this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Again, which level of government controls zoning and housing permits? What about utilities, roads, firefighters, water rights, etc?
Right, provinces. So without provinces doing enough, the CMHC cannot have any direct effect on the national housing shortages.
Maybe things are different in your neck of the woods but I have some experience in the industry (apartments, not single-family) and neither permits, utilities, roads nor firefighters has been a significant issue. Zoning, sometimes - but municipal governments are well aware of the housing shortage and have been willing to play ball (again, IME). BTW most of the issues you raise are under municipal purview, not provincial.
I'd say cost of construction is the main problem. In NB it's impossible to build anything under 200k per door, and even that target requires some vigilance to hit. That's why there's an inverted bell curve going on with a bunch of slums at the low end and a bunch of luxury apartments at the top, but hardly anything in the middle.
Absolutely right on the provincial / municipal differences for a number of those points I raised.
Also correct that most of the shortages are due to NIMBYism and a lot of refusal / blockages on city central neighbourhoods being densified in the name of "property values". They really need to stop asking the public and start telling instead. Maybe we could get something done that way.
So of I understand this correctly, that means there is very little the federal government can do besides use indirect levers to decrease cost, like:
What else can be done at the federal level?
The big cost savings items all seem like they are Municipal and Provincial, like: getting rid of minimum parking requirements, deceasing per unit land costs, and allowing more units to be built in the communities people want to live in.
Sort of. One thing Feds/CMHC could do is funnel serious money into affordable housing programs to build more housing (not subsidized demand, as the NB government is doing, which only enriches landlords). There are already non-profits and community orgs who could manage these buildings once complete.