In Quebec, the infrastructure for new developments is generally paid for and built by the developer, then sold to the city for a dollar. If existing infrastructure needs to be upgraded to handle new developments, the city will pay for it, then levy a special property tax on the street or district where the new developments take place, to pay for part of it. So either way, the cost of new infrastructure specifically for new developments is mainly paid for by those new developments.
Great comment Alex, I cut a lot from this video and kept the example in Quebec as Montreal to keep it simple and the video focused on Ontario. Now I worry I cut too much. Montreal benefits from a system in Quebec that has a more literal and direct focus on infrastructure (This is your sewer pipe, a school two blocks away isn't infrastructure) which this article covers well: www.city-journal.org/montreal-affordable-housing If you are a developer in Quebec, reach out to me because there are things like this where I can't decide how important it is if I get into the details or not. It would be good to have someone to run the academic pieces past when talking about housing here.
Doesn’t the government essentially pay for building infrastructure like roads and see where is so lot of development companies get the government contract, build the roads and sewer systems, declare bankruptcy, and take the rest of the money as payment
Thank you for this Canadian content! The growth pays for growth slogan has me thinking of Not Just Bikes's explanation of the suburban growth ponzi scheme
Ottawa is considering raising it's development charges on May 8, 2024. Anyone from Ottawa, consider emailing your councillor or signing up to delegate on this item 4.2 at the planning and housing committee
Was not expecting such an in-depth dive into my city! Hamilton has a chance to do things better than Toronto, and its frustrating that financing issues like these fly so low under the radar during this crucial time.
A big issue for Hamilton specifically was that they provincial government also expanded their urban boundary, which means more lands for sprawl. Very mix bag of bills.
Your videos are very concise and well organized. Love how you tie all the details together. It's nice to see someone exposing all the municipal and provincial shenanigans that go on. I'm out in BC and observed a lot of the very same problems on the coast. You haven't uploaded a video in 5 months, but I hope you get back to it sometime soon.
Quite a story you slipped in there. I was almost moved to tears. I love your videos, and I wish they got more views so that you could make even more of them.
I remember when then-Mayor Tory and Toronto City Council started saying “make us whole” all the time and I was asking myself, “Is that an expression people use?”
Your making gods work Paige. I'm so happy we got a great youtuber like you covering this whole mess of public and government housing crisis we are having
"But if the city had a higher density and larger tax base" 14:50 This is exactly why the City of Toronto's property tax hike was only 5%. Suburban municipalities in the GTA already have higher property tax, are less dense and have higher service costs like roads and pipes. Hamilton and Toronto both have massive dense walkable cores with (relatively) low service costs vs property tax revenue. So ofc they're both best set to deal with the changes to development fees. This bill is set to screw over suburban municipalities far more than urban ones. And the development style proposed in the bill won't even ensure the missing middle development that makes Hamilton and Toronto all its money! (I hope there's more vids in this amazing series btw...)
One thing that really bothers me about the Canadian political system. You don’t have to live in your local area to run for Premier. Of your area You can live in Toronto and run for Premier in Newmarket as long as you have a property in Newmarket but you primary residence is in Toronto The main reason why Toronto seems to be the centre of the world, where every politician only focus on tronto, because that’s where they live, even if they were elected by a different district And the only reason they got to run in that election is because they own a cottage or some thing in that area If a city rich person on the cottage in country Township they can run for that local townships political office, use their city connections to create convincing ads and lie to the people that saying that they’re there for the people but in reality they’re only there for Toronto. They’re not gonna help the farmers of Ontario they’re going to help the city folk. And that’s the biggest problem I’ve been seeing with our government is that people from the cities come to small areas to get it a seat for their party but they do not represent those small areas because they only focus on Toronto issues because that’s where they live
Shifting from DCs to more tax-funded growth infrastructure removes a disincentive to sprawl as well, since DCs are usually higher in greenfield suburbs than in urban areas. But something similar can be achieved through property tax rates anyways.
Maybe our country and provinces would be a lot better state if those local representative actually lived in our local community Most local representative you vote for don’t even live in your community they just on a cottage or something which allows them to run in different area for their party It doesn’t matter that to party members are from Toronto. It only matters that one of them is allegedly supporting the farmers of Ontario. Even though they never ask them what they want they never campaign for the farmers, and they never do anything for those small, local communities that voted them in Because if you’re voting someone in on the provincial level for your local government, they should help your local area not just Toronto
Property tax that is based on land footprint is the absolute best tax available. And I live in a detached single house. Even better is to fund it with a Buckaroo style second currency that is free from the concept of debt & balancing a budget, but rather having the right amount of currency in circulation (see Warren Mosler blog).
