Quote:
Originally Posted by powderjunkie
A lot to unpack here, and maybe I'll bite off more tomorrow. You seem to have a lot of disdain for corporations/developers (fair enough I guess), but seem to ignore the part where they need people to like what they build enough to buy it...restrictive zoning is the primary thing hindering their ability to "meets the diverse needs of a larger number of people". People vote with their wallets mortgages here more than any other product (except those at the bottom of the housing ladder who really feel the pain of our unnecessarily constrained housing supply).
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On the topic of corporations. Disdain is not the right word. Some companies I am really excited about and some I think are doing really cool things. Overall I do not have disdain for them because they are necessary for organizing people into work to accomplish things.
The problem with corporations is that ultimately they will do anything for profit. Poison people, wreck the environment, cut corners on manufacturing in ways that endangers people, planned obsolescence, fight against the right to repair ... if it makes them a profit they will do it unless there is a law or a regulation saying not to (and some of them will disregard the law/regulation).
The responsibility of government is to maintain the relationship between corporations and the people. This is primarily done through regulations. Note: Regulations are a good thing because it is the language that government uses to speak to a corporation. However, like any language it can get messy and confusing if not done correctly.
America has a massively unhealthy relationship with corporations. Alberta is on the same path with having an unhealthy relationship with corporations. The corruption in the UCP is accelerating the corporate power in Alberta and that is not a good thing.
I think most people would agree that we do not want a corporate overlord. I do not want corporations to own our government and I do not want corporations to own all of our resources. I do not accept that corporations have more rights than people, I do not accept that corporations have equal rights to people, and I do not think that they should get preferential treatment.
If we are willing to mess with people's assets (land/homes) then we should be going after corporate land first. Once we have exhausted all of the big ticket development opportunities within corporate owned land then we can turn to the people owned land. Even at that point, I would want a more thoughtful strategy than just "eliminate zoning".
Beyond all that, I do not agree that restrictive zoning is the primary thing hindering healthy housing development. I would say that the primary issue is that private developers only like to build things that make them profit and they will avoid building if profit is not guaranteed. We would likely either need to regulate the builders into making a percentage of their work affordable housing or establish an affordable housing builder that gets first choice at acquiring any available land.