MF YYC Politics - there, I mega did it

[surferguy]

I’m not sure my community Facebook page will ever recover

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by surferguy

I’m not sure my community Facebook page will ever recover

Shhhh. That may be deemed a “useless comment” for not helping to drive meaningful discussion.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Shhhh. That may be deemed a “useless comment” for not helping to drive meaningful discussion.

Perhaps even 'childish!'

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by GGG

I think in general people want people to pay for the externalities of their decisions.

This is why corporations get politicians to keep using culture wars to distract people from class wars.

It is true that in the class wars the super rich (aka. the elites / corporations) are the enemy of the people but trying to take away their homes is really going to backfire. The people in Upper Mount Royal have more than enough money to prevent their homes and neighbourhood from getting developed into density. They can build their homes beyond what is profitable to try and redevelop or hire the required lawyers to ensure they win a legal battle against their restrictive covenants.

However, people who do not have the money to build a $5M house or win a legal battle would end up losing their homes on the alter of "density" so that some rich corporation can profit.

Instead of messing with people and people's assets to get density we should be focused on changing corporate assets into housing density. Whether it is an empty office building, a parking/empty lot, or an inner city warehouse those are the assets we should target for conversion.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Any other mutually agreed legal protections you would like to strip people of?

Why on earth should we allow people to make decisions that restrict the land rights of future owners of the parcel they happen to have their hands on at the moment?

It's truly insane that this is even legal. If you don't want someone to build a duplex or god forbid an evil garage suite on your land, don't sell it. It's as simple as that.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by Torture

Sorry everyone, Calgary is closed for business and any new people. How it is now is how it will forever be. Potholes and all. Come be part of the energy err blue sky city!

I know, I haven’t thought this through. It’s like the company Zeiss, amazing company, private. No need to go public and answer to faceless shareholders to demand growth. Grow as it makes sense.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I hope it means throwing out all the restrictive covenants people are proudly advertising with their yard signs.

God those things are so asinine. No thank you... I'll keep as much flexibility on what I can do with my own land as I can and keep as many buyers for my property in the future as I can.

NIMBY's are so deranged.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by Wolven

This is why corporations get politicians to keep using culture wars to distract people from class wars.

It is true that in the class wars the super rich (aka. the elites / corporations) are the enemy of the people but trying to take away their homes is really going to backfire. The people in Upper Mount Royal have more than enough money to prevent their homes and neighbourhood from getting developed into density. They can build their homes beyond what is profitable to try and redevelop or hire the required lawyers to ensure they win a legal battle against their restrictive covenants.

However, people who do not have the money to build a $5M house or win a legal battle would end up losing their homes on the alter of "density" so that some rich corporation can profit.

Instead of messing with people and people's assets to get density we should be focused on changing corporate assets into housing density. Whether it is an empty office building, a parking/empty lot, or an inner city warehouse those are the assets we should target for conversion.

They aren't losing their homes. If anything they will be profiting more from those homes.

A 1970's bungalow that hasnt been renovated since it was built, has a limited buyer pool. That buyer pool also has to have cash to either fight the community on a rebuild or expansion.

A 1970's bungalow that hasn't been renovated since it was built, but in a neighbourhood actively going through densification, will probably have a pool of buyers lining up for it.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

I'm not voting for a Conservative ideologue who has pledged to completely eliminate it. I think evaluating the targeting of land re-zoning and development for best impact is a reasonable approach.
Acceptance of the City's application was contingent on them having done so.

We've already been doing the bolded for decades. The process has proven to be slow, tedious, costly, and unnecessary (~95% approval rate).

Given the approval rate, it makes a lot more sense to make the blanket change, and then address the ~5% of problematic proposals through the DP process (where specific issues actually get addressed, and not just theoretical boogeymen)

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Cappy

They aren't losing their homes. If anything they will be profiting more from those homes.

A 1970's bungalow that hasnt been renovated since it was built, has a limited buyer pool. That buyer pool also has to have cash to either fight the community on a rebuild or expansion.

A 1970's bungalow that hasn't been renovated since it was built, but in a neighbourhood actively going through densification, will probably have a pool of buyers lining up for it.

This is misleading. There is a buyer pool either way because there is a housing shortage.

The difference is that in one situation you are selling your crappy bungalow for $600,000 to another person who gets to buy a house for $600,000 and in another situation you are selling your house for $600,000 to a developer who will sell two houses for over $1M.

At which point, the people who might have been able to buy the $600,000 house are now priced out of the neighbourhood.

At least the corporation is making profit in this misguided attempt to create density. Poor little corporations.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Parallex

God those things are so asinine. No thank you... I'll keep as much flexibility on what I can do with my own land as I can and keep as many buyers for my property in the future as I can.

NIMBY's are so deranged.

