Solving the Housing Crisis

 

Further remarks from the Beaches-East York All-Candidates Meeting on May 12

When I first came to Toronto in the early 80’s, there was a housing crisis.

Forty years later, there is a housing crisis. But far worse.

It is time to try more than band-aid solutions.

I am a fan of co-operative housing. I used to live in the Oak Street Co-op, and in a student co-op when I went to Queen’s. I helped organize an abortive East End co-op. But public housing and social housing have never been enough to produce affordable housing, and are never going to be enough. The poor cannot forever hope and wait.

Tinkering with mortgage rates and down payments and savings plans does not work. Making it easier to buy a home only drives up prices. 

Imposing rent controls does not work. It reduces supply.

The problem is on the supply side.

The real problem is the Sargasso Sea of red tape which prevents either private or public builders from efficiently putting up the units that people need, want, and can afford. Such urban planning brought us the sprawling soulless suburbs that kill community, eat up green space, and force everyone to drive a car. 

We live in Beaches-East York to escape this. The Beach is so nice because it grew organically before urban planning.

Some regulation is needed, but the tendency of bureaucracy unchecked is always to overregulate to the point of strangulation. The great political philosopher Ibn Khaldun, back in the 14th century, explained that this is how civilizations die: overregulation. We are seeing it acted out in our time. 

Civilizations die of strangulation, from the top down.

Municipalities are the creatures of the provinces; the province can cut away some of this red tape and speed construction. In future, for every new zoning regulation, it should be a requirement that at least two old ones be scrapped.

One business owner on Queen Street complained to us that he could not allow dogs on his outdoor patio. Health regulations. But in the Beach, everyone owns a dog. His customers wanted their dogs. Why not let the consumer decide? 

I love dogs; if you don’t, another establishment will surely cater to you.

Owners may fear that fewer restrictions on development might harm the value of their property. But if land is opened to the highest and best use, all real estate becomes more valuable.

I’d love to see Toronto full of distinctive walkable neighbourhoods like the Beach.

But there is also the immediate crisis of homelessness. 

I have another suggestion.

There are aging motels in smaller towns falling into disuse. Many are being torn down. The days of motels are ending, with less tourism by car, and more AirBnBs. They are available, if we move quickly, for immediate low-cost conversion as shelter for the homeless, especially the mentally ill.