticker shock on coming back to Canada, I totally agree. I don't see it happening because of NIMBYs, but I can dream.
@@ryuuguu01 NIMBY's are not going to be too much of a problem anymore, as David Eby is here to make their lives a living hell. We have the TOD law, the missing middle law, and now all we need is some improvements on their local implementation along with a small mixed use law. I want to eat noodles out of some guy's garage that he converted into a local bar and ramen shop, dammit - I want several of those on every superblock.
I want a tiny neighbourhood bakery run by a grandma with her family recipes that have been passed down the generations.
@@geoff5623 Yes, exactly bro! This is what government has strangled out of the population. Real, entry level cottage industry that builds the culture of a space like a fragment of a mosaic. We need local governments to buzz off and allow people to redevelop their properties as they please, or else their strangling the population.
Excellent documentary. The response to the housing crisis is reminiscent of our response to climate change. In both cases the need to act is pressing, but because there are powerful interests opposed to real action, we get lip service only.
Except the housing crisis in Canada is real, mostly drivey by open-border policies that allow in 2M new invaders every year. Whereas "climate change" is eco-alarmist nonsense created to scare us while those same politicians redistribute my wealth to the shyythole countries (while taking a cut themselves).
5:41 Agreed with most ideas shared in this except for 1. Over reliance on developers and profit driven construction; this is problematic because all levels of government, small/large companies, banks & unions encourage developer only construction. Future Owner Builders should be encouraged to build for living not for profit. Including for profit in the equations will always result in negative outcomes over time.
If you took the profit out of building houses there would instantly be no more houses being built.
Another major problem with single family housing neighborhoods is that all the shops to buy food, general necessities, and comfort items are placed outside of walking distance from the developments because it was expected everyone would drive to get those items. There needs to be an allowance of small shops placed inside these developments so people don't need to drive as much, and car ownership might decrease, so you then don't need the parking requirements in the first place.
And how do you go to work? dedicate 4 hours a day for the commute?
@acarriere8534 No, I work local, and my commute is about 30 minutes each way. I've done an hour long commute before each way, and that just stressed me out cause I wasn't making any money by the end of it.
Sounds like those 15 min cities
You sort of need the density first though; there's no point allowing shops if there aren't enough people to shop in them to keep them open... sort of a chicken and egg problem
@Owwliv agreed, the problem is that many single family zoning explicitly makes it so you can't change a plot into a shop at all. That way, even if there is the density already there people wouldn't be able to open up shops anyway.
Minimum parking regulations are frustrating. The people I have heard supporting them typically rely on the "let the market decide" argument for most situations. I'm not sure why this should be different.
Clogging on street parking is a pretty massive externality that a market approach will miss though
@@MrSomethingredask residents in cities like Philly, Chicago or Boston how they park, and they say a few blocks down, sometimes almost a half mile away, and they'll gawk at you. Cities should not be required to finance and find a possible location for every single persons private vehicle.
@@MrSomethingred Private vehicles are not a human right, and should not be considered in city design. Public transport, cycling infrastructure and walkable neighbourhoods are the future of cities, not private vehicles.
Private vehicles are currently a necessity in metro Vancouver ^ that's just the truth
@@DAMfoxygrampa Make it hard to get around by car and a lot of people who want an alternative will suddenly come out of the woodwork.
Where I live, lots of homeowners are interested in building ADU’s, but there are not even enough tradespeople to help you maintain an existing home, let alone build a new one.
The problem is that everyone says that they need to build more houses but no one wants them to be built
Uytae, thank you for a really well done and informative video on the topic. As a homeowner in Vancouver with kids, I think about this topic a lot. One thing you touched on is the cost. So let's say it costs $250,000 -$300,000 to build a coach home, if one simply does it for the rental income of the unit it doesn't make sense as it will take decades to recoup your investment (plus not everyone wants to be a landlord, and there can be problem renters etc) and you lose your yard. If you have the $300k you it could just earn the 5-6% just by investing it.
I see it as more likely that multi-generational families might build one for their kids or build a coach-house for themselves like a granny flat. In this case there are extra benefits, grandparents can be around to look after grandkids (as folks are often scrambling to find childcare which is expensive) and conversely less isolation for elderly or widowed parents. Its not for everyone, western culture seems to be all about getting out of the house into one's own place but much of the rest of the world is quite happy to live near their family. Its something that was quite common say in the past growing up on the farm. Again the new housing costs may actually make it worthwhile
Also, I am also interested in the growth of co-housing and the pros and cons. There are some in the lower mainland notably one on 33rd avenue. I think this may be an excellent model to counter the increased social isolation that elderly and even young adults seem to be going through (just a simple search on the epidemic of loneliness or young people with few friends).
