#city approves housing price increases. people become homeless. city complains about the homeless and makes their lives worse.

[cuntwrap--supreme]

My favorite quarry has been closed, which sucks because it's a great place to let my dog swim (her favorite thing to do). I finally remembered to look up what's going on. The city is spending 6mi to make it bougie. It's a fucking 100 year old quarry. It's purpose is for trashy people to go get wasted and jump off the 200ft cliff and die. They're completely paving over the entire thing and adding in, like, concessions and bathrooms and shit. And I'm normally ok with improvements. Bathrooms are definitely something I like to see at parks. But these aren't normal bathrooms. It's a bunch of single stalls that cost probably 20k each to build when you could also just build a normal toilet for 5k.... The whole project reeks of waste. Meanwhile, I'm out here driving on roads so piss poor that I've experienced better driving conditions in Mexico. I've driven on washed out country gravel roads that don't jostle me around so much. My car is so fucked from how bad the roads are. There's also a growing homeless problem because we're rated one of the least affordable cities in the nation due to TN having beef with paying much more than $13/hr but your average rent here being $1600/mo. But that's ok! We'll continue ignoring all that and spend a whole fuck ton improving a park (and by that I mean stripping it of everything that makes it cool). I can't do math to save my life, but I know for goddamn sure I'd do a hell of a lot more to actually improve shit than the argument for why this quarry needs to be destroyed. I'm just waiting for them to announce it's $10 a day to park, too.

#the cities are built for cars yet we're making them hostile to cars now #bad roads. paid parking literally everywhere. #the other quarry nearby is charging either $5 per day or $25 a month to park. my gsmnp pass is $40 annually. why so much for a city park??? #we love to act like we're this nature lover's paradise then make it impossible for the poor to enjoy those nature spots #the place i went hiking today overlooks the city and there's talk they're paving that over too #there are too many homeless people who sleep there and it makes the city nervous #like. good. y'all's poor planning is why a lot of them are sleeping in the woods. i hope they gnaw your faces off. #city approves housing price increases. people become homeless. city complains about the homeless and makes their lives worse. #but no. we gotta have floating platforms and brick walkways and fancy toilets. that's a good cause #with 6mil you could purchase an old warehouse and turn it into stidio apartments for the homeless #you could pay people to fix the roads #you could purchase materials for teachers so kids aren't getting one of the worst educations in the country #but 200k in bathrooms that will probably get locked at 6pm so scary homeless don't use them. that's what we really need. #i hate it so much #useless spending is good when you're creating jobs #but this is a year long project. meaning it's not creating many - if any - jobs

[rebeccahpedersen]

Could Tighter Rental Controls Be Coming?

TorontoRealtyBlog

I don’t think so, but as many of you, not just I, have pointed out – you never know what this government is capable of.

I read a “letter to the editor” this morning that made me shake my head, but perhaps it’s the voice of a larger percentage of the general public than we think.

Even though one of the biggest pieces of rental legislation in the city’s history was implemented last year, there are still many people out who think that should only serve as a starting point…

Here’s a good philosophical question with which to start your Friday morning: what happens when two of your personality traits are contradictory?  Which one wins out?

For example, if I said that I were a “compassionate” individual, but I was also a “realist,” which trait would prevail?

I suppose it depends on the situation, and as you might have guessed, I’m about to introduce you to the concept.

I read a “letter to the editor” in the Toronto Star on Thursday, and while many of you will immediately roll your eyes at these letters, I often find they provide a true representation of what individuals are thinking.

In an online forum, with no name attached (like this one), anybody can be a keyboard warrior.  You can win an argument about, say, personal finance, by concluding, “….and take it from somebody that makes over $2 Million per year,” even though you’re unemployed and live in your mother’s basement.

In a letter to the editor, you sign it with your name, and often with your city.

Here’s the letter from Thursday that I want to talk about:

    Your Letters: Young Familes Can’t Afford To Live In Toronto

I live in Toronto with my wife and 18-month-old son. My wife and I are both youth workers and have been at our jobs for some time. I work on the front lines with homeless and under-housed youth in employment and at a transitional shelter.

What I find unfortunate is that my wife and I have found it impossible to find affordable housing. After tax, 30 per cent of our income is roughly $1,350. As CMHC recommends no more than 30 per cent of your income be spent on housing, that is a number we aim to use to house ourselves and our young son.

A two-bedroom unit in Toronto is now going for $1,800 and more, plus utilities. That brings housing costs to more than 50 per cent for of a couple making well above minimum wage.

The lack of interest in providing citizens of this city with affordable housing is criminal. If I can’t find housing for my family, how would a young homeless person will ever get off the streets?

I’m disgusted with this city and its municipal government, along with the provincial and federal governments who leave young families like mine with no options. Families in this city are suffering, we are drowning.

As I see young people with families who are friends of mine move out of the city in droves, I am hesitant to follow. But I begin to understand their decision when I’m faced with a rental market that hates families, landlords with free rein to discriminate and governments who choose to do nothing.

We need rent control now. Toronto will soon become a city without culture, without art and without families. Governments must act now to protect their cities from the white-washing, wealth-driven machine that is the free-rental market.

Anthony Lohan, Toronto (for now)

    I’m compassionate, and I’m a realist.

This is a young man with a wife and an 18-month-old child, who works a full-time job, and is having trouble keeping up.  I can be compassionate, I can be understanding, and I can be sympathetic.

