MF YYC Politics - there, I mega did it

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by Wolven

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.

I don't entirely disagree.

Corporate ownership of single-dwelling units is a possibility, but I would assume most of this is involved in condo units vs single family homes.

I also think homebuilders nearly have a license to print money at this point, given demand and supply issues (however, the upfront costs and the labour issues are certainly something to be acknowledged.

But a corporation buying thousands of houses vs a home builder making cash on infills is a different argument.

I would say that i know two people whom have bought a property, torn it down, built a duplex and sold the second unit while living in the other. Lots of upfront risk and you need to be somewhat wealthy for that, but it turned out good for them.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Cappy

I don't entirely disagree.

Corporate ownership of single-dwelling units is a possibility, but I would assume most of this is involved in condo units vs single family homes.

I also think homebuilders nearly have a license to print money at this point, given demand and supply issues (however, the upfront costs and the labour issues are certainly something to be acknowledged.

But a corporation buying thousands of houses vs a home builder making cash on infills is a different argument.

I would say that i know two people whom have bought a property, torn it down, built a duplex and sold the second unit while living in the other. Lots of upfront risk and you need to be somewhat wealthy for that, but it turned out good for them.

It is both. Since AirBNB came out there has been a new industry where corporations will buy up single family homes and turn them into small hotels. The result becomes a smaller housing inventory for people because yet another corporation is working to make more profit.

If housing costs continue to accelerate beyond salaries then we will eventually get to the point where the only home owners are corporations and/or billionaires.

Everyone wants to be on team billionaire but the reality is that the billionaires do not want that. They want everyone to be plugged in and under their influence / control.

[GGG]

If you want to drive down housing cost you need to drive down land value. In order to drive down land value you have to tax the #### out of it, or increase density per unit of land, or make more land available.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by GGG

If you want to drive down housing cost you need to drive down land value. In order to drive down land value you have to tax the #### out of it, or increase density per unit of land, or make more land available.

Yeah if you could hang on about 10 years on doing all that please.....

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by GGG

If you want to drive down housing cost you need to drive down land value. In order to drive down land value you have to tax the #### out of it, or increase density per unit of land, or make more land available.

I am doubtful that massive taxes would honestly get you to cheaper homes. By increasing the land taxes substantially the cost of ownership will skyrocket and make the homes as unaffordable as if you left the system as it is now.

Honestly, I think you need to refine your strategy and start looking at other levers. For example:

1) Reduce the competition for buying a house by restricting who can buy

- Eliminate foreign ownership could start with eliminating people outside of Canada from owning land. However, you can go further and say that if someone doesn't live in Alberta then they cannot own a home in Alberta.
- Eliminating corporate ownership of homes (with some exceptions) would also reduce competition for home ownership

2) Limit the number of properties a person can own

- Owning a second home for a family member? That's cool.
- Owning 10 rental homes as an investment? Not so cool.
- Running a slumlord inventory of hundreds of homes? Super not cool.

3) Regulate home building so they have a cap on profits

4) Move the home building to the public sector so that profits are not a primary motivator of the industry

5) Increase land taxes on corporations that own prime real-estate, which is the same as your idea but you filter out 'people' and just tax corporate owned land at higher levels.

This should be done long before you do it to people's homes. The CP rail yard is a great example. That amount of inner city land could be tens of thousands of homes walking/biking distance to downtown.

6) Take prime land from corporations to develop density for housing people. The company will be compensated and can buy new land on the edge of the city for their warehouse or whatever.

etc.

You can start pulling different levers at different times to get the results that you want. As a populist, my decisions would focus on what is best for the people and what would impact the people the least.

Powderjunkie keeps saying the reason to be happy with blanket rezoning is because the process was inefficient... which is a poor argument. If the process was inefficient then fix the process.

[Table 5]

While I think it's important to look at ways to bring down housing costs, I think it's important to also consider the other side of the equation... look for ways to drive up incomes and economic activity to make the costs relatively more affordable for more people. Practically speaking, what's important is not what something costs nominally, it's what something costs relatively to what you can afford.

In general, Canadian productivity lags behind other similar countries...and part of why everything feels more expensive is because our economic output hasn't kept pace with rising costs of things like housing. We may have more jobs today, but the quality/efficiency leaves room for improvement.

Taxes and regulations may help drive down costs to some extent, but they also drive away economic activity and wealth. There's no silver bullet, but if we can close the gap from the income/productivity side, we can help make housing more affordable even if real estate prices never go down (which also keeps the Boomers happy!).

[Faust]

Calgary mayor’s $112K in spending questioned ahead of election as Gondek defends move

https://globalnews.ca/news/11409396/...d-of-election/

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Faust

Calgary mayor’s $112K in spending questioned ahead of election as Gondek defends move

https://globalnews.ca/news/11409396/...d-of-election/

Work from the agency included strategic communications advice, polling on key issues, and a new website for the mayor’s office, outside of the website provided by the City of Calgary.