There are also, unintended results of some developments. I'm in the east van area, where 12 years ago 4 lots were developed into 10 housing units. My initial impression was that the densification was going to be worse for the neighbourhood and really affect the street parking. In fact there was some increase in street parking but not really an issue, most of the time there is still parking in front of the house. The unintended consequence was a sort of natural occuring community as many of the folks in the new development did not have a yard they set up some chairs in their front yards and picnic tables on the boulevard, even stringing up climbing ropes and swings between the trees. Most of the new people were young families. Since then we've had a few block parties that they've organized and got to know the rest of the neighbours better. There's even a little whatsapp group where folks can borrow items they might need.
Anyway would love to see some stories on the pros and cons of co-housing as well as multi generational housing.
What about outdoor space? A lot of the problem with development is people's expectation of a 2000 sq ft home in a city. Green space is highly underrated by developers. Yards for kids to play in and families to grow a veg patch in should be reimagined and incorporated back into the new urban dream
Private green space is the saddest thing in the world. You have a small square of grass circuled by a pallissade. No children ever play in these sad lonely space. Municipal parcs make much more sense.
I'm all for smaller homes.
400 sqft for singles are enough, 500 to 600 for two.
We comfortably lived with two children and two dogs in 800 sqft.
It'd be great if cities would go ahead and remove arbitrary max sizes on multiunit houses and remove parking minimums. I've always liked the idea of getting together with some friends, buying a lot, and building an 8000sqt 4 unit row home. Maybe some day this dream will become reality!
Absolutely agree. Want to go in on homes for the homies with me?
@@anicecoldbepis With a stranger from the internet? Sure
They also have to remove minimum dwelling sizes.
There is only one thing that can fix the housing problem: forbid companies from owning residential properties and limit the number of properties you can rent.
only companies are willing to build giant buildings maybe abolish all housing reulations
Great idea, but that is one of many things that should be done to even make a dent. I'd also tax second homes at substantially higher rates than primary residences and put that tax money into things like affordable housing construction.
@@notstarboardsecond homes are often not near high jobs areas also second homes allow more of ones kids to have a home too. apartments need developers. Cant we just deregulate housing capacity/ abolish lawn mandates, home occupancy limits and construction restrictions? Rather then just mess with markets?
@@neocortex8198 sadly, no. This is because in the market we have players with disproportionate powers; in addition the same entities with greater buying power are also making profits out of homes, meaning they are also willing to pay more, since they plan to recover that money. Until you level out the playing field, normal people will have trouble to buy homes.
Deregulating the building construction will not solve the problem and instead open a completely new can of worms, especially in countries that are already densely populated. First of all, it doesn't solve the issue I discussed above, meaning people would still have problem buying houses; second, it would wreak havoc in the city structure, creating places where people don't want, or even can't, live.
Stop allowing in 2 million fresh invaders each year into Canada would go a long way to reducing the demand on housing.
Im gonna call it before I watch the whole video. The whole reason they aren't building these houses is because they build a duplex in the middle of a rich area and charge too much for it.
Edit: LMAO GOVERNMENT MOMENT
There are other building and construction codes as well. FSR (ratio between square footage of living area and lot size), maximum floor area, minimum floor area (this prevents small houses and laneway houses in many cities), offsets and setbacks (from street and neighboring properties), etc. Every time you think you've got a great new idea for housing, you run into a half dozen roadblocks that require city hall voting to remove for you, so good luck with that. Who has the time, patience and money to go through all that fight? Why risk a few million of your money to get something developed, when you can just live in your house another 10 years and you'll make the same money, tax free even.
That's why state (or province, if your a canuck) level zoning reform is paramount to this fight. Fighting city to city for these reforms is an inefficient time investment, better to go at it from a higher level where you don't have to convince individually NIMBY locals to "ruin" their suburbia with more kinds of housing.
My city has that problem. We past a bunch of big infill laws. But all our housing developers are moving to the neighboring county to build out the suburbs because it's so costly to get permits
One key element you didn’t mention is selling off federally and provincially owned property that is basically sitting empty throughout almost all cities around the country.
Sell it at a reasonable price to developers and start building.