Great video, again. Forgot development charges are also on commercial and industrial development not just new housing. Does the Province's Development Charge Act allow municipalities to charge a higher charge on greenfield areas and less in an infill area? I don't think so, unfortunately. If shifting costs for growth to property owners (not homeowners, cause there's no distinction), will renters bear the cost of increased taxes because landlords will pass it on to lease costs? Toronto has low property taxes, not the 905 suburbs. You'll pay 3x or more in some 905 communities. We'll known fact. None of Queens Park's bills create any obligation for developers and their consultants to do a better job preparing plans and applications. They will continue making uncoordinated submissions and expecting over night approvals. There are some good things in bill 23, such as as-of- right 3 units, parkland dedication credits, no site plan for
It does not have any language around greenfield/infill, the differentiation based on housing type in existing programs is all I can across but that is only a correlation to infill. I'm not focusing on industrial/commercial with these videos because they're both experiencing totally different sorts of crisis and at some point if I don't get back to throwing magnets in the canal, I'll be throwing myself in the canal. Renters will pay the increased tax, but anything that shifts from development charges to a property tax based system works out better for renters. When an owner sells they essentially "get their development charge back" a renter is just paying more rent each month for a house that cost more to build. I know that local government workers are upset that this is happening, I hear it from both sides, developers whine about planners and planners whine about developers. But I got to say, there are tents and homeless people everywhere in Ontario, it is shocking. The province is right, it's time to drag that quality-quantity slider over to the quantity side for a while. I'm sure that cities in Ontario will figure out how to solve for these challenges in new and creative ways.
I like this video but do have a couple issues/points/questions. If the pace of housing development is constrained by lack of skilled tradespeople, how will giving developers more capital to put to work actually speed up development? If that is the true constraint to constructing new homes more quickly, isn't reducing the development charges akin to just making developments more profitable? I understand the reduced development charges are targeted for affordable housing and family sized units, with the intent of encouraging the developers to prioritize those types of projects. I think assuming that by eliminating development charges alone will increase housing supply, more quickly bringing the market into equilibrium and home prices down is overlooking the largest constraint to growing supply, the availability of labour.
so... ah dumb question, but this is the third video from ... er... out west? have you moved? I love your Montreal videos... big loss for us if you have...
Why should current home owners pay for the development of new houses for other people, whereby they have to bare the cost of construction, extra congestion and the like? It isn't like the gov is pressing to expand the transit system, or even that the TTC is reliable. Why should current home owners pay $200 more on their house when they are leveraged to the tits already just to afford that home. Don't think that just because a house is worth 2 million bucks means the person has any free money available to be taxed.
Exactly. Yeah, my house (if I had one) is worth $2 million on paper, doesn't mean I have the liquidity to manage increased costs. House price increases are an unrealized gain until sale time comes. Never mind the fact that new development (i.e. sprawl) is already subsidized by the existing tax base given that it will probably never generate the tax revenue to maintain the infrastructure that gets built to service it.
Disagree. Econ 101 supports development charges. When someone builds housing, and the city is on the hook for infrastructure, the city will pay more in infrastructure than is socially optimal. However, I agree that if development charges aren't proportional to infrastructure costs, it's a bad idea.
Econ101 doesn't support development charges and I did a lot more than Econ101. This is in the category where Economics will tell you the benefits and downsides of both approaches, and you decide which lines up better with the outcomes your city aims to achieve. In the world of a chronic housing shortage, the professor is not going to be supporting Development Charges. You might be thinking of the Political Science, which will give you two thumbs up at all times and also add in policing services, schools and water fountains for dogs.
@@PaigeMTL Doesn't new housing effectively incur a negative externality on taxpayers if the new infrastructure is paid with public money? The social cost of new housing > private cost not accounting for positive exteralities.
@@_human_1946 yes. If you like the economic lens, consider the lag on the economy that housing has become in reduced immigration and labour mobility, consider the cost born by social services and police from unhoused people, consider the economic risk of an unstable political environment caused by a lack of housing. also remember that Bill 23 is removing development charges on developers that are used to pay other developers for development.