The Calgary Party claims the content closely mirrors Gondek’s campaign platform, and questioned whether the website was for mayoral communication or “early campaign activity.”

I’ve been pretty open about my regret in voting for Gondek and clear that I won’t be this time, but come on. She’s running for re-election. If she believes that what she has been doing and plans to do in the future as mayor — should she keep that post — will get her elected to a second term, would a reasonable person expect her re-election platform to deviate from her current policies and goals as mayor?

“Hey Calgary, I’ve been your mayor for four years, and if you like what I’ve done in that time, well hold onto your hats because I’m completely changing my plans if you re-elect me.”

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Powderjunkie keeps saying the reason to be happy with blanket rezoning is because the process was inefficient... which is a poor argument. If the process was inefficient then fix the process.

They did fix the process they got rid of the part that didn’t make a difference in any development decision that came before the city.

I read all your posts and agree with a lot of it but it makes no sense given your positions and philosophies basically everything else that you would oppose blanket rezoning. You are for everything blanket rezoning accomplishes.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

I’ve been pretty open about my regret in voting for Gondek and clear that I won’t be this time, but come on. She’s running for re-election. If she believes that what she has been doing and plans to do in the future as mayor — should she keep that post — will get her elected to a second term, would a reasonable person expect her re-election platform to deviate from her current policies and goals as mayor?

“Hey Calgary, I’ve been your mayor for four years, and if you like what I’ve done in that time, well hold onto your hats because I’m completely changing my plans if you re-elect me.”

Excuse me; say what now?

[Amethyst]

Brian Thiessen calling on the province to investigate the current mayor removes any minute chance I had of voting for him. The last thing we need is the corrupt UCP interfering more with city politics. Also, the councillor candidate for The Calgary Party has this truck driving around the neighbourhood with neon billboards and it is super annoying.

[puffnstuff]

https://bsky.app/profile/thebreakdow.../3lylczetw4k2x

Here’s an poster that features some members of the conspiracy fringe having an event with a speech from Action 4 Canada who claimed victory on the book bans…

List includes those running for school board

[Fuzz]

Oh, right. School Board. Gonna need a list of who's not crazy to vote for as I never pay attention to those.

[The Fisher Account]

A little concerning that Gondek has access to an entire City communications department and chose to go with an external agency

[powderjunkie]

I find it fascinating how many contradictory things seem to be true at the same time in these housing debates:

- small scale infill development is nowhere near sufficient to solve the housing crisis! (so don't build any I guess?)
AND
- small scale infill development is going to be so prevalent and wide spread that it's going to ruin communities! They should build elsewhere! (but not sufficient to solve anything I guess?)
AND
- they are just going to be $1M duplexes, so how are they really going to help affordability!?!?!
AND
- these million dollar duplexes are also going to actually be 8-plexes which are going to lead to crime and people parking on my front lawn and garbage bins everywhere! Density is great, but only where it makes sense!
BUT
- not at Glenmore Landing of all places! My dog ####s on that green strip!


This is the big problem with discussing at the land-use level. Every possible boogeyman is apparently fair play, no matter how contradictory or theoretical. That's why it's much better to focus on the development-permit phase, where the realistic concerns can actually be mitigated.

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by The Fisher Account

A little concerning that Gondek has access to an entire City communications department and chose to go with an external agency

I believe that using the city communication teams for election- related purposes is generally frowned upon

[The Fisher Account]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

I believe that using the city communication teams for election- related purposes is generally frowned upon

Ah, but she was quite clear that this company was to help her manage existing issues like the water main break and rezoning - not the election.

And if it WAS for election purposes, using taxpayer dollars is a big no no.

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by The Fisher Account

Ah, but she was quite clear that this company was to help her manage existing issues like the water main break and rezoning - not the election.

And if it WAS for election purposes, using taxpayer dollars is a big no no.

You are going to have to point me to a source.

She was heavily criticized at the outset of the waterline break- many complained about the lack of updates and the vagueness of info releases...

If the Mayor was looking for assistance on how to better handle her communications responsibilities - we should now complain about outsourcing the assistance for the remainder of her term?

i

[Bigtime]

Project Calgary with a poll for Ward 7 conducted September 3rd to 10th:

https://www.projectcalgary.org/ward7poll_sep12-25

A new poll shows Wong with the Communities First municipal political party leading in a crowded field and independent candidate Myke Atkinson following in second place. 17% of decided voters indicated support for Wong and 9% for Atkinson. With 54% of voters still undecided, Wong remains vulnerable to voters coalescing behind one candidate.

[puffnstuff]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

You are going to have to point me to a source.

She was heavily criticized at the outset of the waterline break- many complained about the lack of updates and the vagueness of info releases...

If the Mayor was looking for assistance on how to better handle her communications responsibilities - we should now complain about outsourcing the assistance for the remainder of her term?

i

Communicate better!
No. Not like that!