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B.C. housing plan could see 293,000 new units over next decade, says report
(www.nationalobserver.com)
And over the next decade we will probably need twice that
this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
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Probably more like 4x that, but on the other hand, this is finally a project that is starting to get a little close to the level of added housing that is needed in a single city (presuming this is concentrated around central Vancouver, not being placed around smaller towns or something stupid like that.
Most proposals only amount to 10% those numbers, and 10 years is a realistic time scale as building homes takes time in the first place.
That's great, but the Federal government is forecasting 1.5million new immigrants in the next 3 years.
I love how the conservatives fixate so fucking hard on the imm'grints without acknowledging the need for them and the need for housing to simply support people living longer without paying into cpp/oap.
It must be refreshing to know that for every problem it's either hyper-educated immigrants, refugees, or just the poors' fault somehow, and that magically a strong bootstraps policy will trickle golden mana down from the aristocracy.
A thousand times it'll be wrong, but they're confident this time it'll be right.
We're in the middle of a housing crisis. We can take the edge off it by
- reducing demand by temporarily limiting immigration
- modifying tax regulations to make real estate a less attractive investment
These are steps the feds can take immediately and unilaterally. Everything else will take years, and will need agreement from municipal and provincial governments.
I think it's probably better to harness immigration instead of limiting it. I'm not sure what the status is now but certainly in the past there have been special immigration categories for investor immigrants.
What if we re oriented those programs towards home building instead of economic stimulation. Like you can immigrate if you build an X unit co-op.
I agree we need to modify tax policies to make real estate more of a purchase and less of an investment
I think it's probably better to harness immigration instead of limiting it
If that can be done in a way that immediately alleviates the affordability/housing crisis, then I'm 100% in favour of it.
Like you can immigrate if you build an X unit co-op.
Getting municipal approvals to build an X unit co-op and constructing it will probably take a minimum of two or three years. That doesn't help now.
To play devil's advocate here, surely the issue isn't the fact of immigration but the amount happening each year that is worrying? They're adding 0.6 Winnipegs per year of people without, you know, adding any cities, infrastructure, hospitals, schools, etc to handle the influx. If people can't find a home now, how does adding more people solve that issue?
Edit: to clarify, I have no issue with immigration or immigrants, Canada's history is all about immigration. Just questioning the rate per year without additional work going into upgrading current infrastructure.
2nd edit: to run some numbers, BC currently has 5,000,879 out of Canada's 36,991,981 or 13.5% of the population. If that proportion continues over the next decade, BC will see an approximate increase of 600,750 out of 4,450,000 people based of of this plan (assuming the grown maintains its linear growth). If you divide 600,750 people by 293,000 new units you get 2.05 people per unit, therefore if the people immigrating are bringing their family and living more than 2 people per unit you will see a net surplus of housing, but single people will see a net loss or break even of housing.
All of this is to say, it appears they have planned to create enough housing for the people projected to come here, but not a substantial amount to increase the overall supply. It would appear it will maintain the status quo.
I agree - if there is a big-picture target for growth, it's so important that there are strong lines of communication and collaboration between citizens, cities, provinces, and the federal government if it's going to work.
To the poster above you - Trickle-down is a thoroughly shitty "Β―_(γ)_/Β―"-style policy. But so is any decree from above that lacks clear objectives, regularly measured outcomes, and checkpoints with the citizens. Our system is struggling right now when we reach checkpoint moments. Discussions get railroaded into these 'oh that's racist' or 'oh we should have 0 immigration' polarities. Discussing these things is worthwhile & good.
A lot of immigrants work in construction. I'm not sure how many exactly, but I'm guessing it's a higher proportion than locals. I do agree we should prioritise that instead of executives like we are right now, though.
Sure, many work may work in construction at the lowest end but that not the limiting factor for if construction actually happens.
You don't need 10,000 framers and day labourers you need electricians, plumbers, cabinetry makers, engineers, architects, gas fitters, HVAC technicians, etc.
Almost all of those people need schooling and certification and the lack of those people as well as the permitting process and municipal rezoning process is what's preventing housing from being built fast enough.
Bringing over a million day laborers is not going to help solve the housing crisis, it will stress it.
Most of the people we bring in are, like, doctors, aren't they? Education is very favoured in the application process, including kinds that they'll never be able to actually use here (I think I mentioned executives).