@@PaigeMTL true but consider two scenarios: 1. greenfield, city needs to sprawl sewage, electricity, bus, etc... 2. brownfield, mere densification of existing lot, infrastructure network only needs upgrade. The difference in upfront cost of these two types should be factored in the development costs of this new neighborhood otherwise it's unfair and unmotivated for urban renewal efforts which have better cost ratio for public operation cost in the long run.
@@PaigeMTL Sure? But I think we could still have enough housing with development charges if we had land value taxes and better zoning laws. Besides, a lot of non-market housing is already subsidized. To be clear, I'm not against the parts of Bill 23 that freeze development charges. I just think that development charges are a good idea in limited amounts.
You have to really look for anyone giving a critical opinion about Doug Ford because you just type his name and you need to be very specific what you’re looking for because the propaganda machine has basically make sure that most results regarding his name are always positive Do you look up Doug Ford needs to be voted out or Doug Ford is bad for Ontario and you get mostly propaganda I had to search up Doug Ford is bad for Ontario to find this video and then underneath it is more positive propaganda It’s either not many people are making videos about it or the UA-cam algorithm suppresses it like they are supposed to after the laws came into affect that allows Canadian government agencies to control the algorithm and push Canadian Contant forward, but they always push Canadian propaganda. Not Canadian criticism.
My heart.
Was not expecting the world's saddest story from this video
I know... I think I could handle something concrete like 5% but when they said several percent... I broke down
"growth pays for growth" until it comes time to do routine maintenance!
Paige you've been firing on all cylinders lately! Excited for this channel and hope it continues to grow!
Désolé, malheureusement, je ne peux pas les faire régulièrement. C'est beaucoup de travail
@@PaigeMTL even one video a month is enough for me with all the work you put into them.
In Quebec, the infrastructure for new developments is generally paid for and built by the developer, then sold to the city for a dollar. If existing infrastructure needs to be upgraded to handle new developments, the city will pay for it, then levy a special property tax on the street or district where the new developments take place, to pay for part of it. So either way, the cost of new infrastructure specifically for new developments is mainly paid for by those new developments.
Great comment Alex, I cut a lot from this video and kept the example in Quebec as Montreal to keep it simple and the video focused on Ontario. Now I worry I cut too much.
Montreal benefits from a system in Quebec that has a more literal and direct focus on infrastructure (This is your sewer pipe, a school two blocks away isn't infrastructure) which this article covers well: www.city-journal.org/montreal-affordable-housing
If you are a developer in Quebec, reach out to me because there are things like this where I can't decide how important it is if I get into the details or not. It would be good to have someone to run the academic pieces past when talking about housing here.
Doesn’t the government essentially pay for building infrastructure like roads and see where is so lot of development companies get the government contract, build the roads and sewer systems, declare bankruptcy, and take the rest of the money as payment
Thank you for this Canadian content! The growth pays for growth slogan has me thinking of Not Just Bikes's explanation of the suburban growth ponzi scheme
Damn, the setup for that punchline! Chef's kiss!
Ottawa is considering raising it's development charges on May 8, 2024. Anyone from Ottawa, consider emailing your councillor or signing up to delegate on this item 4.2 at the planning and housing committee
Continuing to show CBC how it's done. Bravo!
Was not expecting such an in-depth dive into my city! Hamilton has a chance to do things better than Toronto, and its frustrating that financing issues like these fly so low under the radar during this crucial time.
I did not expect a Little Match Girl reference, lol.
A big issue for Hamilton specifically was that they provincial government also expanded their urban boundary, which means more lands for sprawl. Very mix bag of bills.
I'm in awe of the pace these well researched videos are coming, keep it up!
Your videos are very concise and well organized. Love how you tie all the details together. It's nice to see someone exposing all the municipal and provincial shenanigans that go on. I'm out in BC and observed a lot of the very same problems on the coast. You haven't uploaded a video in 5 months, but I hope you get back to it sometime soon.
Yay. Another Paige video… Can’t wait to see his video on Aukland vs Vancouver…
I love learning about my home, sharing this with all my family.
Quite a story you slipped in there. I was almost moved to tears. I love your videos, and I wish they got more views so that you could make even more of them.
15:40 staying here for another hour 😂😂😂😂
I remember when then-Mayor Tory and Toronto City Council started saying “make us whole” all the time and I was asking myself, “Is that an expression people use?”
Ooh. I am catching part 3 early!
Keep up this great work! I love this series. It's very informational and fun to watch. 🙂
Great video as always.
