You ask the questions that need to be asked/explored. Smaller, more rural communities unfortunately tend to be provincial - dare I say ignorant? - in what larger communities like Vancouver went through/continue to go through, around housing re: Why not learn from their experiences? When I attended a Courtenay city council meeting two years ago about a proposal in our neighbourhood, I was blown away by the city's ignorance that Vancouver offers lockers to the homeless out of the eliments, while in Courtenay the city's answer was just putting up a fence for the homeless' belongings next to a shelter. I easily found out Vancouver offers lockers for the homeless which became so popular it exceeded supply. Why can't smaller communities like Powell River and communities on Vancouver Island do this? But the real reason I wanted to comment is the 'hands off' approach by media and different levels of government around real estate/real estate industry. The comprehensive planning cities tout usually is less than comprehensive for the community's future needs. Zoning changes, large and small real estate developments, impacts on infrastructure (our city council approved a huge rental apartment complex without taking into consideration on roads/streets, utilities, services like fire and police, not to mention more traffic) seem to be ignored. Because 1 - The city reaps more revenue/taxes by approving developments and what many British Columbians fail to recognize that 2 - The province's long policy for communities to take on/squeeze in more housing to curb urban sprawl. As we enter spring, already is talk about the shortfall of enough water for the summer season. We need more creative ideas like you mentioned at the civic, regional and provincial levels around housing you cited in London over a century ago. The question is : Do we have the will as a collective society to think outside the box to look at the whole picture around housing for our citizens and how to pay for it that is also equitable and fair?
That's the (multi) million-dollar question! I don't pretend to have all the answers, but it certainly seems like there are plenty of creative options on the table. Council housing is just one of the many ideas local governments have used around the world at various times. Unfortunately, the voices that say - no more property tax no matter what - are very loud and seem to hold a lot of sway.
I'm trying to push the needle ever so slightly toward imagining wealth on a collective, community scale, rather than the hyper-individualistic vision of wealth and success that seems to dominate.
Hopefully, we can realise that we need to invest in our communities before things get really bad
Some of the vacant land in PR you have mapped out is in the ALR (e.g. the pie-shaped piece in Wildwood), so the likely area suitable for development is smaller. Btw, the 585 acre property (PID: 010-267-361, formerly part of lot 450) has some excellent building sites, but some of it is in the ALR too. Do you know who own this land (usually attributed to a mysterious Chinese billionaire name "Mr Lu", who seems to be Shitao Lu and his son Hongquan Lu). Could any pressure be brought to bear to have them develop the land for housing? They are doing ongoing work there, including totally decimating at least one salmon-bearing stream.
Great point, there are lots of competing values to consider when developing housing, including preserving agricultural land and promoting local food resiliency. I don't know much about the lot that you're referencing, aside from some of the complaints you mention. Broadly, I think we should be asking: who holds wealth, power, and land in our community, and what are they contributing?
More often than not, the answer seems to be (as Jimmy Pattison and Mr Lu show), wealthy landowners are extracting significantly more wealth than they contribute. In my view, there are ways that municipal governments could intervene to help keep wealth in the community instead of going into the pockets of multi-millionaire/billionaires
'Taxable wealth' is a generous descriptor for plainly stealing more from people who invested smartly. Tax more for no services, presumably to fund development of cost-controlled sub-market rate housing that will become decrepit within 10 years and not address any of the core challenges of low-income earners.
UK style Council housing, as you sort of suggest, is probably a good and realistic option, and it creates jobs - maintenance, property managers, accountants. Integrates fairly well in to existing social services, for which Powell River is already over represented. NIMBY's and other 'pull yourself up by your bootstrap' fist shakers will lose their minds - but....that's okay. Let them rage on Facebook.
Council housing is just part of a spectrum of services that for optimal outcomes, would have to be aligned with other services like job training, mental/addiction health, community outliving services. There's many reasons why low income earners are in their various states, and most of them will require some kind of supplemental support to be self-sustaining. Otherwise, just giving them subsidized housing that falls apart or into non-payment is a certainty that ignores the real problems.
Saying PR has assets to sell to fund these 'market correction' low cost housing units is ridiculously short sighted. You can only sell the assets once, and the very act of privatizing them usually leads to market-driven gentrification that makes affordability worse for people who lack the capabilities and capital to compete for decent housing in the first place. For a re-developing town like PR that has lots of land and beautiful scenery, but little capability to make life easier for homeless, disabled, seniors and other low income earners, how hard can you squeeze developers and existing homeowners? Condos around the mill will sell, rapidly. But then what have you solved?
This isn't a problem PR City Council can handle. It requires way more services from the province before the at risk groups can compete for decent housing on a long term basis.