Since you are in Vancouver here is an example. At the corner of Nanaimo and 1st Ave in East Vancouver is a substation. I have worked in the building a number of times in the film industry, but it sits empty most of the time. You could easily put a six story building there with as much as 80 units.
I think, focussing on abandon government property could make a massive difference.
In addition to that we still have huge Walmart parking lots and the like with single story commercial buildings.
It is insane, so much wasted space.
This is far and away the best video on this subject, and it's a subject that a lot of people are curious about but that few have adequately answered. Hopefully to those that are wondering why these new initiatives have not resulted in the expected torrent of new housing developments, this is the first video they find.
One thing -- the cost of infrastructure maintenance does not materially increase when you go from a SFR to a 4-unit apartment. You don't need to upgrade any sewers or pipes to accommodate that increase in density. Same thing with the the asphalt on the streets especially if you eliminate parking requirements. Since a 4-unit multifamily property will always have a higher appraised (and therefore assessed) value than a single family residence in any place where you'd even consider replacing a SFR with a 4-unit multifamily property, this means that financing improvements by increasing density at this level actually gets easier and more profitable for the city because the city's infrastructure costs will remain the same the same but the property tax revenue (thanks to the increased assessment value for that parcel of land) is about to increase. Strong Towns has built a big part of its platform around this idea, which is that incremental densification makes it easier to pay for new and existing infrastructure improvements and should therefore be prioritized as a cost-mitigation or revenue-maximizing strategy.
In the case of Minneapolis, I'd add a caveat. They did a bunch of additional measures (removing SFH zoning and parking minimums) for residential properties. In my opinion, it also takes awhile for the oil to grease the wheels so to speak. Minneapolis has only started to see the fruit of their policy decisions a couple years ago when studies showed they had one of the lowest inflation rates compared to other US cities.
Last election, I saw a lot of local politicians talking about incentivizing developers to build lower-income housing generally reduce the cost of new homes, but not one mentioned that developers have to pay the city $50k on average in development fees/taxes.
Adding density has a cost to the city. If you wave these fees you're using existing taxpayer money to subsidize wealthy developers.
@@zncon in a competitive market, reducing those taxes would definitely lead to lower prices in new builds. If DR Horton cuts their prices 50k or even 40k, Lennar is going to have a hard time padding their profits with the tax break
A city could exchange lower development costs for guaranteed and lower 🎉ower home prices. There could also be social housing quotas on larger developments.
You can dismiss parking issues by having a reliable public transportation system
Another golden goose video!
You hit all the points.
Thanks for featuring Victoria 🏝️
Very interesting! I'm really digging the presentation style, it's really engaging, keep it up! A super small nitpick I had - since we're comparing across countries, it would be nice to have a small note about the currency when showing sample dollar values or benchmarks.
why? all prices he discussed was Canadian
all the examples were canadian towns too 🤭 you can type 2 million CAD to USD into google
As someone who lives in a single family home: I'd just Manhattify every city center and leave the suburbs be. There is a reason people want to live there. We don't want other people nearby. We want our house + garden and be left alone by noisy neighbors (especially the kind that lives above you)
You know that there's a huge oversupplying of single family homes right? So we are going to need to replace a lot of them, this doesn't mean that you need to move to the city to live by noisy neighborhoods and be unable to garden, neither of which are exclusive to cities nor impossible to be done in the city, I would argue gardening would be better, assuming the city has a community garden, because human interaction, whether you like it or not, is better and noise is a non issue for well designed cities and noisy neighborhoods is not a given.
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In Quebec City, were the middle never went missing, they are companies specialized in buying old 1 floor bungalows and turning them into new 2 floor twin houses or three townhouses. Since these bungalows tend to have wider than deep terrain, it's possible to make narrower but still quite deep terrain, which are comparable to nowadays brand new lots anyway. And since the front yards tend to be deep enough for 2 cars to park (as the city use these to blow snow in winter), parking requirement is no problem as each unit have an independent entry way.
Of course, they are selling each brand new unite higher than the price paid for the old bungalow, so there's no problem for making money with these project, but Quebec City is still affordable, which is not the case in the cities with the most pressing need for densification.
Similar story here, although we haven't up-zoned the density just yet in my municipality out in BC. But our setbacks are very generous, so in front of my own home there's 3x2 parking stalls - room for 6 vehicles, plus street parking, for a total of 8 vehicles. The home could have another 950sqft suite in it very easily. It's 3700sqft, pre-plumbed, so no major renos are even required.