Your making gods work Paige. I'm so happy we got a great youtuber like you covering this whole mess of public and government housing crisis we are having
Holy shit this is a good video
love your channel, another strong source of push for better cities are against car supremacy in Canada, great videos, thank
"But if the city had a higher density and larger tax base" 14:50
This is exactly why the City of Toronto's property tax hike was only 5%. Suburban municipalities in the GTA already have higher property tax, are less dense and have higher service costs like roads and pipes.
Hamilton and Toronto both have massive dense walkable cores with (relatively) low service costs vs property tax revenue. So ofc they're both best set to deal with the changes to development fees.
This bill is set to screw over suburban municipalities far more than urban ones. And the development style proposed in the bill won't even ensure the missing middle development that makes Hamilton and Toronto all its money!
(I hope there's more vids in this amazing series btw...)
11:30 while he was f***** somebody from his office 😂😂
One thing that really bothers me about the Canadian political system. You don’t have to live in your local area to run for Premier. Of your area
You can live in Toronto and run for Premier in Newmarket as long as you have a property in Newmarket but you primary residence is in Toronto
The main reason why Toronto seems to be the centre of the world, where every politician only focus on tronto, because that’s where they live, even if they were elected by a different district
And the only reason they got to run in that election is because they own a cottage or some thing in that area
If a city rich person on the cottage in country Township they can run for that local townships political office, use their city connections to create convincing ads and lie to the people that saying that they’re there for the people but in reality they’re only there for Toronto. They’re not gonna help the farmers of Ontario they’re going to help the city folk.
And that’s the biggest problem I’ve been seeing with our government is that people from the cities come to small areas to get it a seat for their party but they do not represent those small areas because they only focus on Toronto issues because that’s where they live
I love his vids!
(haven't watch yet).. Dung Ford himself is a bad deal.
So in which arrondissement will you be running for city council?
growth pays for growth : number one rule of ponzi scheme
Shifting from DCs to more tax-funded growth infrastructure removes a disincentive to sprawl as well, since DCs are usually higher in greenfield suburbs than in urban areas. But something similar can be achieved through property tax rates anyways.
This is mad pace on dem videos
You missed a golden opportunity to edit the politicians as south park Canadians
Maybe our country and provinces would be a lot better state if those local representative actually lived in our local community
Most local representative you vote for don’t even live in your community they just on a cottage or something which allows them to run in different area for their party
It doesn’t matter that to party members are from Toronto. It only matters that one of them is allegedly supporting the farmers of Ontario. Even though they never ask them what they want they never campaign for the farmers, and they never do anything for those small, local communities that voted them in
Because if you’re voting someone in on the provincial level for your local government, they should help your local area not just Toronto
Property tax that is based on land footprint is the absolute best tax available. And I live in a detached single house.
Even better is to fund it with a Buckaroo style second currency that is free from the concept of debt & balancing a budget, but rather having the right amount of currency in circulation (see Warren Mosler blog).
So it's confirmed we're still living in a ponzi scheme?
Great video, again.
Forgot development charges are also on commercial and industrial development not just new housing.
Does the Province's Development Charge Act allow municipalities to charge a higher charge on greenfield areas and less in an infill area? I don't think so, unfortunately.
If shifting costs for growth to property owners (not homeowners, cause there's no distinction), will renters bear the cost of increased taxes because landlords will pass it on to lease costs?
Toronto has low property taxes, not the 905 suburbs. You'll pay 3x or more in some 905 communities. We'll known fact.
None of Queens Park's bills create any obligation for developers and their consultants to do a better job preparing plans and applications. They will continue making uncoordinated submissions and expecting over night approvals.
There are some good things in bill 23, such as as-of- right 3 units, parkland dedication credits, no site plan for
It does not have any language around greenfield/infill, the differentiation based on housing type in existing programs is all I can across but that is only a correlation to infill.
I'm not focusing on industrial/commercial with these videos because they're both experiencing totally different sorts of crisis and at some point if I don't get back to throwing magnets in the canal, I'll be throwing myself in the canal.
Renters will pay the increased tax, but anything that shifts from development charges to a property tax based system works out better for renters. When an owner sells they essentially "get their development charge back" a renter is just paying more rent each month for a house that cost more to build.
I know that local government workers are upset that this is happening, I hear it from both sides, developers whine about planners and planners whine about developers. But I got to say, there are tents and homeless people everywhere in Ontario, it is shocking. The province is right, it's time to drag that quality-quantity slider over to the quantity side for a while. I'm sure that cities in Ontario will figure out how to solve for these challenges in new and creative ways.
