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In my opinion, there can only be one solution to this that will come sooner or later. A great correction following simplified zoning & building legislation. Fed

In my opinion, there can only be one solution to this that will come sooner or later. A great correction following simplified zoning & building legislation. Federal governments across the west need to take control of building and zoning. Planning can remain a city/state/provincial affair, but it must be done under standardized and simplified building and zoning legislation. We are wasting unfathomable economic potential on rising housing costs, rent seeking, and artificially limiting economic development in urban centres. It is probably exceptionally challenging to manage the economic fallout from such a correction, but I believe it has to happen. I would also support draconian measures which would forcibly and retroactively destroy accrued home value to ensure we haven't extracted wealth from the younger generations. I realize this is unprecedented and probably unconstitutional, but that's my emotional response to the problem. It is plain as day: Boomers extracted the wealth out of the country and now they're extracting the wealth out of their kids. It has to be stopped.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
Federal would require constitutional change, so it'll never happen. But it's the right idea -- move it up the chain so that it's not a hyper-local issue. IOW, at the state level rather than city/county. This has seen some success in California: https://cayimby.org/legislation/ https://cayimby.org/legislation/
- lwansbrough 2y ago
  The Canadian government is currently facing this problem. Provinces have constitutional authority over building and zoning. One way they're trying to get around it (though in my opinion, no party is taking this seriously and all efforts thus far have fallen laughably short of where they need to), is by incentivizing the adoption of federal policy by conditioning federal housing grants on the adoption of new federally guided policy. This is the way for the west, if we're being serious. Once we've taken a few breaths and accepted that we don't want to be authoritative, we can see that incentivizing provinces is the right move. In my opinion, the federal government should be designing simplified building and zoning guidelines and offering unprecedented grants (on the order of tens of billions) to provinces in a first come first serve manner. Have provinces compete on urgency to receive the most funds, tapering off the offer the longer provinces hold out.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    The BC government has been relatively successful at this. Housing prices in Vancouver used to be ~2X those of Toronto; now Toronto is more expensive than Vancouver. The Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force released a list of 55 things to do to reduce housing prices. BC has implemented a far larger share of that 55 than Ontario has. > In my opinion, the federal government should be designing simplified building and zoning guidelines and offering unprecedented grants (on the order of tens of billions) to provinces in a first come first serve manner. Have provinces compete on urgency to receive the most funds, tapering off the offer the longer provinces hold out. That's basically what they're doing. They can't change zoning without changing the constitution, but they are giving out tens of billions of dollars conditional on appropriate zoning changes. BC has received lots of money that way, Toronto has bypassed the province to get theirs and Alberta has made it illegal for Calgary & Edmonton to access theirs.
jandrewrogers 2y ago
The individual States have the power to do this, you don't need to get the Federal government involved (nor would you want to). It is also much simpler at the State level, since the solutions can be tailored to local conditions and you don't need to get nearly as many people living far away to agree with you to get anything done. Without demonstrating success at the much more achievable State level, there is no way it will work at the Federal level, even ignoring the obvious Constitutional issue.
Auracle 2y ago
I’ll keep shouting this from the rooftops: while it may contribute in some areas, zoning laws are not the primary cause of home prices increasing like they have. For proof, look at any rural (and I mean actual rural) area and how their home prices have also been skyrocketing. It’s supply and demand, with other things being small factors. We either need to vastly increase supply across the entire country somehow, or cut down on demand. The latter is a hell of a lot easier than the former. For some reason it’s ok to talk about this in the context of Canada and how their mass immigration has increased home prices, but that applies to almost everywhere. Japan literally has homes they’re trying to give away.
- masterj 2y ago
  > zoning laws are not the primary cause of home prices > We ... need to vastly increase supply across the entire country somehow Zoning laws reduce available supply by making it illegal or impossible (due to e.g. parking minimums) to build densely in most of the bigger cities in North America > For some reason it’s ok to talk about this in the context of Canada and how their mass immigration has increased home prices 1. It's not okay to scapegoat immigrants 2. Canada hasn't built enough housing to keep up with a growing population, largely due to exclusionary zoning policies. The vast majority of land in Vancouver is reserved for SFHs, even within walksheds of skytrain stations representing billions of dollars in Provincial investment.
  - Auracle 2y ago
    I know it’s hard for people that live in cities, but you all can’t see the forest for the trees. Even when talking about Canada’s issue you say they haven’t been able to make enough housing…in cities. First off, they can’t make enough housing anywhere. There are only so many home builders, and at least in the US up until the last year they’ve all been absolutely swamped. It takes time for more people to learn trades. When housing is cheap enough outside of cities people move there instead. We see it happen all the time, and it’d happen even more if rural home prices also weren’t going up like they have been - especially now that working from home is here to stay for plenty of companies.
- 2y ago
WheatMillington 2y ago
We had a response like this in New Zealand a few years ago, with the central government putting in place MDRS rules that forced councils to approve medium density housing pretty much anywhere a developer wanted to put it. For context, NZ is pretty heavily weighted towards single family dwellings, and our house prices are amoung the highest in the world. It has been extremely effective. Of course you can never determine the actual effect of a policy like this in such a noisy environment, but everyone agrees it has contributed towards increased supply and falling prices, especially in Auckland. In the city I live in townhouses were almost unheard of, and now they're popping up everywhere.

bryanlarsen 2y ago

Federal would require constitutional change, so it'll never happen. But it's the right idea -- move it up the chain so that it's not a hyper-local issue. IOW, at the state level rather than city/county. This has seen some success in California: https://cayimby.org/legislation/ https://cayimby.org/legislation/

lwansbrough 2y ago
The Canadian government is currently facing this problem. Provinces have constitutional authority over building and zoning. One way they're trying to get around it (though in my opinion, no party is taking this seriously and all efforts thus far have fallen laughably short of where they need to), is by incentivizing the adoption of federal policy by conditioning federal housing grants on the adoption of new federally guided policy. This is the way for the west, if we're being serious. Once we've taken a few breaths and accepted that we don't want to be authoritative, we can see that incentivizing provinces is the right move. In my opinion, the federal government should be designing simplified building and zoning guidelines and offering unprecedented grants (on the order of tens of billions) to provinces in a first come first serve manner. Have provinces compete on urgency to receive the most funds, tapering off the offer the longer provinces hold out.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  The BC government has been relatively successful at this. Housing prices in Vancouver used to be ~2X those of Toronto; now Toronto is more expensive than Vancouver. The Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force released a list of 55 things to do to reduce housing prices. BC has implemented a far larger share of that 55 than Ontario has. > In my opinion, the federal government should be designing simplified building and zoning guidelines and offering unprecedented grants (on the order of tens of billions) to provinces in a first come first serve manner. Have provinces compete on urgency to receive the most funds, tapering off the offer the longer provinces hold out. That's basically what they're doing. They can't change zoning without changing the constitution, but they are giving out tens of billions of dollars conditional on appropriate zoning changes. BC has received lots of money that way, Toronto has bypassed the province to get theirs and Alberta has made it illegal for Calgary & Edmonton to access theirs.

jandrewrogers 2y ago

The individual States have the power to do this, you don't need to get the Federal government involved (nor would you want to). It is also much simpler at the State level, since the solutions can be tailored to local conditions and you don't need to get nearly as many people living far away to agree with you to get anything done. Without demonstrating success at the much more achievable State level, there is no way it will work at the Federal level, even ignoring the obvious Constitutional issue.

Auracle 2y ago

I’ll keep shouting this from the rooftops: while it may contribute in some areas, zoning laws are not the primary cause of home prices increasing like they have. For proof, look at any rural (and I mean actual rural) area and how their home prices have also been skyrocketing. It’s supply and demand, with other things being small factors. We either need to vastly increase supply across the entire country somehow, or cut down on demand. The latter is a hell of a lot easier than the former. For some reason it’s ok to talk about this in the context of Canada and how their mass immigration has increased home prices, but that applies to almost everywhere. Japan literally has homes they’re trying to give away.

masterj 2y ago
> zoning laws are not the primary cause of home prices > We ... need to vastly increase supply across the entire country somehow Zoning laws reduce available supply by making it illegal or impossible (due to e.g. parking minimums) to build densely in most of the bigger cities in North America > For some reason it’s ok to talk about this in the context of Canada and how their mass immigration has increased home prices 1. It's not okay to scapegoat immigrants 2. Canada hasn't built enough housing to keep up with a growing population, largely due to exclusionary zoning policies. The vast majority of land in Vancouver is reserved for SFHs, even within walksheds of skytrain stations representing billions of dollars in Provincial investment.
- Auracle 2y ago
  I know it’s hard for people that live in cities, but you all can’t see the forest for the trees. Even when talking about Canada’s issue you say they haven’t been able to make enough housing…in cities. First off, they can’t make enough housing anywhere. There are only so many home builders, and at least in the US up until the last year they’ve all been absolutely swamped. It takes time for more people to learn trades. When housing is cheap enough outside of cities people move there instead. We see it happen all the time, and it’d happen even more if rural home prices also weren’t going up like they have been - especially now that working from home is here to stay for plenty of companies.
2y ago

WheatMillington 2y ago

We had a response like this in New Zealand a few years ago, with the central government putting in place MDRS rules that forced councils to approve medium density housing pretty much anywhere a developer wanted to put it. For context, NZ is pretty heavily weighted towards single family dwellings, and our house prices are amoung the highest in the world. It has been extremely effective. Of course you can never determine the actual effect of a policy like this in such a noisy environment, but everyone agrees it has contributed towards increased supply and falling prices, especially in Auckland. In the city I live in townhouses were almost unheard of, and now they're popping up everywhere.