Thank you! I enjoyed watching this well-structured video. You broke down the problem, the cause of the problem, and proposed a solution. A cherry on top was your introduction to the company trying to make changes.
THIS is how we should structure our “complaints”. I’m tired of seeing and listening to people who can only whine about problems but don’t put any effort into researching and proposing solutions. It was very refreshing. You gained a subscriber here ❤
As someone who grew up in the suburbs of Victoria, I'd like to see our city change in this direction. Or, with the right zoning we can have better spaces to live, work and raise families.
Upzoning Saanich is a little scary, but the ending to the JRPG is always more hopeful after you Attack and Dethrone God.
Is that a Breath of Fire II reference lmao
Let me tell you how WoNdErFuLlY they tried to fix the housing crisis in Spring Hill Tennessee... They FINALLY allowed multi-family housing to be built (YAY!!)... BUT... What ended up being built are endless tracts of "luxury apartments". In other words, apartments where the average rent for a small studio is $1000/month (and there's only a handful of them and they are just outside city limits), 2 bedrooms are STARTING at $1500/month. And yes, this is a somewhat more affluent area, but it's a very mixed up area. Basically, this area is HEAVY into the automotive industry (GM and Nissan) and all the property owners based their pricing on the top out pay of what the GM and Nissan employees make. While at least at GM, the GM employees only make up MAYBE 10-15% of the population working in those factories. The other 85-90% work for third party companies that GM has contracted. And while GM employees top out around $32/hr.* all those 3rd party companies top out around $12-18/hr. So in short, you have an area where the average rent is upwards of $1500/month while the average pay is around $15/hr. The middle class isn't shrinking, it's being priced out of existence.
This is the problem with planning development around for-profit independent developers, and custom solutions for each property. Neither of those things are cheap. If you want affordable housing, look at the post-WWII housing solutions around the world - standardized floorplans, pre-fab housing components, and large-scale government funding / planning. The most efficient housing in the world is still the Commie blocks of Eastern Europe.
Yes. I agree.
And people are being not only prevented from buying or renting, they're being taxed out of their existing homes by increasing utility and property taxes.
I had to live in one of these densified housing areas. It was a nightmare. The over crowding, the smell, the constant fighting for just about anything. People were not happy, the slightest thing would set them off. And you want more of this?
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what was recently passed in Edmonton Alberta. Seems like all of these issues you brought up wouldn't be a problem! It's seems like a very forward thinking zoning bylaw renewal compared to other cities, especially in addition to their plans for the new district plans for the city.
Edmonton is very much leading the way in Canada at this point I believe. No other major city has the same swath of great urbanist policies.
@@joshthompson80 the amazing part about Edmonton's changes is that Edmonton is a largely suburban sprawl city. The fact that Edmonton is adopting these practices largely removes any excuses for any other cities to do the same.
I'll be honest, the suburbs here kind of suck in the present day, but I'm excited for what we'll be getting in the future. I wholly believe that other cities should take our zoning bylaw, find and replace Edmonton with their city, and pass it. And while they're at it, also get rid of parking minimums (like we did in 2020).
I’ve been feeling this for a while, and feel it doesn’t get talked about enough. The movement of cities legalizing missing middle housing gets me really anxious BECAUSE of what’s been mentioned in the video specifically how PARKING MANDATES are getting in the way of building more. I feel very deeply that this is a real missed opportunity in getting people out of cars, increasing walkability, and increasing ADEQUATE public transportation in the US and Canada. Although it may push back housing growth, I believe that missing middle housing cannot and should not be built UNTIL the site is within half a mile of a public transit station and the inverse should happen. TODs should be encouraged in the cities legalizing missing middle housing. Cities and MTA/DOTs should be looking to extend/build more adequate transit around ideal sites and last mile connections like class 1 separated bike paths should be prioritized BEFORE the development for MM housing to set the foundation for these developments to really thrive. ALSO along with legalizing MM housing cities should legalize limited light commercial uses (without parking mandates) as to encourage more corner-shop-style developments, which would also greatly reduce traffic trips to the big box grocery stores at the edges of towns, and increase numbers of small businesses, walkability, bring communities closer together, and create more financially resilient cities.
I agree with removing parking mandates, or atleast put them to 0.5 per unit, but middle housing ISN'T just for people who take transit, it's for EVERYONE. My Triplex has 5 parking spots and I park there no problem. Just because I drive a car doesn't mean I can't live in middle housing.