@@PaigeMTL thanks for taking the time to respond!!
Why would population growth tapering off be a problem? Wouldn't that increased demand for housing is also tapering off?
I like this video but do have a couple issues/points/questions. If the pace of housing development is constrained by lack of skilled tradespeople, how will giving developers more capital to put to work actually speed up development? If that is the true constraint to constructing new homes more quickly, isn't reducing the development charges akin to just making developments more profitable? I understand the reduced development charges are targeted for affordable housing and family sized units, with the intent of encouraging the developers to prioritize those types of projects. I think assuming that by eliminating development charges alone will increase housing supply, more quickly bringing the market into equilibrium and home prices down is overlooking the largest constraint to growing supply, the availability of labour.
so... ah dumb question, but this is the third video from ... er... out west? have you moved? I love your Montreal videos... big loss for us if you have...
Jamais!
Why should current home owners pay for the development of new houses for other people, whereby they have to bare the cost of construction, extra congestion and the like? It isn't like the gov is pressing to expand the transit system, or even that the TTC is reliable. Why should current home owners pay $200 more on their house when they are leveraged to the tits already just to afford that home. Don't think that just because a house is worth 2 million bucks means the person has any free money available to be taxed.
Exactly. Yeah, my house (if I had one) is worth $2 million on paper, doesn't mean I have the liquidity to manage increased costs. House price increases are an unrealized gain until sale time comes. Never mind the fact that new development (i.e. sprawl) is already subsidized by the existing tax base given that it will probably never generate the tax revenue to maintain the infrastructure that gets built to service it.
If I remember correctly, the saying "Growth pays for growth" was originally coined by Charles Ponzi. Don't fact check that.
Disagree. Econ 101 supports development charges.
When someone builds housing, and the city is on the hook for infrastructure, the city will pay more in infrastructure than is socially optimal.
However, I agree that if development charges aren't proportional to infrastructure costs, it's a bad idea.
Econ101 doesn't support development charges and I did a lot more than Econ101. This is in the category where Economics will tell you the benefits and downsides of both approaches, and you decide which lines up better with the outcomes your city aims to achieve. In the world of a chronic housing shortage, the professor is not going to be supporting Development Charges. You might be thinking of the Political Science, which will give you two thumbs up at all times and also add in policing services, schools and water fountains for dogs.
@@PaigeMTL Doesn't new housing effectively incur a negative externality on taxpayers if the new infrastructure is paid with public money? The social cost of new housing > private cost not accounting for positive exteralities.
@@_human_1946 yes. If you like the economic lens, consider the lag on the economy that housing has become in reduced immigration and labour mobility, consider the cost born by social services and police from unhoused people, consider the economic risk of an unstable political environment caused by a lack of housing. also remember that Bill 23 is removing development charges on developers that are used to pay other developers for development.
@@PaigeMTL true but consider two scenarios: 1. greenfield, city needs to sprawl sewage, electricity, bus, etc... 2. brownfield, mere densification of existing lot, infrastructure network only needs upgrade. The difference in upfront cost of these two types should be factored in the development costs of this new neighborhood otherwise it's unfair and unmotivated for urban renewal efforts which have better cost ratio for public operation cost in the long run.
@@PaigeMTL Sure? But I think we could still have enough housing with development charges if we had land value taxes and better zoning laws. Besides, a lot of non-market housing is already subsidized.
To be clear, I'm not against the parts of Bill 23 that freeze development charges. I just think that development charges are a good idea in limited amounts.
Please do a video on the best city in Canada which is Brampton, ON.
You have to really look for anyone giving a critical opinion about Doug Ford because you just type his name and you need to be very specific what you’re looking for because the propaganda machine has basically make sure that most results regarding his name are always positive
Do you look up Doug Ford needs to be voted out or Doug Ford is bad for Ontario and you get mostly propaganda
I had to search up Doug Ford is bad for Ontario to find this video and then underneath it is more positive propaganda
It’s either not many people are making videos about it or the UA-cam algorithm suppresses it like they are supposed to after the laws came into affect that allows Canadian government agencies to control the algorithm and push Canadian Contant forward, but they always push Canadian propaganda. Not Canadian criticism.
In my opinion Doug Ford is elitist but he is still probably a good person at heart . He doesn't like bicycles which is sad .
He Doesn't like the ppl that ride bicycles, either.