MF YYC Politics - there, I mega did it

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Faust

Jeff Davison

“Implementing a four-year freeze on taxes”

Factoring in population growth and inflation, can someone explain how this would be achieved without major budgetary cuts to essential services and programs?

By "Finding efficiencies, cutting the fat, and trimming waste."

You know, fairytale nonsense.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

I'd love to argue point by point, but we disagree on a few fundamental issues that probably makes that pointless. But I'll try to sum up what I think you're missing

Private developers aren't really steering the ship here...buyers are. Developers don't set the prices, buyers do. Of course developers look to maximize profit by optimizing the demand vs cost ratio. This is actually a pretty damn strong safeguard (though certainly not perfect, but it's backed up by building codes and land-use) that ensures builders build things that 'make sense'. If they build something undesirable to buyers, it won't sell or will sell cheaply.

Demand determines viability of projects.

That's fair, let's punch the one issue down then.

The City's chief housing officer says that by the end of the year the city will be short 42,000 houses by the end of 2025, even with Calgary leading all other cities in building. Even worse is that they say "Record Construction, But the Gap Is Still Growing".

When demand is so far beyond the supply, the suppliers are in control, not the buyers. That is econ 101. I am not sure why you keep arguing the opposite but there is nothing really to support your position.

Also, 42,000 sounds like more than enough opportunity to stand up a public home building department that is leaning on the multiple federal programs that are available right now. I highly doubt that any private developers would slow down with that big of an opportunity gap still available for them to price gauge buyers.

But probably an even bigger deal is the federal records showing that "Housing affordability in Canada is getting worse". This is a big deal for politicians, which creates motive to do more than just wait for the market to sort itself out.

A public developer is a win/win for the city as it can help tackle the massive inventory gap and it can leverage the federal funding options better than any of the private developers would. The Apartment Construction Loan Program or the new prefab home program. There are a lot of options that would be of interest to Calgary but not to the private developers.

Probably the biggest thing to consider though about the way blanket rezoning has been proposed and executed is that it is now a primary talking point for almost every challenger in the upcoming election. I am not a single issue voter but there are a LOT of people who will cast their vote because of this one issue and the results could be scary.

Hopefully the winners of the election will work to roll back and refine the strategy instead of abolishing it outright because that would mean we have the more progressive options instead of the right and super-right parties.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Looch City

####ing political parties. #### off.

Common sense my ####ing ass.

As soon as I see “common sense” I disqualify these people now.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Wolven

That's fair, let's punch the one issue down then.

The City's chief housing officer says that by the end of the year the city will be short 42,000 houses by the end of 2025, even with Calgary leading all other cities in building. Even worse is that they say "Record Construction, But the Gap Is Still Growing".

When demand is so far beyond the supply, the suppliers are in control, not the buyers. That is econ 101. I am not sure why you keep arguing the opposite but there is nothing really to support your position.

Also, 42,000 sounds like more than enough opportunity to stand up a public home building department that is leaning on the multiple federal programs that are available right now. I highly doubt that any private developers would slow down with that big of an opportunity gap still available for them to price gauge buyers.

But probably an even bigger deal is the federal records showing that "Housing affordability in Canada is getting worse". This is a big deal for politicians, which creates motive to do more than just wait for the market to sort itself out.

A public developer is a win/win for the city as it can help tackle the massive inventory gap and it can leverage the federal funding options better than any of the private developers would. The Apartment Construction Loan Program or the new prefab home program. There are a lot of options that would be of interest to Calgary but not to the private developers.

Probably the biggest thing to consider though about the way blanket rezoning has been proposed and executed is that it is now a primary talking point for almost every challenger in the upcoming election. I am not a single issue voter but there are a LOT of people who will cast their vote because of this one issue and the results could be scary.

Hopefully the winners of the election will work to roll back and refine the strategy instead of abolishing it outright because that would mean we have the more progressive options instead of the right and super-right parties.

The position is that blanket rezoning is one of the policies that has led Calgary to be the leader in housing starts. There are all sorts of different products, and blanket rezoning adds the "missing middle" type of development in the inner city.

There is no refinement of blanket rezoning - it is the optimal strategy for what it sets out to achieve, which is an incredible number of housing starts and re-development at no cost to the taxpayer.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Regorium

The position is that blanket rezoning is one of the policies that has led Calgary to be the leader in housing starts. There are all sorts of different products, and blanket rezoning adds the "missing middle" type of development in the inner city.