I think improving transit and building more demand for transit need to be improved together. Unfortunately, our transit systems aren't financially stable enough to improve service on routes that don't have demand yet. Local governments could and should coordinate better transit with new buildings that go up. This might make more sense for bigger buildings, but could also apply to specific areas where lots of smaller multi-unit housing is being built.
Build them dense and the people will vote for transit themselves - we need to create the interested class and then allow them to make political change happen rather than seeing another obstacle.
This is very true, and I have some related concerns. I WISH my city was walkable and it would fix so so so many problems if cars weren't necessary to get groceries, but without a car even if I could get to a grocery store, I can't get anywhere else. Places like the Ikea 3 hours away are only accessible by car, not only because I would be bringing items back, but because there are no bus routes in that area or my area, nor a long distance train connecting my city with the city that the Ikea is in. Likewise, I can't go home without a car because I need to drive three hours to an airport then fly, then be driven three hours on the other side (and neither my place nor home are rural). It's easy to say "you only go to those places once in a while, rent a car/order an uber/taxi" but taxi/uber aren't available for long journeys and renting a car is expensive. I might only need to go to Ikea once every two years, but what about going to a place that sells shoes and cheap clothing every 1-2 years? Then going somewhere for gifts because I have to shop for a lot of people so a single local store won't have enough selection. Then every time I want to escape the city and go for a hike. Then every time I need to see a medical specialist (they can't all be within walking distance). It just eventually becomes untenable and I need a vehicle that can go anywhere. Public transit would have to be OTHERWORLDLY to account for these issues. It would only work if public transit was integrated, on time, and safe. That's not possible in the US (where I live) as it is now. Even when I lived in a city with better public transit, it was so dangerous that if I could have afforded a car and a parking pass for work, I would have done it in a second. Getting screamed at by a mentally ill homeless person because I didn't respond to his ramblings after a different one screamed at me yesterday for responding is really not my idea of good transport. Not to mention, the task of creating integrated systems of public transit across such a giant area would be insane. I think figuring out that mess needs to come first.
BC province is driving high density cores, driven by UN Agenda 21/30. Its all a plan that's being revealed in spite of themselves.
In much of southern California, a lot of the new multi-unit housing is on redeveloped industrial land. On industrial land, there are usually few neighboring residents to complain.
Yes, some industrial landa could beb mixed use.
I wish there was more incentive to actually subdivide the lots to spread out the ownership rather than simply allowing the lot owner to build more rental properties. Don't get me wrong, rentals are important, but we also need to allow people to get into the real estate market.
In Montreal they allow that
I was looking for this comment. Thank you!!
What incentive does an owner have to _sell_ of parts of his property, rather than turning it into a revenue stream by renting it out?
@@rey_nemaattori news flash: not everyone is motivated by profit-making. Some of us want a different socity so we're thinking in terms of ecological and community well-being instead of profit.
@@rey_nemaattori The incentive is the money they get from selling the property, enough with the greed of owning a home and having it evaluated so much it ruins the economy, and then ask on top of that about extra incentives to be able to subdivide it and rent it out while keeping your home.
to subdivide is to create more housing density and supply making it affordable to NEW HOME OWNERS and not so you can enjoy siphoning more money from the economy using incentives like government subsidies TO PROP UP YOUR BUSSINESS AS LANDLORD.
I think having parking is required makes sense. Depending on the area. For the city maybe lower to one per unit. Since it’s so congested in certain neighborhoods when driving. I understand that we should encourage public transit that’s if the city invests better reliable public transportation system. Like we’re no japan where getting around by public transit is essy
There are houses, that are built above the required parking. No problem!
There's way more than plenty of empty housing to account for the unhoused. If we implemented a 100% tax on empty housing (investment properties), rent could be lowered to fill those units that are currently too expensive to fill.
I really love your videos. I would love to hear your opinion on the new BC legislation regarding rezoning the 800m radius around transit stations.
Exactly I wonder how much it can change the housing landscape for Metro Vancouver with redeveloping current and extension stations in Vancouver and new stations being built along the Fraser Highway to Langley.
I just went through this similar issue. I could convert my garage into a unit but it could be only 1 story so I would lose my parking and I would have to shrink it considerably to meet the max area covered of the lot - even though the current garage already occupied that larger space. It is my land not yours, why do you as my neighbor get so much say about how I use it?
Excellent video! And of utmost importance.
Too sad if this were to be killed off by bad underlying rules. Thanks for bringing attention to the necessity of further reforms.