So it is okay for you to do what you want on your one package of land, but it is not okay for a group of people to get together and agree on what they want on their collective package of land. That seems more than a little hypocritical.

It really makes me wonder if you guys are confusing restrictive covenants in Alberta with the racists ones in America. Most restrictive covenants in Calgary are things like "this block has 16 houses and will always have 16 houses" or "we will not operate a commercial business out of the house" like a full blown mechanic shop. This is done to protect the group of land owners from having a corporation come in and bust up the neighbourhood one lot at a time.

Restrictive covenants in America are evil because most of them dictate what colour of skin you need to have to buy the land.

[wireframe]

Originally Posted by Wolven

This is misleading. There is a buyer pool either way because there is a housing shortage.

The difference is that in one situation you are selling your crappy bungalow for $600,000 to another person who gets to buy a house for $600,000 and in another situation you are selling your house for $600,000 to a developer who will sell two houses for over $1M.

At which point, the people who might have been able to buy the $600,000 house are now priced out of the neighbourhood.

At least the corporation is making profit in this misguided attempt to create density. Poor little corporations.

Those people should have bought the house for $600k. There's a price escalation and you're right that corporations are making too much profit on housing in our communities but this whole thing is an open market. It turns out that lots of buyers prefer a $1M new home than a $600k old home.

I sold my 50's bungalow in Banff trail last year. We had 9 offers from developers and zero from anyone who wanted to live in it. I really wanted to sell the house to a family but there wasn't any interest in the three weeks I gave. The house has been demolished now (I cried; two of my kids were born in that house) and I'll watch how fast the new build(s) on the lot sell.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Has it made the City worse?

You're getting there! Now, let's try engaging with someone who actually has an opinion on it different than yours, like Wolven. We call this a 'discussion'.

I live in the Beltine; my area is pretty much exclusively concerned with increasing density, so I frankly have no skin in the game about re-zoning.

[CliffFletcher]

There are plenty of buyers for older bungalows in mature neighbourhoods in Calgary. You won’t find any shortage of people willing to pay $750k for a 1000 sq ft bungalow in Haysboro with the intent to live there and raise a family.

https://www.realtor.ca/l/bUapT/ka

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Wolven

So it is okay for you to do what you want on your one package of land, but it is not okay for a group of people to get together and agree on what they want on their collective package of land. That seems more than a little hypocritical.

No, it doesn't. You can do what you want on your land as long as you own it. It's reprehensible to limit what future generations can do with the same land, because you imposed your will on those that come after you. It's not the same.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by Wolven

This is misleading. There is a buyer pool either way because there is a housing shortage.

The difference is that in one situation you are selling your crappy bungalow for $600,000 to another person who gets to buy a house for $600,000 and in another situation you are selling your house for $600,000 to a developer who will sell two houses for over $1M.

At which point, the people who might have been able to buy the $600,000 house are now priced out of the neighbourhood.

At least the corporation is making profit in this misguided attempt to create density. Poor little corporations.

That's not how home sales work, you know that. Bigger buyer pool equals more bids.

Ok, so a corp buys it under the old system. Now what? let's profit here. It's a tear down, maybe we put two houses on it (doubling supply, maybe lowering prices? supply demand type stuff?)

Ok, i want to put two houses on here. That will be another $50,000 - $100,000 in permitting and development board fights. #### guys, its too expensive to build at this point, lets not.

Some random rich dude buys it. Great location, teardown house. 600k is a steal for the location. Let me put my 7000 sqft house on here for a few million. Great.

Someone is always going to profit from housing, man. The goal here isn't to make corporations earn less money - unless that is what you are arguing, then lets have a chat about more government housing. The goal is to increase housing supply. One of these things does it.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

No, it doesn't. You can do what you want on your land as long as you own it. It's reprehensible to limit what future generations can do with the same land, because you imposed your will on those that come after you. It's not the same.

If it is a collective agreement and not everyone sells or dies off at the same time then what it means is that if you want to join that community then you need to agree to the terms that they have already agreed to. Walking in and saying "F your legal agreements, I want to bust this place up" is exactly the reason they created the contract to begin with.

This is really no different than having a condo building where you create bylaws and expect everyone who lives in the building to follow the bylaws.

However, at any point you can go to the other owners within the legal agreement and see if they are ready to change or break it. Perhaps when the original owners are all dead or gone then the new owners can reverse course... but, the new owners might actually like what they bought into and do not want one jerk to come in and wreck it for them.

The impact to other people is minimal. If you desperately want density then go yell at the empty lots downtown and track down the corporations that own them.

Side note: it is really interesting to see how my discussion has flipped from arguing against people I think are right wing to people I think are left wing. I guess that is what happens when you stop caring about left and right as much as looking at the class war (Corporatist vs. Populist).

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Wolven

This is why corporations get politicians to keep using culture wars to distract people from class wars.

