Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

Post by astrange » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

saeranv wrote: post #160

rch wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, the affordable housing movement has been broadly co-opted by developers who leverage grants and incentives to expand their portfolios of rent generating assets. Regulations which include language like "X% of units must be for renters making There is a genuine affordable (and equitable) housing movement, largely built on urban equity-cooperatives and community land trusts, but those promising eff…

> Regulations which include language like "X% of units must be for renters making I get that this model favor large-scale, high-capital projects, but, given that it explicitly set's aside X% for the Doesn't more density + some X% set aside for affordable units generally positive? Maybe we need to play around with that X% better, but what's the alternative?

Post by astrange » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #90

bentlegen wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t speak for every industry, but many Bay Area technology employers have set up satellite offices in Toronto and Waterloo and are paying significantly higher wages (note: I represent one of them). This is having a net effect of driving wages up; I see it in the candidates we lose to other companies who are doing the same. Consider looking for a new gig. Also, Sentry is hiring in Toronto: https://sentry.io/jobs .

Maybe they should consider doing an early cap on property taxes and property values before it becomes like the Bay Area where even if you work at Google you can't afford a house. There is rent control where I live, but no buy-house control, and there's almost nothing available below $2M USD.

Post by cperciva » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 9:52 PM UTC

patcon wrote: post #123

cperciva wrote: post #103

When politicians say "people-centred vision", they really mean "lobbyist and special interest group centred vision". To them, "people" just means "whoever shouts the loudest".

Most of the work of good public consultation facilitators is (1) stopping those loud/frustrated/opinionated/entrenched people from distorting process, and (2) allowing many people to feel heard. (This is in addition to, of course, the more obvious: actually integrating that feedback, repeating it back, and acting on it.) Perhaps surprisingly with (2), public consultations are sometimes almost like public therapy -- a…

Post by Tiktaalik » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

otoburb wrote: post #147

Tiktaalik wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what we need is to explicitly encourage human-scale ownership and development everywhere, through every means available, including zoning reform and tax policy. People focus on the zoning a lot, but it really is the tax policy. Look around Vancouver and you'll see little three story walk up apartments all over. They stopped making them in 1993 because the incoming Liberal government adopted an incredible deficit sl…

>> They stopped making them in 1993 because the incoming Liberal government adopted an incredible deficit slaying austerity approach which was in vogue at the time. What was "in vogue" at the time was a Conservative (sic) Mulroney government routinely outspending revenues resulting in Canada's federal debt crisis in the early 90s[1][2] which helped usher in the Cretian government and Paul Martin's austerity measures.…

Post by Semiapies » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC