[Wolven]

Woof. Strap in.

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

How and where are they outsourcing the decision making?

If you make a strategy but then do none of the work and provide minimal oversight and basically let some external organizations make all of the decisions then they are the decision makers, not you. This is a very common problem in dealing with outsource models where you are trying to find the balance between outsourcing the work and outsourcing the decision making (most often talked about in IT).

Think about Main Streets. The city had these presentations with beautiful walkable streets with big sidewalks and 4 story mixed retail and condo buildings that were all red (is that brick?) with white trim and trees dotted along the way. It looked awesome, like you were being transported to a city in Europe where they know what they are doing!

In reality we have some sidewalk and hodgepodge builds. One lot is a cheap looking 6 plex and another is a condo building with no retail. The strategy died at the end of the presentation because the people doing the work didn't care about it and were not encouraged or pushed to execute the strategy as designed. The outsourced decision makers (builders) did whatever they want to generate their profit and moved on.

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Let's game this out a bit more...what makes one half duplex worth $700k and the other worth $1.4M? Is the city version just smaller and less featured?

There are many ways that a public builder could become more cost effective:
- Insourcing all of your trades. Many private builders cannot do this because they do not have enough volume of work to have full time trades but if the city were to get into the game they would certainly need to work toward having all of their trades in house and not paying contractor rates. The big ones would be: concrete, framing, electrical, plumbing, insulation & drywall, finishing carpentry, roofing, flooring, siding.

For each of these trades you have a guy getting paid a rate to do the work building a house. Subcontractor A then pads that guy's rate and charges the general contractor. The general contractor then pads the subcontractor's rate and charges it to the home builder. The home builder then pads the GC's rate and sells the house. At the finish line a realtor shows up to get their % too.

- Streamline processes: Since the city electrician and the city electrical inspector work on the same team you can likely make that part of the process faster and more efficient than when the electrician is external.

- Purchasing materials in larger quantities. When you buy in bulk, you get a cheaper rate

- Lower end features. You do not need to go cheap but you avoid the most expensive brand names like Wolf for appliances, etc.

- Eliminate the need for profits. Home builders always try to maximize profit in their sale price. If they think they can find a sucker who will pay more then they will raise the price to that number whether the value is there or not. A public builder could say "cost + 5%" and the 5% contributes toward the next build.

I am sure there are more ways to reduce cost but that list would likely generate a huge gap between public and private home building.

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Higher priced housing becomes more scarce, and those prices go up; which most of us will say is fine to a degree. But what do the people who wanted to buy the $1.4M infill do? Maybe settle for a $1.2M...meaning more people competing at that price point driving that price point up (sending another $1.2M buyer down to the $1M price point driving that price up repeat repeat repeat). And maybe another prospective buyer weighs the value of what they can buy within the city vs what they can buy outside the city limits and opts for the latter, taking their property taxes with them while increasing the mileage they will drive on city roads.

Meanwhile, property taxes will go up more for everyone else more than they would if the infills were sold at $1.4M.

What you are describing here is one of the reasons I am against blanket re-zoning. The city's old zoning structure, while not perfect, did allow for different neighbourhoods to provide an inventory of houses to meet people's different needs.
- If you want to live in a cheap condo, go look down south along McLeod Trail to find something affordable to get into the market
- If you want to move into a nice condo, head to the beltline or downtown and get a great condo that is walking distance from everything
- If you want to live in a starter home then you can look to an "RC2" neighbourhood where you won't get as much home, and your home might be attached to another home, but at least it is affordable to start in
- If you are able to afford a bigger SFH then you can look to one of the "RC1" neighbourhoods

With blanket rezoning, that diversity of homes is going to be eliminated and developers are going to start moving in on neighbourhoods that were previously unavailable to them and apply their same playbook of making profit.

I am not sure why property taxes are going up in your story. Just for fun? Property taxes should only go up if the city needs more income to support the services they provide. However, in my suggestion of a public homebuilder, the selling of the homes should be more than enough to cover the cost of the department, so taxes will not need to change.

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

What is the result you want?

This question is complex but specific to the blanket rezoning topic... I want a more thoughtful solution that meets the diverse needs of a larger number of people and (as much as possible) does not negatively impact one group of people to benefit another group of people and, most importantly, does not create an environment that largely benefits corporations at the expense of people.

I expect that any good solution will require more effort from the public sector and/or more regulations to ensure that the work is driving toward the desired goals.