The only thing I kind of liked was the possibility of dedicated pathways away from roads that don't require cyclist / motorist interactions, but how exactly do you make something like that work in, say, downtown? Carve a bike lane through an office or condo building?
I am in support of more physically-separated bike lanes, frankly... even if I don't necessarily agree with on which streets they get installed. Anything to keep cyclists off the fecking sidewalk, because as a Beltline-dweller who walks around a lot, I will tell you to stop dinging in my fecking ear and get onto the road where you belong. And as a driver, I would prefer they not be on the road either.
This is exactly it. We need more bike lanes, not less. Cyclists aren't going anywhere so you might as well build infrastructure. Particularly since it's low ost high effectiveness. This is smart spending. If you're a driver, pedestrian, or cyclist, you should support this.
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I take no issue with this line of thinking, but I think you have the demographic slightly wrong. I would be surprised if anyone took issue with those 45-65 year old, empty nesters but still working, keeping the family home. That would have been the case for past generations as well. What I believe has changed (at least anecdotally), are those 65-85, long retired, shouldn't be driving, but don't absolutely need assisted living gummers that won't move. Those are my parents in a nutshell. With an aging population and increasing lifespan, the problem will likely continue to grow.
That's fair. I still think our collective housing strategy for people getting on in their lives is really lacking. Retirement homes and assisted living facility recently are pretty awful unless you have a LOT of money.
Many of these places are for-profit and they treat the seniors like cattle and many of them treat their employees worse. This would be another opportunity to properly move a service into the public sector to ensure it is being run properly and motivate people to use them.
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Weaponizing taxes to force people out of their homes would be very unpopular and borderline fascist. It is also a terrible way to govern and, in my opinion, you are approaching the problem backwards.
To recap - there is a point that a few posters have hinted at but perhaps not outright called out as the reason these 'old' people are still in their bungalows: There are no places being built that meets the needs of these people and makes them want to sell their home and downsize.
If you want empty nesters who are aging out of their family homes to move then you need to build homes & neighbourhoods that meet their needs in such a way that they are excited to move into them. You need a strategy that draws them into their new home (and specifically avoid a strategy that forces people out of their home). This is not a strategy that you can implement by building one or two infills. You would need to execute a few 1000+ house communities with a specific set of requirements in mind.
Think about who these people are:
These empty nesters are likely between 45-65 and are not ready to move into a senior's home.
They have kids that may boomerang back into their living situation because no one can afford a home.
They are likely still working and are potentially at the peak of their careers, earning more than when they were younger
Still active and about in the city.
Probably enjoy the yard they have now and might want one in their new place.
Still need a car to commute.
After living on their own land and in their SFH, they are probably not keen to move into a condo where you have to share spaces and deal with the mess of condo boards.
Instead of a hodgepodge of infill development that is doing nothing to fix your problem, you need a strategy to build an empty nester community:
There would need to be a blend of condos, infills, townhomes, and small SFHs to fit the needs of the various empty nesters
These houses would need to be less expensive than the houses you want these people to vacate so they can benefit from the equity gained from downsizing (otherwise why would they bother moving??)
You would need to ensure services are set up to meet the needs of these empty nesters (clinics, etc. - not schools and daycares)
Great amenities (restaurants, grocers, gyms, pools, etc.)
Once you have that inventory of houses that can draw these empty nesters in then you will see them buy into the idea of downsizing and moving out of their old homes. They can then stay there for a couple of decades until they need to graduate to the seniors home or assisted living facility.
In my opinion, this is the kind of strategy that would get you the result that you want. Blanket re-zoning won't because it isn't really a strategy, it is just wishful thinking that by deregulating an industry that it will magically give you the outcome that you want. But it won't because the corporations do not care about your wishful thinking, they care about profits.
It isn’t weaponizing taxation to charge people based on best use. It’s charging people based on the amount of revenue the city should be making from a given property.
At grade Private Parking lots downtown probably shouldn’t exist. If they were taxed at the rate of the developed property the land value of that land would be substantially less and the holding time between acquisition and development would be less. The city would also be realizing the income through taxation from parking rather than the land owner due to the high tax levels.