So yeah, bring in plumbers, and get them certified to Canadian standards. Zoning needs to die too, and some cities are working on it. Apparently the high interest rates are really biting right now as well.
A lot of immigrants work in construction.
I could only find stats for Ontario. Immigrants work construction at the roughly the same rate as non-immigrants. About 26% of construction workers are immigrants, while 29% of the population is foreign born.
I stand corrected. Yeah, I hadn't actually heard that, but you'd expect it would attract immigrants. Construction unions are pretty strong in Canada, so maybe that balances it out.
You'd expect that it would have a neutral-ish impact on long-term housing supply as it is, then.
You touch on a point inadvertently about what makes immigration so beneficial is that the workers can start working as soon as they arrive. Or at least, as soon as their qualifications are transferred over (for example nursing). Which is far quicker than having someone born in Canada and waiting 20 odd years til they enter the workforce.
So, theoretically, the new people can help build homes, hospitals, schools, etc for the other people who need it, and then the new new people will build for the new people, and etc. There just doesn't seem to be much planning going into it besides bring people in to make numbers go up. Also, major infrastructure works take years, so they'll never be able to keep up.
There just doesnβt seem to be much planning going into it besides bring people in to make numbers go up.
Why does it seem to be that way? Aren't most immigration programs based on labor market assessments?
Here is the 2020 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration which talks about why immigration is important, but doesn't mention plans on how to support the people coming here. It focuses on the financial benefits (a large section of it being international students, which only 1.4% of the "827,586 international students [that] held valid study permits in Canada" were given permanent residence.) and demographics of immigrants.
But which part of that document gives the impression that the idea is to bring people in "to make numbers go up" without much planning? The fact that it doesn't talk about housing? I think it's kind of expected to carve out given the scope of the report.
Copied from my comment above:
"to run some numbers, BC currently has 5,000,879 out of Canada's 36,991,981 or 13.5% of the population. If that proportion continues over the next decade, BC will see an approximate increase of 600,750 out of 4,450,000 people based off of this plan (assuming the grown maintains its linear growth). If you divide 600,750 people by 293,000 new units you get 2.05 people per unit, therefore if the people immigrating are bringing their family and living more than 2 people per unit you will see a net surplus of housing, but single people will see a net loss or break even of housing.
All of this is to say, it appears they have planned to create enough housing for the people projected to come here, but not a substantial amount to increase the overall supply. It would appear it will maintain the status quo."
If they build all the housing they plan to, they will roughly keep pace with immigration. Therefore nothing will change for the better, or our current housing crisis will remain constant.
That is assuming they follow through with the promise to build that much.
A reasonable guesstimate. I don't see how that answers my question, though.
I mean, if you've ever looked into the process, I'd actually argue there's too much planning going on, and we need to start over. It's insane that we're still the easiest destination apparently, that shit's Kafkaesque.
Even if they work in construction it's not like that magically makes more houses
I mean, it's not magic, it's economics. If you're putting in more man-hours in a competitive market, you should be getting more products out of the other end. Immigrants can plumb just as well as you, of course.
We don't need more manpower, it's our policies that are restricting supply
Those are also dumb. We should stop zoning everything just for the sake of the environment and basic livability, even.
If there were more incentive to build housing then more people would get into construction, not the other way around. People don't train for industries that don't pay
Sure. IIRC, though, this thread started with somebody blaming immigration for the crisis. It's not that, that's not how it works.
It is if you get more immigrants than you can build houses
Except immigrants build houses. Sense this discussion looping back on itself a bit, so I'll check out if there's nothing further.
But they don't, I don't understand why you are under this impression
Millions of immigrants in recent years and nothing is getting built
Need to fix policies before getting more immigrants
With the way our climate is going I think our current level of immigration is training wheels for whats soon to come, so we need to be making houses both to ease our housing crisis, AND meet our ongoing immigration
No joke. Wearing a conspiracy hat I think a lot of our immigration right now is people seeing the writing on the wall in their respective countries and bailing TF out before the wheels fall off the wagon there.
I love how if you said this on reddit you would be already perma banned
They better be non-market. I honestly donβt know what premier's are thinking at this point. In my municipality our mayor unilaterally squashed a vacant unit taxation model making not a single comment. Thankfully itβs being revisited