But I also think that many parts of this letter, which I’ll delve into shortly, are misguided.  I am, after all, a realist.

And in my conflicting position, my realism wins out.

This man, who is complaining about rental prices in Toronto, lost this argument with the first three words of his letter:

I live in Toronto.

My solution?

Don’t.

I know, I know – hardly compassionate, and hardly sympathetic.  But the concept of the “right” to live in Toronto is not a new one on this blog, as we spent a large part of 2017 discussing entitlement, and the bizarre, yet increasingly-popular idea that people “should” be able to afford to live comfortably wherever they so choose.

From there, the letter gets a little dramatic and hyperbolic:

The lack of interest in providing citizens of this city with affordable housing is criminal.

I don’t think there’s a “lack of interest.”  Didn’t Justin Trudeau just earmark $40 Billion for affordable housing?

And while “lack of interest” could be confused with “lack of infinite resources,” I find the next part of the letter to be more telling.

I’m disgusted with this city and its municipal government, along with the provincial and federal governments who leave young families like mine with no options. Families in this city are suffering, we are drowning.

So this guy hates all three levels of government, which is incredibly ironic, since I’m hardly their biggest fan either, but our reasons are completely different.

How about this quote:

I’m faced with a rental market that hates families.

That’s not fair.  The rental market doesn’t hate families; the rental market is based on supply and demand.

Not only that, there’s some bizarre expectation on his part that, what – the “discriminating landlords,” as he puts it, will subsidize housing for those that want it?  It’s as though they should ignore property taxes, condo fees and/or maintenance, income tax on the rental income, and capital gains tax on the disposition of the asset?

And last, but not least, this gem:

We need rent control now. 

Wait, what?

We need rent control?  We do have rent control.  In fact, it’s been less than a year since the Provincial government (who he hates) brought in a rental control that affected every single property built in the past 36-years.

Last year’s new legislation, which included the words “rent control,” was a massive policy change.

So that provides only two possible explanations for this brave soul who put his name on this letter:

1) He doesn’t know what rent control is, and/or doesn’t know what changes were brought into place last year.  If that’s the case, then is it fair for me to conclude that he’s unsophisticated and/or uninformed, and thus his complaint lacks merit?

2) He does know what rent control is, he does know what changes were brought into place last year, and he wants more.  If that’s the case, then Good Lord are we all in trouble.

More rent control.

More than we already have?

What else could we do?

Would freezing rents be enough?  For two, three, or five years?

Would reducing the allowable yearly increases be enough?  From 2.5% to 1%?

Or are we going to a completely different place; one I didn’t think we’d ever explore?

As things stand right now, landlords are free to set their own rents when offering a property for lease.  But when they are extending an existing contract with an existing tenant, there are rent controls in place.  I think we all understand this, correct?  And this is how “rent controls” are thought of around the world, agreed?

But what if these rent controls extended beyond the term of the lease with the existing tenant?  What if the government got really creative, and delved into new territory?

What if once a landlord set a rent, that rental amount was regulated, forever?

You put a tenant into a property at $1,600 per month, and if a different tenant moves in next year, government regulations prohibit you from advertising the property for more than, say, $1,624 (a 1.5% increase)?  And that increase, which can fluctuate like the rent controls currently in place, are tied to that property for as long as the individual owns it?

But why not take it a step further?

Even if that individual sells the property, the rent control remains; like a right-of-way on a property, that transfers with title!

Are these the type of rent controls that Torontonians, who are demanding “rent controls” when there already are rent controls, are looking for the government to implement?

On Thursday an article appeared on CBC.ca entitled, “New Year, Same Old Expensive Rent In Toronto.  Weren’t We Fixing This?”

Define “fix.”

While we’re at it, we should finally define “expensive.”

The article starts with this:

Toronto tenants may now be legally protected from drastic rent increases, but the measure seems more like a consolation prize when rent was so high before the new rules were set.

Okay.

So then…………..should we decrease rents in Toronto?

Should Kathleen Wynne create another 3,000 full-time government positions for “Rental Fairness Officers” to go into rental properties, assess what fair market value might have been in 2016, and then maybe draw up some paperwork for the landlord to sign within 30 days to confirm new, lower rents?

The article continues:

With last year’s legislation, landlords can’t raise rent more than 2.5 per cent annually — even in units built after 1991.  But they can still set the price of a new lease at whatever the market demands.

Egad!

“They can still set the price of a new lease.”

So maybe expanding rent controls in the way that I facetiously, sarcastically, argumentatively suggested above does have some merit?

And note how that sentence continues: “….at whatever the market demands.”

Oh Dear Lord!

An efficient market?  Say it ain’t so!

Imagine the audacity of buyers and sellers interacting in a free market to set a value, like in every free market, everywhere.

Folks, come on.

Help me out here.

Am I way off base, or is every single person in society today holding his or her hand out?

The government does not have infinite resources, and never will.

On every corner, of every street, everywhere in the city, somebody is standing up on a soap box complaining about something.

If 2017 was just a warm-up to 2018, I have no idea where we’re headed.

The Canadian government can’t be Oprah.  Justin Trudeau can’t stand up and say, “You get a house!  And you get a house!  And you get a house,” to everybody who wants one, although I honestly don’t think we’re that far away.

But as far as the Toronto rental market goes, perhaps if we can’t even agree on the problem, and certainly can’t agree on the fix, then we can’t agree on a solution…

The post Could Tighter Rental Controls Be Coming? appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

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