Things like golf courses would be much more fairly taxed on a best use model and would encourage them to land swap with outskirts of cities and allow densification.
Your listing of traits is people who probably are willing to pay to stay where they live and aren’t moving to this low density bungalow community. Given that they want to continue to use a scarce resource the taxation level should reflect the opportunity cost. It isn’t that there is no place to meat there needs, it’s that the place they currently are meets their needs. The cost of development without density is too high to replicate what they are looking for
Your proposed solution doesn’t solve the development challange. It’s still going to be a hodge podge of infills propping up as people choose to leave their homes for other housing.
It isn’t weaponizing taxation to charge people based on best use. It’s charging people based on the amount of revenue the city should be making from a given property.
At grade Private Parking lots downtown probably shouldn’t exist. If they were taxed at the rate of the developed property the land value of that land would be substantially less and the holding time between acquisition and development would be less. The city would also be realizing the income through taxation from parking rather than the land owner due to the high tax levels.
Things like golf courses would be much more fairly taxed on a best use model and would encourage them to land swap with outskirts of cities and allow densification.
Your listing of traits is people who probably are willing to pay to stay where they live and aren’t moving to this low density bungalow community. Given that they want to continue to use a scarce resource the taxation level should reflect the opportunity cost. It isn’t that there is no place to meat there needs, it’s that the place they currently are meets their needs. The cost of development without density is too high to replicate what they are looking for
Your proposed solution doesn’t solve the development challange. It’s still going to be a hodge podge of infills propping up as people choose to leave their homes for other housing.
It is weaponization of taxation. You are trying to use taxes to force people out of their home or force businesses to sell their land. This would be extra problematic when you start applying it across the board. For example, how do you build affordable housing when your taxation strategy is to charge everyone for what their land could be?
Also, where does this strategy stop? You are suggesting that bungalows should be taxed as if they could be infills. But what if someone else thinks the lots could all be taxed as $15M mansions? And someone else thinks every lot should be taxed as if they are 50 story towers? This could quickly turn into a tool to ensure that only the rich people can buy land and everyone else can be their serfs.
It is a lot like deploying tariffs to try to change businesses from making things offshore but in the wrong hands tariffs can also be used to do some crazy stuff that harms everyone and funnels money from the people.
Either way, we should never use taxes as a weapon against people and a government should never try to force a citizen out of their home. If it does need to happen that the government needs to move someone out of their home, it should be a last resort and it should be done directly through a robust process with many eyes on it.
As for the corporations owning at grade parking lots downtown, I completely agree that it is crazy and needs to stop. If we are indeed in a housing crisis, those plots of land should be looked at as immediately density opportunities and the city should take action there before considering any act that impacts the people (blanket re-zoning).
We do not need a new tool for this though as the city already has a tool to deal with that: The Expropriation Act. Through the expropriation act, the city can declare that the city needs that inner city land to build condo towers to combat the housing crisis. The landowner can get fair compensation for the land through the process and then the city can begin immediate development of the land.
In my opinion, this would be another situation where it would make more sense for the city itself to be in the business of building homes. Once they are expropriating land from one corporation, they shouldn't be sitting on it waiting for another corporation to step in and do the development. They should build it within the public sector, sell the homes (or rent them out if we need affordable rental housing), make money and then use that money to fund other land development.
By the way, thanks for the discussion, it is fun to work through these thoughts and refine them.
The only thing I kind of liked was the possibility of dedicated pathways away from roads that don't require cyclist / motorist interactions, but how exactly do you make something like that work in, say, downtown? Carve a bike lane through an office or condo building?
Calgary has done a quite remarkable job of building these already. In fact we're probably the best in North America. But that also means we've already built nearly all of these kinds of pathways where they make sense (certainly still some gaps to fill - e.g. big opportunity along red line in the south).
