this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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Co-ops, Non-Profits Pitched as 'Two-Fer' Solution for Housing, Climate (www.theenergymix.com)
submitted 4 days ago by Sunshine to c/canada
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

In order for housing co-ops to exist, the land needs to be zoned to allow dense multifamily. If you want to fix housing affordability, that's where you have to look.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago

You need both ideally, especially since real estate developers tend to stall or shelve housing projects if they feel like they’ll get less of a return on investment and wait until prices go up again before doing anything

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

just say socialism already

[–] rbesfe 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

We need far fewer condos in this country. They're practically a scam that lures people in with the promise of "equity". The vast majority of condos have terrible energy performance because first cost is all that the buyer cares about.

[–] cyborganism 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I disagree. The problem is the construction regulations that require buildings of more than x stories to have two staircases per floor. This leads to poor design architecture with small units with no ventilation. Also we don't need 45 storey condo buildings either. 4-6 storeys can be plenty to increase density in some surrounding neighborhoods.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Also we don’t need 45 storey condo buildings either. 4-6 storeys can be plenty to increase density in some surrounding neighborhoods.

The 45 story condo towers exist mostly because those surrounding neighborhoods are zoned single-family. If density weren't literally illegal everywhere outside the downtown cores, there wouldn't be so much pent-up demand to make those high-rises necessary in every minuscule scrap of land where the density is legal.

[–] cyborganism 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That depends on the city. That may be true for Toronto, but not Montréal for example.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Full disclosure: I'm an American whose impression of Canada comes mostly from Canadian urbanist youtubers, specifically "Oh the Urbanity" and "Not Just Bikes."

From that, I get the impression that Montreal is indeed way better than other Canadian cities -- but that it's basically the only one that is (give or take other cities in Quebec, maybe?). Like, the French-Canadian attitude towards zoning and city design is an outlier compared to the rest of Canada (and the anglosphere in general, possibly because mid-century American city planners with bad car-centric ideas had less influence).

[–] avidamoeba 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

If there's nothing stopping me from cramming more shoebox units in place of that second staircase you let me remove, I will do just that and pocket the margins.

BTW, my building has two staircases per floor, with 10 1400sqft units per floor, with fine ventilation. It was built before I was born.

But yes about the 4-6 rises. Even a bit higher should be fine, as long as complexities are kept low.

[–] Kelsenellenelvial 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It gives more options to customize layout. Removing the second staircase also removes the need for a hallway all the way through the middle between staircases. Since bedrooms need windows, removing the staircase also opens up space to add 1-2 more bedrooms per floor. Part of the issue with the hallway and 2 stairs is you get a corner unit on each one and everything in between gets just one outside wall. Making a bigger building footprint doesn’t help a lot because the floor area increases more than the wall space(which you need to put windows so your apartment doesn’t feel like a dungeon. Which is why apartments tend to be long and narrow, or sometimes wrapped around a central courtyard.

I read somewhere about North American vs European apartments, particularly the smaller 2-4 floor/3-4 units per floor ones, and the European ones tended to have a smaller footprint, but more wall space and more practically usable space than the North American designs.

[–] avidamoeba 1 points 1 day ago

I light up my dungeon with 11W, 1600lm bulbs. Gotta keep that circadian rhythm adjusted.

[–] theacharnian 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

-- Wait so it is socialism or barbarism?

-- Always has been.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

Mike Schreiner in Ontario has been a huge proponent for this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Housing should never have been made into a commodity.