Columnists
Musical chairs
What has been described as possibly the last affordable housing project for quite some time in Prince Edward County was not approved at last Wednesday’s planning meeting.
The events that unfolded have caused many questions to start circulating. What truly is affordable housing? How dense is too dense? Is this the type of community we want to live in? Will our kids ever be able to live in Prince Edward County? These are all important questions, but any one approach to affordable housing that ignores supply and demand will ultimately run into a problem we all had as kids playing musical chairs. If there aren’t enough homes to go around, someone has to lose out.
In an unregulated, unsubsidized market, the people who lose out are going to be the people with the least money to spend. Regulatory measures or subsidies can change that and provide targeted assistance to some households. But in Prince Edward County, the basic problem is that demand for housing is too high. COVID-19 has caused even more people to want to escape big cities and work remotely from home, but there aren’t enough houses to go around.
I fall into a category that many of my entrepreneurial peers do. A local business owner making a modest living, who was lucky enough to purchase a house 10 years before prices went through the roof. Some of us were maybe even lucky enough to gain some equity, or renovate and sell to be able to move up in the local real estate market. But we are outgrowing our homes, and the supply has not increased. There is nowhere for us to go. This is the middle ground that Councillor Mike Harper talks about in his op ed on page 17. We are on the hunt for housing in the $350,000 to $450,000 range, but it simply doesn’t exist. Talbot on the Trail was filling a void in our community. The housing being suggested might not have been affordable as defined by CMHC, but it is certainly more affordable than what is offered in the County currently.
On that note, even building luxury or high end housing projects can help address housing supply. In a market such as the County’s, just because no new subdivisions are being built doesn’t mean the wealthy forget that they enjoy houses in appealing neighborhoods. They simply quickly snap up older properties and renovate them to suit their vision, taking attainable middle-class residences off the market.
Many have been complaining of a lack of affordable rental options, or lack of rental options altogether. But again, this shouldn’t be a surprise as it comes back to the same supply and demand issue. When an investor buys a $500,000 home, their mortgage payment alone is over $2,000 a month before taxes and utilities. No investor is going to lose money, so rental rates need to be near $3,000 a month just to cover carrying costs. This is also where the short-term rental approach becomes more appealing.
So, what is the solution? Growth is required. We’ll need to push past the fear of change. Of loss of the familiar, that often shackles us too strongly to the status quo. It’s important to note that although many did move here for a certain lifestyle, it doesn’t mean it stays that way for infinity. More broadly, it begs the question: should council have the ability to pick and choose, and then offer opinions on what type of housing should be built in each development? This isn’t our kids’ Lego community where we constantly take pieces and move them around. Too dense. Too ugly. Wrong colour. No elevators. In this case, the fact that some people don’t like too much crowding is precisely why we don’t need to worry about prescriptive residential land use rules. There is no reason to build an overly dense subdivision unless there is someone who wants to rent or buy it.
It is clear that folks want to live in Prince Edward County. Yet the County’s taxbase is stagnant. And the tax levy continues to rise. For every new family moving in, we lose a family to a neighbouring region. Each year, there are residents, myself included, who have to look at the tax increase and make a decision if living in the County is still within reach. If that happens, it starts affecting things we don’t think about. Things like our new hospital. Or our schools. Even our local economy. We need housing for varying income levels and life stages to help create population and jobs. If that doesn’t happen, many more will soon be captured within these affordability woes.
So, let’s welcome development. Before developers, who are champing at the bit, move onto another, more welcoming community.
Before you “push past the fear of change. Of loss of the familiar, that often shackles us too strongly to the status quo.” I suggest the you listen to this.
Dr Mike Ryan, Doctor and Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme (WHO): Covid-19 is a wake-up call to how we live our lives (Trócaire Romero Award)” on Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/513844215?ref=em-share
There are other bigger issues at play.
I do not take issue with Dr Ryan’s comments. What is implicit in his brief video clip is that people are the root of the problem: meaning there are too many of us living on this planet. For a perspective on what our exploding global population can mean see: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-11-billion-people-mean-disease-outbreaks/ It may be an overly simplistic analysis but more people = more demand on resources = more pollution = climate change.
On the other hand, one cannot deny that at this point in time there is a demand for properties in the County. As well, the absence of supply and that demand has created a seller’s market. It is these heretofore unknown selling prices that make the County attractive to developers. Creating a subdivision is not an altruistic venture. It is a profit driven exercise. It is someone’s business / livelihood. If you want to see an ‘affordable’ home built, you will have to accept that to do so will mean compromise. That may mean apartments, townhouses, smaller homes on smaller lots. North America has lived with a vision of the house with the white picket fence throughout my 70 plus years. Throughout that time urban planners have warned us against this. Urban sprawl leads to more fossil fuel consumption and we know that is a major contributor to degrading air quality and climate change.
There is another factor to look at as well. Wellington, whether another house is built there or not, has an issue with water pressure. As well the wastewater plant is coming near to the point of requiring significant upgrades. Although this will not be as capital intensive as the all in water system project recently detailed in the news, the cost will not be insignificant. That will be funded by the users of the system. Without new users to spread out the cost your water bills will go up.
One of the continuing complaints of County residents and politicians is the state of repair of the County roads. The needs far exceed the available revenues so projects are deferred leading to more degradation of the roads and more complaints. Revenue comes from one source: taxes. It does not matter if the person that owns a home in the County lives there full time or seasonally. Both pay taxes at the same rate.
Change is happening. The familiar is already no more. The status quo is frankly an illusion. It is trite, but recall the old saw: ‘What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.’