The pathways are amazing at getting you around the city, but the challenge remains getting to destinations without going to the final destination. Main Street projects like 37 Street SW are pretty good - they're not great for covering distance fast, but nice for mobility for everyone. What we really need are 'bike boulevards' in the post-war communities with pretty good grid systems. Which is to say side roads with lots of traffic calming that prioritizes bike flow (fewer stop signs) while keeping vehicle traffic to local use only (speed humps and 'diverters', where cyclists can go straight through but vehicles have to turn off).
IMO this kind of infrastructure hasn't been built much because it is less flashy and harder to brag about, but now is the time for low profile projects.
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Looks like Davison just "Locked down" Locke's vote...Maybe we'll get another giant innovation parking lot if he gets the Mayoral chair.
This is just so incredibly pathetic. But not surprising. The culture war is so stupid.
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This would be another opportunity to properly move a service into the public sector to ensure it is being run properly and motivate people to use them.
Given the demographic trajectory we’re on, we’re not going to be able to maintain our current levels of public spending on things like health care and seniors facilities, let alone take on the enormous costs of buying up private facilities.
I’m not sure people really understand the oncoming demographic crisis every developed nation is facing. The worsening dependency ratio means governments are going to have to impose some combination of substantially increased taxes on younger workers, and measures like increasing the age of pension eligibility, means-testing for OAS, etc. to avoid a debt crisis. And since this is a problem electorates around the world remain in denial about, the rest of us are probably going to have to watch a major country like France suffer humiliating concessions imposed by a EU or IMF bailout before we willingly adopt painful measures to head off our own debt crisis.
This is why I shake my head at proposals to substantially expand public spending on things like seniors’ care. It’s like a ship’s passengers calling on the captain to increase speed while the lower decks are flooding under their feet.
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Calgary has done a quite remarkable job of building these already. In fact we're probably the best in North America.
Yes, Calgary already has the best dedicated bike infrastructure in North America. It’s 17km by bike from my house to my office downtown. I can do 14k of that on dedicated cycling/pedestrian pathways. That’s pretty incredible - there are very few cities in the world this size where cyclists can get from far-flung suburbs to the edge of the urban core largely on dedicated paths.
It’s the final few km that are tricky. The roads in the inner core are necessarily congested (for a city its population, Calgary has a very dense core), and each commuter has a different destination among the hundreds of buildings in that core. It’s similar to the final km problem in shipping fulfillment.
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We keep hearing about how the boomers are the wealthiest generation in history, so maybe they can pay for it? Downloading the costs to young workers is not the only option. Maybe boomers estate taxes needs to be a thing we look more seriously at, with a tax free amount, and then progressive taxation rising as the estate value reaches redonculous levels.
They are the ones that pilfered the earth, voted for neverending tax cuts that left these massive structural deficits and privatized our public institutions, and will still get a cushy end to their lives.
I don't see the benefit to passing that down to select descendents while young people who don't have rich boomer relatives shoulder the burden. But maybe I'm just a communist.
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We keep hearing about how the boomers are the wealthiest generation in history, so maybe they can pay for it? Downloading the costs to young workers is not the only option. Maybe boomers estate taxes needs to be a thing we look more seriously at, with a tax free amount, and then progressive taxation rising as the estate value reaches redonculous levels.
Yep, that’s an option. It would probably be electoral suicide (it’s boomer’s millennial kids who will benefit from those estates), but we’re going to have to look at those sorts of unpopular measures.
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I'd have to think given immigration and inequality it wouldn't logically be electoral suicide. But it might be hard to sell in the same way people end up supporting tax cuts for the insanely wealthy, worried one day it might affect them, as they stare at the mould spot in their double wide.
Given the demographic trajectory we’re on, we’re not going to be able to maintain our current levels of public spending on things like health care and seniors facilities, let alone take on the enormous costs of buying up private facilities.
I’m not sure people really understand the oncoming demographic crisis every developed nation is facing. The worsening dependency ratio means governments are going to have to impose some combination of substantially increased taxes on younger workers, and measures like increasing the age of pension eligibility, means-testing for OAS, etc. to avoid a debt crisis. And since this is a problem electorates around the world remain in denial about, the rest of us are probably going to have to watch a major country like France suffer humiliating concessions imposed by a EU or IMF bailout before we willingly adopt painful measures to head off our own debt crisis.
This is why I shake my head at proposals to substantially expand public spending on things like seniors’ care. It’s like a ship’s passengers calling on the captain to increase speed while the lower decks are flooding under their feet.
This is why the governments needs more profit centres and not just expenses. If the governments had income beyond just taxes then they would have opportunities to be more dynamic with their services.
City profit centre opportunities:
- Home building
- Realty/Realtors - The city could move into the market of supporting the purchasing and selling of houses and use technology to eliminate the legacy industry
- Commercial/retail building (under condos)
- Part ownership of the new arena - I know the ship has sailed here but the city should have taken a percentage of the revenues in exchange for the land and $$ investment
- Other??
Provincial profit centre opportunities:
- Senior's homes (within AHS) - provide exceptional service and a lower cost than the private home but do not make it free, the residents still need to pay
- Public Insurance (Auto) - If the UCP are moving to 'no fault' anyway, we may as well copy BC and move auto insurance to the public sector
- Other??
If our governments start operating more in these ways then it will start to become expected that they will behave in these ways when new opportunities come up. For example, if the city was already a land developer then when the arena conversation started the city would simply say "cool, we'll develop the land ourselves and rent it to you for your events".
Given the demographic trajectory we’re on, we’re not going to be able to maintain our current levels of public spending on things like health care and seniors facilities, let alone take on the enormous costs of buying up private facilities.
I’m not sure people really understand the oncoming demographic crisis every developed nation is facing. The worsening dependency ratio means governments are going to have to impose some combination of substantially increased taxes on younger workers, and measures like increasing the age of pension eligibility, means-testing for OAS, etc. to avoid a debt crisis. And since this is a problem electorates around the world remain in denial about, the rest of us are probably going to have to watch a major country like France suffer humiliating concessions imposed by a EU or IMF bailout before we willingly adopt painful measures to head off our own debt crisis.
This is why I shake my head at proposals to substantially expand public spending on things like seniors’ care. It’s like a ship’s passengers calling on the captain to increase speed while the lower decks are flooding under their feet.
Yes, yes....put all of the old people on a Cruise Ship and just drill holes in the bottom and tug it out to sea.
"This ship is getting awfully damp...why did we have to sign over our house for this trip?"
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This is why the governments needs more profit centres and not just expenses. If the governments had income beyond just taxes then they would have opportunities to be more dynamic with their services.
City profit centre opportunities:
- Home building
- Realty/Realtors - The city could move into the market of supporting the purchasing and selling of houses and use technology to eliminate the legacy industry
- Commercial/retail building (under condos)
- Part ownership of the new arena - I know the ship has sailed here but the city should have taken a percentage of the revenues in exchange for the land and $$ investment
- Other??
Provincial profit centre opportunities:
- Senior's homes (within AHS) - provide exceptional service and a lower cost than the private home but do not make it free, the residents still need to pay
- Public Insurance (Auto) - If the UCP are moving to 'no fault' anyway, we may as well copy BC and move auto insurance to the public sector
- Other??
If our governments start operating more in these ways then it will start to become expected that they will behave in these ways when new opportunities come up. For example, if the city was already a land developer then when the arena conversation started the city would simply say "cool, we'll develop the land ourselves and rent it to you for your events".
Some interesting ideas, but I find it hard to see any of them significantly increasing revenue compared what is currently raised through taxation (direct and indirect).
Here's a fairly simple idea that would raise some cash while driving a bunch of other desirable outcomes, and reduce certain expenses: Congestion Pricing
Calgary is pretty well set up to implement this in the core, with 4 bridges crossing the river, and 6 underpasses, and 1-2 western access points (though really only one as the 5 Ave connector reversal would become unnecessary and be converted to a 'wheeling highway' and letting the current very busy MUP become walking only, but I digress)
- direct cash raised from this
- increased transit usage = increased revenue (also leading to generally improved transit service)
- it should be noted that there would be reduced parking revenue for CPA, but it's also worth noting its incredibly dumb how current policy encourages private parking lots in DT, but reducing parking demand can turn some of these private and publicly owned parking facilities into more productive assets, including housing (DT will become even more desirable to live in)
- reduced road expenditure across the board (all of the cars heading into DT use other roads to get there, so we could slow down road expansions that are already unnecessary, but I digress)
- health benefits from reduced pollution and making alternate modes more attractive
DBA would #### bricks, but I'm not sure that would be totally founded - some trips may redistribute around the city (fine from a broader civic standpoint), while alternate mode access should improve significantly. And between Map Town and A&B Sound closing, there's really no reason to go downtown for anything other than employment, anyways (do we have a text colour for half-serious?)
