Denley: Ottawa’s mayoral candidates discuss housing, provide few options

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It’s no shock that the most important candidates for mayor are speaking about housing. The scarcity of it is likely one of the largest issues Ottawa faces.

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Sadly, housing-policy debates rapidly bathroom down within the swamp of complexity created by the politicians and planners who micromanage each facet of the business. The urgent query of how we construct extra homes can simply get misplaced.

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Politicians and their bureaucratic underlings at metropolis corridor weigh in on each conceivable facet of a proposed housing undertaking. Is it positioned in simply the proper spot? How will it have an effect on the setting? Is it too excessive? Is it dense sufficient? Is it close to the brand new metropolis rail line? Is it esthetically interesting to metropolis councillors?

The diploma of presidency scrutiny given to the housing sector is wildly inappropriate for an business that’s producing new neighbourhoods, not nuclear waste. The shock is just not that the town is wanting housing, however that any will get constructed in any respect.

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The Larger Ottawa Residence Builders Affiliation says Ottawa is almost 24,000 houses quick of what’s required to serve our inhabitants proper now. Eliminating that shortfall and assembly future demand would require about 100,000 new housing items over the subsequent decade, the Sensible Prosperity Institute says, considerably greater than the 76,000 dwellings Ottawa’s new Official Plan guarantees.

This isn’t simply an Ottawa downside, in fact. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Company stated earlier this 12 months that 2.3 million housing items shall be inbuilt Canada by the tip of the last decade, however a further 3.5 million items could be required to revive housing affordability. That’s outlined as housing costing not more than 40 per cent of your disposable earnings. The final time we had that type of affordability was in 2004.

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Step one to resolving the issue is for governments in any respect ranges to deal with housing as a traditional shopper good, the manufacturing of which is essentially a matter between patrons and builders. Relatively than using planners who wish to create the long run they’d personally favor, depart selections as much as homebuyers.

Let’s cease pretending that a lot of the metropolis’s future housing wants could be met by intensification. It’s a part of the answer, however land within the core is dear and little boutique tasks gained’t produce the required housing quantity.

As an alternative of attempting to determine precisely the place the housing ought to go, improve improvement land provide by permitting new improvement wherever that’s contiguous with current improvement.

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Maybe most essential, understand that builders are usually not the enemy. They’re the answer to the housing scarcity.

Too many individuals in Ottawa appear to detest builders as a result of they’re in enterprise to make cash. That anti-business feeling is what’s behind the complaints a couple of routine fundraiser held by mayoral candidate Mark Sutcliffe.

The progressive group Horizon Ottawa, which has endorsed Sutcliffe’s opponent Catherine McKenney, known as Sutcliffe’s occasion “money for entry.” The group presupposed to be scandalized by the occasion, hosted by sports activities entrepreneur Jeff Hunt “at his non-public multi-million-dollar apartment.”

There have been apparently no builders at Sutcliffe’s occasion and he’s not taking any donations from folks within the improvement business, however that’s nonetheless not pure sufficient for Horizon Ottawa as a result of different varieties of rich folks had been in attendance. It’s a foolish critique. Nothing could possibly be extra regular throughout an election marketing campaign than a fundraising occasion.

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For those who’re going to run for mayor, you’d higher have a couple of supporters with some cash of their pockets. Mayor Jim Watson raised simply over $410,000 within the 2018 election, a contest through which he confronted solely the mildest of competitors. The mayor actually didn’t flip his nostril up at improvement business donors, in response to his marketing campaign filings. Sutcliffe is setting the next commonplace, which might appear to be the principle level.

Sutcliffe, McKenney and candidate Bob Chiarelli all favour extra housing. Who doesn’t? They’re providing varied tweaks and changes which may make some distinction on the margins, however that’s it. That’s the true scandal.

Randall Denley is an Ottawa political commentator and writer. Contact him at: randalldenley1@gmail.com