this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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Every developer has opted to pay Montreal instead of building affordable housing, under new bylaw (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/canada
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Two years after Valรฉrie Plante's administration said a new housing bylaw would lead to the construction of 600 new social housing units per year, the city hasn't seen a single one.

The Bylaw for a Diverse Metropolis forces developers to include social, family and, in some places, affordable housing units to any new projects larger than 4,843 square feet.

If they don't, they must pay a fine or hand over land, buildings or individual units for the city to turn into affordable or social housing.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 80 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They will add this fine to the price of the apartments. It should be really simple: certain % of the units have to be social housing or you will not get building permit, period.

[โ€“] grte 45 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes, this is a prime example of why the neoliberal fascination with only acting on the market indirectly with tax/fee incentives instead of just making legal requirements or directly creating the goods and/or services the government wants is so foolish.

[โ€“] Pxtl 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The neoliberal approach here would be just to tax people and if government wants to have affordable housing units they should just buy them like anybody else. Not create this ridiculous approach where we put a drag on home-building during a home-building-shortage.

It's insane - IZ basically lets the landlords and comfortably landed gentry ignore the housing crisis while their home values climb, and meanwhile expects the builders to provide affordable housing gratis while they're also providing market housing for people who aren't poor-enough to qualify for something subsidized. It's completely backwards.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not the builders ... the developers. There's a difference.

[โ€“] Pxtl 0 points 1 year ago

You mean like construction contractors? Those people either directly or indirectly work for the developers. It's not speculators and landlords being punished people, it's people trying to get housing built, in a housing crisis.

Yes, I know that most of the people running the development industry are dead-eyed reptiles doing it for profit, but still: the shit they're looking to profit from is building homes people live in. Something the government should not be adding extra taxes upon.

[โ€“] villasv 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm sure there's a high enough fine that would make it more financially advantageous to build social housing, but there's also the problem of these developers be willing to take a hit on their very hefty profit margins if that means maintaining a "brand", so I'd wager policymakers underestimated the effective fine value by a factor of 10 at least.