A major unintended consequence would be shifting a lot of vehicle traffic to the beltline, but there would be ways to mitigate that
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Given the demographic trajectory we’re on, we’re not going to be able to maintain our current levels of public spending on things like health care and seniors facilities, let alone take on the enormous costs of buying up private facilities.
I’m not sure people really understand the oncoming demographic crisis every developed nation is facing. The worsening dependency ratio means governments are going to have to impose some combination of substantially increased taxes on younger workers, and measures like increasing the age of pension eligibility, means-testing for OAS, etc. to avoid a debt crisis. And since this is a problem electorates around the world remain in denial about, the rest of us are probably going to have to watch a major country like France suffer humiliating concessions imposed by a EU or IMF bailout before we willingly adopt painful measures to head off our own debt crisis.
This is why I shake my head at proposals to substantially expand public spending on things like seniors’ care. It’s like a ship’s passengers calling on the captain to increase speed while the lower decks are flooding under their feet.
We've already ballooned the public sector under Trudeau by like 50% and at double the rate of population growth (which even he said was out of control).
It's almost like the budget doesn't balance itself lol. Even Carney knows it was stupid and hopefully follows his promise to cut year after year.
I saw someone mention the land value tax a bit back on the thread. That’s the kind of idea that could really save our cities. Yes, some people will have to downsize and some businesses will have to sell, but I don’t feel much pity for them because they will be benefiting from the enormous land lift that comes from a truly free development market.
It’s like people in Point Grey complaining about property tax increases. “Waaah I’m on a pension, I can’t afford this.” Old man, you live in a $5M house.
This is why the governments needs more profit centres and not just expenses. If the governments had income beyond just taxes then they would have opportunities to be more dynamic with their services.
City profit centre opportunities:
- Home building
- Realty/Realtors - The city could move into the market of supporting the purchasing and selling of houses and use technology to eliminate the legacy industry
- Commercial/retail building (under condos)
- Part ownership of the new arena - I know the ship has sailed here but the city should have taken a percentage of the revenues in exchange for the land and $$ investment
- Other??
Provincial profit centre opportunities:
- Senior's homes (within AHS) - provide exceptional service and a lower cost than the private home but do not make it free, the residents still need to pay
- Public Insurance (Auto) - If the UCP are moving to 'no fault' anyway, we may as well copy BC and move auto insurance to the public sector
- Other??
If our governments start operating more in these ways then it will start to become expected that they will behave in these ways when new opportunities come up. For example, if the city was already a land developer then when the arena conversation started the city would simply say "cool, we'll develop the land ourselves and rent it to you for your events".
I’m amazed that every generation a new crop of people are born who believe that publicly-run businesses will outcompete the private sector. I actually admire the bright-eyed innocence.
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- Part ownership of the new arena - I know the ship has sailed here but the city should have taken a percentage of the revenues in exchange for the land and $$ investment
The city has full ownership of the new arena.
The city also owns the Saddledome.
Public ownership is part of the racket. It's a deteriorating asset. Teams don't want to own it, they want to be able to routinely push the owner for more investment every time the lease comes up. They are not very good things to own, which is why sports owners try to avoid it whenever possible. The leverage is with the primary tenant, not the arena owner.
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City revenues should be pretty simple. Collect property and business taxes, spend revenue on city services, and collaborate with other levels of government when possible.
The problem, in every city, is that residents vote but businesses can’t, so the major burden rests on small business owners to pay.