There is no refinement of blanket rezoning - it is the optimal strategy for what it sets out to achieve, which is an incredible number of housing starts and re-development at no cost to the taxpayer.

It seems like 80% of the people running in the election are speaking out against the rezoning. Even the progressive challengers.

Blanket rezoning may be optimal for the developers (and their profits) but it seems like it is not optimal for the people, hence why so many of the people are actively fighting it. As I've detailed in my numerous (lengthy) posts, I believe there are many ways to do better and decidedly do not believe this is an optimal strategy.

Optimal strategies that need no refinement typically do not run into massive backlash and opposition.

[The Fisher Account]

Originally Posted by Slava

As soon as I see “common sense” I disqualify these people now.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Wolven

It seems like 80% of the people running in the election are speaking out against the rezoning. Even the progressive challengers.

Blanket rezoning may be optimal for the developers (and their profits) but it seems like it is not optimal for the people, hence why so many of the people are actively fighting it. As I've detailed in my numerous (lengthy) posts, I believe there are many ways to do better and decidedly do not believe this is an optimal strategy.

Optimal strategies that need no refinement typically do not run into massive backlash and opposition.

The bolded just speaks to the "common sense" populist nonsense. The most literal definition of common sense is what common people commonly believe [about issues they have little knowledge beyond vibes]. Given the state of today's populism, I would not use the bolded as a way to support your position (honestly it should make you question it). This plays out particularly obviously with anything related to cars/traffic/roads/parking (one more lane oughtta do it!), but I digress.

Can you try to articulate more specifically what scenarios you have a problem with on rezoning? I'm not trying to be snarky here, but all I'm really hearing from you is: Developers = Bad. Developers like rezoning* therefore it must be bad.

I think you are applying 'developers' too broadly here. In reality there are big developers, big builders, medium developers, medium builders, and small builders (~80% of what they do is 'building' with a small slice of 'developing' in the process) . Various levels of integration amongst the big/medium firms, but small builders are the main 'winners' on rezoning. It certainly can be helpful to bigger players, too, but the existing bureaucracy is far less burdensome to them (and in many ways protects them from competition).

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Wolven

That's fair, let's punch the one issue down then.

The City's chief housing officer says that by the end of the year the city will be short 42,000 houses by the end of 2025, even with Calgary leading all other cities in building. Even worse is that they say "Record Construction, But the Gap Is Still Growing".

When demand is so far beyond the supply, the suppliers are in control, not the buyers. That is econ 101. I am not sure why you keep arguing the opposite but there is nothing really to support your position.

Demand exceeds supply most significantly in the missing middle infill segment - aka the primary thing addressed in re-zoning.

We can quibble over the semantics of who's in control/steering the ship, but to whatever extent suppliers do have control, it is because of restrictive zoning! It is absolutely a huge barrier to entry for prospective builders, because they need to:
- understand and navigate the existing convoluted land-use process
- pay the direct costs of the application
- pay the indirect costs associated with holding the property until resolution
- stomach the risk that their land-use application fails*

*which we've established is rare outcome, but it's a hugely significant concern for anyone considering taking on hundreds of thousands of debt for a property. And as an aside, those few applications that fail at the land-use stage would almost certainly fail at the DP stage anyways. Which brings us back the reasoning for rezoning.

As a further aside, this also explains how we've already been essentially living under 'rezoning' for years now (just with all the extra bureacracy, though I'm sure NIMBYs are totally consistent and also espouse their appreciation for bureaucracy on things like pipelines, but again I digress). While not everyone loves the results, the sky has not fallen (unless you are a sad bloated car looking for a publicly subsidize place to sleep).


Another outcome from this is that lots > R1 are in higher demand as the only 'turnkey' options (though plenty still end up applying for further upzoning), driving those prices up, again making the barrier to entry worse. To some degree this is the old zoning working as intended, as we've seen more intensive development in these places happen first. But now we've picked a lot of that low hanging fruit, and we know it has been nowhere near enough.

Now none of this should matter if margins are as high as you think they are, but they simply aren't. There are still a lot of other headwinds to deal with in building (labour and supplies), which means this is not a silver bullet, and being a building/developer is not actually a license to print money.