Nice, well put together video. Fascinating that so many bylaws across almost every region were put in place that effectively blocked building how we always used to build...small, dense and walkable. How did they all collectively get put in place?
small dense and walkable is great for the 12th century. This is the 22nd century. No one want small dense and walkable. If they did, developers would respond to that demand. A single family home beats living on the 3rd floor of an apartment 100% of the time. No one wants to hear people walking below them. No one want to have to walk down 3 flights of stairs, then across an open parking lot to get to their car (especially in winter). What people do want is the privacy of a single family home. The joy of having your own yard. Being able to barbecue. Being able to let your dog run around your yard. Being able to park your car in your garage. Being able to put your bikes/skis/motorcycle etc in your garage and just have access to them anytime.
@bikebudha01 you may want those things, but not everybody does. I've had many friends move from our rural suburban town to the city because that's the life they wanted. A lot of people like being able to walk to the grocery store, or a restaurant across the street, or have lots of neighbours and activity around them. Developers also build whatever is easiest and makes them the most money, which is whatever zoning and bylaws say they have to build. If it's hard to build density and mixed use according to bylaws, which it is, it just doesn't get built. My point is not that low density can't exist, sure it can, and there are lots of historical examples of this, it just shouldn't be the only thing built because we are too blinded with 1950's building styles to bother changing anything.
@@deanorr5378 Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to higher density being built. I am opposed to going into existing single family zones and changing that zoning to allow higher density in. Because the people who took out 30-year loans for single family living deserve to have that investment protected. For new construction, I'm all for mixed denisty. Because people, going in, will know what they are getting into. And your point about developers being 'trapped' by existisng zoing is bullshit. I see 'rezones' happen all the dam time. The developer can apply for a rezone easy. May not get it if there is neighborhood pushback, but like I said, I see it happen all the dam time...
@@bikebudha01the comment you're replying to is about how developers CAN'T respond to the demand for dense walkable neighborhoods because of bylaws that restrict such construction.
If you're confident that low density suburbs are what the market wants can you agree that such bylaws are unnecessary and should be repealed?
@@jakecaspick2813 dear moron... 1)Any developer can request a zone change. It's very very very common. So no developer 'can't' respond to the demand. 2) There is TONS of open land that is zoned for higher density, and isn't developed that way because the MARKET simply doesn't want it. No one CHOOSES to live where people live above them, beside them, or below them. No one wants to hear their neighbors walking overhead, hear their neighbors stereo's or tv's. No one wants to NOT be able to crank their own music. No one wants to have to take the stairs to get to their home. 3) Single family living is the BEST style of living. It give MAXIMUM freedom. Freedom to garden. Freedom to barbeque. Freedom to do whatever you want to the place. Freedom to crank your music. Freedom of having a garage for bikes, atvs, jetskis, motorcycles, skis, woodworking, etc etc etc...
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Are there a small percentage of people who do want the 'urban' lifestyle? Sure, a few. But percentage wise, there is plenty of that available to them. I live in a town of over 225,000 people. We have a 'real' downtown. Developers have tried for several decades to build the 'urban' downtown living. No one wants it, and the project do very poorly.
"Homes for the homies" is what we all want tbh. Another great episode!
There is so much opportunity when it comes to multi-units. With all of these extra regulations, though they are a challenge to design. I hope the changes continue.
Agreed, we need to tap into the house-rich private residents. Rather than buying additional properties, we need them to build new homes alongside institutional developers. For example, I would love to build a 2-bed house on my lot. However, the City in BC where I live increased its fees to bolster its revenue rather than cover the development costs. I've already been told it's $70K to move from septic to main sewer, but that's another cost on top of the re-zoning fee to allow a second property and the general fee for a new home. I also can't sell a second house on my lot due to the zoning, so I'd be limited to long-term rent. I'm happy to do long-term rent, but then I have labour and material costs to consider and interest rates. There's also the risk that by the time I'm finished that the value of the property will be far less than what I've invested, and then I'm waiting 5-15 years for appreciation to catch up.
2 parking spots per unit is ridiculous. If the city has decent transit (and often even if they dont), at least 30% of the adult population does not own or need a vehicle.
I live in the Northeast US and our cities and even suburbs have a lot of rowhomes and townhouses. It's pretty normal here to see a whole "subdivision" that is just townhouses. They can be two, three, and even four stories high. It's pretty awesome! You could still have a pretty big home in an area that would normally take up just one or two homes, which fits 4+ townhouses.