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'We can no longer build what people can afford' (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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[–] 4 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I'm curious what she means by this exactly. Non-market housing and art is mentioned later on. Are they expected to pay for that themselves?

Development fees are one example. When a new apartment building is constructed, it needs water and sewer connections. The municipality typically charges the builder a development fee (on the order of 100k) to build that stuff. That immediately means the developer needs to charge buyers the development fee to recoup their costs.

Every level of government is going to add restrictions and requirements. Some may be non-negotiable: building codes to ensure the building is up to safety standards. We may want to revisit others.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Note - I work in Ontario, and this is my experience as an engineering consultant working with dozens of municipalities.

    We're finally at the end of infrastructure lifespan point for a good chunk of the province. That means Water/Wastewater plants, as well as the hundreds of kilometers of pipes required to transmit those liquids are at the end of their life for the first time since being installed (50-70 years).

    The cost to replace those is enormous, and IMO, should be covered primarily by property tax and/or useage fees. However those fees have not actually set aside the money required in many places, which means that municipalities have been propping up their old infrastructure costs by charging large development fees. Doug Ford, as much as I hate him, slashed development fees allowed, which forced property tax rates to rise. This more accurately reflects the ACTUAL cost of owning a home with services by the municipality. Given that I believe growth stagnation is required, this is the direction we need to head. We can't keep running this ponzi scheme of funding old infrastructure with new infrastructure fees. Its unfair to new buyers and subsidizing older homeowners.

    We also likely need to take a look at the actual fees and costs associated with maintaining our infrastructure. Stormwater ponds, seen typically in subdivisions, are HORRIBLY under-serviced, with a recent investigation in our area revealing 75% of them had never been cleaned out since being put into service ~30-50 years ago. They typically have a service life of 10-20 years, and have been leaking pollutants into our creeks and waterways since. The primary reason - you guessed it, budget. At 1+Mil/cleanout, they're expensive.

    We've skated by up till now by externalizing these costs and letting the damages build up for tomorrow's solutions. We can't keep putting off those costs.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    So 50-70 years ago, did they take better care of infrastructure? I've seen these kinds of problems make appearances in Alberta, as well, and I always wonder how whatever unsexy bit of infrastructure was funded in the first place, given that it's so politically costly to do.

    Given that I believe growth stagnation is required

    In Canadian municipalities specifically, or in general, like for climate reasons?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Lol they definitely did not take better care of infrastructure. They were freaking cowboys and a ton of municipalities got burnt on it. I work on lots of capital jobs that involve fixing problems that have been around since then.

    So now they have much more stringent standards, which in turn means projects are more expensive. Add onto that the growing complexity - installing a water main down a street in 1980 when you have overhead hydro lines and no other utilities to work around is much easier than installation in a crowded right-of-way with buried gas, hydro, storm sewer, sanitary sewer, and existing water main that needs to continue to service residents.

    As for how they were originally funded, idk. Don't think they ever really asked residents what they wanted back then. Now there's much more accountability, which is good but has drawbacks and costs.

    In Canadian municipalities specifically, or in general, like for climate reasons?

    I mean climate, but not specifically global warming, just the fact were a planet with finite resources.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    As for how they were originally funded, idk. Don’t think they ever really asked residents what they wanted back then. Now there’s much more accountability, which is good but has drawbacks and costs.

    That could be. I mean, it was a democracy, but post-WWII it was much more about prominent members of the community who commanded the trust of whatever faith or industry group. Before then there was some upheaval, and I'm less clear on the zeitgeist.

    Then again, people definitely wanted handouts in a way that's passe now. In Alberta there was "purple gas", which was artificially cheap but only farmers were allowed to burn it, and that's how they got the agricultural vote. Invisible public works projects wouldn't have helped with that.

    Low taxes are like a religion here. I kind of feel like if we were starting over, we'd stick with outhouses forever because nobody wants to raise the tax rate for silly things like "sanitation".

    So now they have much more stringent standards, which in turn means projects are more expensive. Add onto that the growing complexity - installing a water main down a street in 1980 when you have overhead hydro lines and no other utilities to work around is much easier than installation in a crowded right-of-way with buried gas, hydro, storm sewer, sanitary sewer, and existing water main that needs to continue to service residents.

    That makes me wonder how things will look in another century or whatever. If we're paying for debt accrued by the original designers, are we subsidising the future by building neat and well-though-out infrastructure now?

    I mean climate, but not specifically global warming, just the fact were a planet with finite resources.

    I'm arguing with a degrowther elsewhere here, but you've clearly thought through all the details. On a planet with a growing population, is less architecture really how that should look? When I think degrowth, I think forcing people to be poorer, basically, but they'll still need a place to live. In the long term, I expect housing prices will start to collapse as population goes into decline, and a lot of our more outlying settlements will become ghost towns, but work will continue in core areas.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    The cost to replace those is enormous, and IMO, should be covered primarily by property tax and/or useage fees.

    Agreed. I'm not sure those are usually covered by development fees. But it sounds like you know more about it than I do.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Unfortunately some municipalities have used development fees incorporated into their normal budget, whether directly or indirectly, rather than solely using them to account for the increased costs in maintenance, which is what they should be for. Often times I've worked on capital projects (repair ones) where the funding has come directly from development.

    For example, one municipality I work closely with has the salaries for all their development staff and the salaries for their capital design staff paid by development fees, plus some allocations for expansion of other services to account for more citizens.

    Edit for clarity: Municipalities can also skirt this use by doing things like the following: a long stretch of road from a highway is in poor condition and needs to be repaired in the next 2 years. But a development is going in on the road, and they can force the developer to pay for the reconstruction of the road, despite the fact that it is in poor xondition and needs to be redone anyway. Ditto for sewer, or water main replacement.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Yeah, but development fees of that kind seem like they should only vary so much. Probably not to the degree of scuttling condos in Vancouver while they get made like sausages in Calgary.

    Fire-prone slum construction isn't the answer, that's true. Regulations tend to wander into catering to nimby sensibilities in the West, though. Or into trying to externalise costs the government really should bear, like I'm kind of suspecting with the non-market housing mentioned.

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