I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not haha. I'm glad you think council housing is a good and realistic idea
I agree that selling off city-owned property isn't the greatest and comes with downsides. To me, the fact that we're in a crisis means it might be worth considering
I agree, housing is the Province's responsibility, and they'd be a lot better at building housing than a municipal government. Unfortunately, it seems clear that they're unwilling or unable to do much for the foreseeable future
I disagree that raising taxes is "stealing money from people who invested smartly." I think that homeowners stand to lose much of their investment's value if we don't start investing in the community. I'd argue that property values skyrocketing and homeowners getting rich while our community infrastructure crumbles is the real theft
You ask the questions that need to be asked/explored. Smaller, more rural communities unfortunately tend to be provincial - dare I say ignorant? - in what larger communities like Vancouver went through/continue to go through, around housing re: Why not learn from their experiences? When I attended a Courtenay city council meeting two years ago about a proposal in our neighbourhood, I was blown away by the city's ignorance that Vancouver offers lockers to the homeless out of the eliments, while in Courtenay the city's answer was just putting up a fence for the homeless' belongings next to a shelter. I easily found out Vancouver offers lockers for the homeless which became so popular it exceeded supply. Why can't smaller communities like Powell River and communities on Vancouver Island do this? But the real reason I wanted to comment is the 'hands off' approach by media and different levels of government around real estate/real estate industry. The comprehensive planning cities tout usually is less than comprehensive for the community's future needs. Zoning changes, large and small real estate developments, impacts on infrastructure (our city council approved a huge rental apartment complex without taking into consideration on roads/streets, utilities, services like fire and police, not to mention more traffic) seem to be ignored. Because 1 - The city reaps more revenue/taxes by approving developments and what many British Columbians fail to recognize that 2 - The province's long policy for communities to take on/squeeze in more housing to curb urban sprawl. As we enter spring, already is talk about the shortfall of enough water for the summer season. We need more creative ideas like you mentioned at the civic, regional and provincial levels around housing you cited in London over a century ago. The question is : Do we have the will as a collective society to think outside the box to look at the whole picture around housing for our citizens and how to pay for it that is also equitable and fair?
That's the (multi) million-dollar question! I don't pretend to have all the answers, but it certainly seems like there are plenty of creative options on the table. Council housing is just one of the many ideas local governments have used around the world at various times. Unfortunately, the voices that say - no more property tax no matter what - are very loud and seem to hold a lot of sway.
I'm trying to push the needle ever so slightly toward imagining wealth on a collective, community scale, rather than the hyper-individualistic vision of wealth and success that seems to dominate.
Hopefully, we can realise that we need to invest in our communities before things get really bad
Some of the vacant land in PR you have mapped out is in the ALR (e.g. the pie-shaped piece in Wildwood), so the likely area suitable for development is smaller. Btw, the 585 acre property (PID: 010-267-361, formerly part of lot 450) has some excellent building sites, but some of it is in the ALR too. Do you know who own this land (usually attributed to a mysterious Chinese billionaire name "Mr Lu", who seems to be Shitao Lu and his son Hongquan Lu). Could any pressure be brought to bear to have them develop the land for housing? They are doing ongoing work there, including totally decimating at least one salmon-bearing stream.
Great point, there are lots of competing values to consider when developing housing, including preserving agricultural land and promoting local food resiliency. I don't know much about the lot that you're referencing, aside from some of the complaints you mention. Broadly, I think we should be asking: who holds wealth, power, and land in our community, and what are they contributing?
More often than not, the answer seems to be (as Jimmy Pattison and Mr Lu show), wealthy landowners are extracting significantly more wealth than they contribute. In my view, there are ways that municipal governments could intervene to help keep wealth in the community instead of going into the pockets of multi-millionaire/billionaires
'Taxable wealth' is a generous descriptor for plainly stealing more from people who invested smartly. Tax more for no services, presumably to fund development of cost-controlled sub-market rate housing that will become decrepit within 10 years and not address any of the core challenges of low-income earners.
UK style Council housing, as you sort of suggest, is probably a good and realistic option, and it creates jobs - maintenance, property managers, accountants. Integrates fairly well in to existing social services, for which Powell River is already over represented. NIMBY's and other 'pull yourself up by your bootstrap' fist shakers will lose their minds - but....that's okay. Let them rage on Facebook.
Council housing is just part of a spectrum of services that for optimal outcomes, would have to be aligned with other services like job training, mental/addiction health, community outliving services. There's many reasons why low income earners are in their various states, and most of them will require some kind of supplemental support to be self-sustaining. Otherwise, just giving them subsidized housing that falls apart or into non-payment is a certainty that ignores the real problems.
Saying PR has assets to sell to fund these 'market correction' low cost housing units is ridiculously short sighted. You can only sell the assets once, and the very act of privatizing them usually leads to market-driven gentrification that makes affordability worse for people who lack the capabilities and capital to compete for decent housing in the first place. For a re-developing town like PR that has lots of land and beautiful scenery, but little capability to make life easier for homeless, disabled, seniors and other low income earners, how hard can you squeeze developers and existing homeowners? Condos around the mill will sell, rapidly. But then what have you solved?
This isn't a problem PR City Council can handle. It requires way more services from the province before the at risk groups can compete for decent housing on a long term basis.
I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not haha. I'm glad you think council housing is a good and realistic idea
I agree that selling off city-owned property isn't the greatest and comes with downsides. To me, the fact that we're in a crisis means it might be worth considering
I agree, housing is the Province's responsibility, and they'd be a lot better at building housing than a municipal government. Unfortunately, it seems clear that they're unwilling or unable to do much for the foreseeable future
I disagree that raising taxes is "stealing money from people who invested smartly." I think that homeowners stand to lose much of their investment's value if we don't start investing in the community. I'd argue that property values skyrocketing and homeowners getting rich while our community infrastructure crumbles is the real theft