Two years after Valérie 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.
Why do governments (not just Montreal) seem intent on creating affordable housing in very expensive areas? Surely the effective price of having that housing there could buy a lot more housing somewhere where housing is less expensive. So maybe this outcome is the best one? Perhaps (and I’m making these numbers up) a developer would rather pay a tax of $500,000 than add one unit of affordable housing, and then that $500,000 can be used to buy two units of affordable housing somewhere else where property is cheaper.
A healthy city needs socioeconomic diversity. Not that long ago Montreal was known for cheap CoL allowing people of all walks of life to thrive. Putting aside the artists, students, and general eccentrics that contribute to the vibrant life of the city, we have to consider where the hell are our minimum wage workers going to live. I seriously don’t understand how places like Vancouver do it. Does every coffee shop, fast food, retail etc worker commute 3hrs each way? What about the teachers, nurses, garbage collectors? Or do they all get paid way more and everything just costs a lot more?
There’s a compromise possible and despite being a major city without lots of undeveloped land, there is still plenty of space reasonably close to the city where high density affordable housing could be. Doesn’t have to be prime real estate right downtown. There just needs to be social will and courage to stand by the conviction that this is something good for the city. The truth is that like someone else said, the fine is too low and developers just see it as the cost of doing business.
New Vancouverite here, previously from Montreal. The answer is that it’s fucked. 1bdrm hitting 3k a month and 2bdrm is about 3800. I can’t imagine how service works are surviving. Min wage is 16.75/hr but living wages are mathed out to about 25/hr and even that would be hard.
Salaries seem to be generally lower since it’s beautiful and has mild winters. I’m not sure how long we’ll stay if things don’t get better soon. Sadly local politics are NIMBY friendly and not doing anything useful. In fact they just reduced the vacant home tax…because people weren’t reporting it on their taxes voluntarily.
It’s too bad because we found dream jobs in specialized fields here, the only other real option is Toronto (ugh, no) or the US (hard no).
Affordable housing needs to be near services and work, otherwise transit costs make the housing unaffordable. Some affordable housing in Matagimi isn’t helping, even if it’s free. The attractiveness of those services and work make the locations valuable.
It’s not just luxury and affordable a city is trying to achieve, they ideally want all ranges of housing affordability mixed together everywhere. This mixture reduces segregation and promotes positive socioeconomic outcomes.
The bottom up push for affordable housing (at least in Montréal) is coming from areas undergoing gentrification. So the citizen push isn’t to stick affordable housing in very expensive areas, it’s to not have affordable housing removed when the very expensive housing comes to them (Montréal examples of Verdun, Griffintown, and PSC). So your example of scraping one affordable unit to build two elsewhere still displaces an existing family/residents.
Wow. Why shouldn’t people of all economic classes have a place that’s close to all the amenities and conveniences that cities offer? Why should they have to travel from outside the city for an hour to work, or school, or for entertainment? Why would you advocate for creating ghettos? Why shouldn’t someone who works 40 hours a week at a
It’s the same reason that homeless people are typically found in inner city areas, and not poorer suburbs. There are little to no amenities in poorer suburbs, amenities exist in more established and inner city suburbs.
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Why do governments (not just Montreal) seem intent on creating affordable housing in very expensive areas? Surely the effective price of having that housing there could buy a lot more housing somewhere where housing is less expensive. So maybe this outcome is the best one? Perhaps (and I’m making these numbers up) a developer would rather pay a tax of $500,000 than add one unit of affordable housing, and then that $500,000 can be used to buy two units of affordable housing somewhere else where property is cheaper.
A healthy city needs socioeconomic diversity. Not that long ago Montreal was known for cheap CoL allowing people of all walks of life to thrive. Putting aside the artists, students, and general eccentrics that contribute to the vibrant life of the city, we have to consider where the hell are our minimum wage workers going to live. I seriously don’t understand how places like Vancouver do it. Does every coffee shop, fast food, retail etc worker commute 3hrs each way? What about the teachers, nurses, garbage collectors? Or do they all get paid way more and everything just costs a lot more?
There’s a compromise possible and despite being a major city without lots of undeveloped land, there is still plenty of space reasonably close to the city where high density affordable housing could be. Doesn’t have to be prime real estate right downtown. There just needs to be social will and courage to stand by the conviction that this is something good for the city. The truth is that like someone else said, the fine is too low and developers just see it as the cost of doing business.
New Vancouverite here, previously from Montreal. The answer is that it’s fucked. 1bdrm hitting 3k a month and 2bdrm is about 3800. I can’t imagine how service works are surviving. Min wage is 16.75/hr but living wages are mathed out to about 25/hr and even that would be hard.
Salaries seem to be generally lower since it’s beautiful and has mild winters. I’m not sure how long we’ll stay if things don’t get better soon. Sadly local politics are NIMBY friendly and not doing anything useful. In fact they just reduced the vacant home tax…because people weren’t reporting it on their taxes voluntarily.
It’s too bad because we found dream jobs in specialized fields here, the only other real option is Toronto (ugh, no) or the US (hard no).
I know of thee reasons:
Affordable housing needs to be near services and work, otherwise transit costs make the housing unaffordable. Some affordable housing in Matagimi isn’t helping, even if it’s free. The attractiveness of those services and work make the locations valuable.
It’s not just luxury and affordable a city is trying to achieve, they ideally want all ranges of housing affordability mixed together everywhere. This mixture reduces segregation and promotes positive socioeconomic outcomes.
The bottom up push for affordable housing (at least in Montréal) is coming from areas undergoing gentrification. So the citizen push isn’t to stick affordable housing in very expensive areas, it’s to not have affordable housing removed when the very expensive housing comes to them (Montréal examples of Verdun, Griffintown, and PSC). So your example of scraping one affordable unit to build two elsewhere still displaces an existing family/residents.
Wow. Why shouldn’t people of all economic classes have a place that’s close to all the amenities and conveniences that cities offer? Why should they have to travel from outside the city for an hour to work, or school, or for entertainment? Why would you advocate for creating ghettos? Why shouldn’t someone who works 40 hours a week at a
Becauae if you concentrate all your social housing in one “cheap” area, you end up with a ghetto
It doesn’t have to be concentrated in one area, it just has to be anywhere but the expensive city center.
Who do you think cleans the toilets in the city centre?
It’s the same reason that homeless people are typically found in inner city areas, and not poorer suburbs. There are little to no amenities in poorer suburbs, amenities exist in more established and inner city suburbs.
As well as income, from work or otherwise.
And supportive communities that rise up organically, and a more visibility on the violence they suffer
Imagine if only rich people lived in the city center and everyone who lives on a minimum or with a low wage over 1h away by public transportation.
Do you think people would want to travel that long for a minimum wage job in the stores, restaurants and cafés of the city center? I know I wouldn’t.
We need to have social mixicity and affordable housing everywhere to accommodate the people who do the work of keeping these commerces working.
Right now downtown Montréal is on life support. Because of this. Commerces are closing everywhere.
Should push the prices back down just fine I image, might take a bit though
Those jobs would have to pay more to offset the commute. I don’t really see the problem.