It is true that in the class wars the super rich (aka. the elites / corporations) are the enemy of the people but trying to take away their homes is really going to backfire. The people in Upper Mount Royal have more than enough money to prevent their homes and neighbourhood from getting developed into density. They can build their homes beyond what is profitable to try and redevelop or hire the required lawyers to ensure they win a legal battle against their restrictive covenants.

However, people who do not have the money to build a $5M house or win a legal battle would end up losing their homes on the alter of "density" so that some rich corporation can profit.

Instead of messing with people and people's assets to get density we should be focused on changing corporate assets into housing density. Whether it is an empty office building, a parking/empty lot, or an inner city warehouse those are the assets we should target for conversion.

At one point you said that a best use tax was weaponizing a tax. Your suggestion seems to be weaponizing a tax it’s just against a target you aren’t sympathetic for.

Personally I have no issues with a lack of density IF people pay for it. We need to mess with people’s assets to get density. Empty parking lots (which people object to putting into towers anyway) arent significant enough.

Look at Glenmore landing as an example of empty parking lots being fought against. You can’t win density on a project by project basis.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by GGG

At one point you said that a best use tax was weaponizing a tax. Your suggestion seems to be weaponizing a tax it’s just against a target you aren’t sympathetic for.

Personally I have no issues with a lack of density IF people pay for it. We need to mess with people’s assets to get density. Empty parking lots (which people object to putting into towers anyway) arent significant enough.

Look at Glenmore landing as an example of empty parking lots being fought against. You can’t win density on a project by project basis.

Huh? I didn't mention using taxes to do anything. My suggestion was to expropriate corporate owned land to convert it into housing density and to create a public sector option for building houses / condos / towers which in turn could become a profit center for the city to continue building affordable housing. My punchline is constantly to try and support PEOPLE over CORPORATIONS/BILLIONAIRES.

I think we want to get to the same endgame (build more houses) but is that actually the goal? No, the goal is to drive down housing costs through increasing the housing supply so that current and future generations can realistically buy a home.

The Blanket rezoning is a nickel and dime solution that will give you onesie and twosie density. Also, as long as the private developers are in control of the situation they are going to work hard to drive UP housing costs so they can make more profit. If houses are not getting cheaper then the strategy is a failure to meet the goal.

To all of you jokers who are saying "people like to buy $1M homes" - If you have two identical houses and one costs $600,000 and one costs $1,000,000, which one would you buy? If you answer honestly, the answer is the cheaper house because only an idiot would pay more for the exact same product.

I think we could have an amazing social experiment in Glenmore landing. We should go to those protestors and give them a choice:
1) Move ahead with Blanket rezoning to get density
2) Roll back blanket rezoning and move ahead with developing corporate owned dead spaces into density

I would guess that if those protesters had the choice, they would vote against blanket rezoning and allow the parking lot development. The reason, in my opinion, is because blanket rezoning negatively impacts people in a real way and the Glenmore landing project is just something they don't like.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Cappy

That's not how home sales work, you know that. Bigger buyer pool equals more bids.

Ok, so a corp buys it under the old system. Now what? let's profit here. It's a tear down, maybe we put two houses on it (doubling supply, maybe lowering prices? supply demand type stuff?)

Ok, i want to put two houses on here. That will be another $50,000 - $100,000 in permitting and development board fights. #### guys, its too expensive to build at this point, lets not.

Some random rich dude buys it. Great location, teardown house. 600k is a steal for the location. Let me put my 7000 sqft house on here for a few million. Great.

Someone is always going to profit from housing, man. The goal here isn't to make corporations earn less money - unless that is what you are arguing, then lets have a chat about more government housing. The goal is to increase housing supply. One of these things does it.

I think there is some confusion here. The goal is not to increase housing supply, the goal is to drive down housing costs. Increasing the housing supply is the vehicle to get to the destination of reasonable housing costs.

So yes, government built housing needs to become part of the solution, especially if blanket rezoning stays. As we have learned from insurance and electrical companies, if you deregulate a private industry you do not get cheaper results, you get more expensive results. This happens because the corporations goals do not align with your goals.

• Our goal is to bring down the cost of homes for current and future generations to be able to have a home.
• Their goal is to drive up the cost of homes to make more profits.

These two things do not align and if you allow the corporations to have the steering wheel then your solution is going to fail to accomplish your goal.

To drive down housing costs, increasing the housing supply through building more houses is a good step. Other steps I think should be taken:
- Eliminate foreign ownership of Canadian land - There is no need for a billionaire in China to park their money in Canada and take houses away from Canadians.

- Eliminate corporate ownership of Canadian housing - Aside from a few exceptions, corporate housing is pretty bad. BC had to eliminate short term rentals because too much of their housing was being purchased by corporations and converted into short term rentals. However, allowing highly regulated non-profits to run affordable rental housing is a good idea.