this misses the point. The root of the housing shortage problem in Canada, Australia and New Zealand is zoning. Zoning plus NIMBYs make housing wasteful by allowing only single family houses in vast areas of prime land.
This is a simple supply-demand problem, not anything complicated. The solution is equally simple - make zoning laws basic and limited in scope.
There's no shortage of land in Canadian cities or really any western city in a housing crisis today. The problem is that this land is squandered on lower density development that is illegal to improve into higher density development thanks to zoning mandating low density. Zoning must keep up with job growth or else you end up with the situations we see today: wealthy people entering bidding wars on an 80 year old originally working class home.
While zoning is indeed a major problem in the US, ultimately the problem worldwide is that supply isn't meeting demand. If supply was able to meet demand, then prices would be stable and housing wouldn't become an investment vehicle.
My impression from the UK, which seems to have a similar housing shortage and restrictive zoning laws, is that there is another piece to this jigsaw, namely infrastructure.
There are a fair few housing developments in the UK which provide the quantity and density needed, but eg don't have sufficient roads to support the increased traffic, causing gridlocks. Similar story for schools or shops.
We have the same problem here in Canada. There should be a higher-level authority deciding how much municipalities should zone since housing is now a national problem.
Surely, we need more government regulations and programs not less. Removing zoning laws can't possibly be the solution. Maybe we can have the government give housing to poor families, thereby taking housing stock off the market and reducing supply.
The heart of the problem is low vacancy giving landlords market power. The inherent scarcity of land in desirable locations is amplified by zoning laws keeping housing supply growing much slower than demand. When 90% of urban land is zoned for single family housing and it is literally illegal to build a duplex let alone an apartment building you will have a shortage. Eliminate parking minimums, setbacks, feature area ratio, height limitations, endless environment impact lawsuits, and build!
A huge amount of housing issues across North America are due to zoning issues, with areas that don’t allow high density housing to be built (or where the residents fight fiercely against it). You don’t need to deal with most of the other problems you mentioned if you fix this first.
The other issue is vacancy. 10% of homes are unoccupied. Coming up with ways to fill even some of those properties would be hugely impactful.
Local control over zoning is a massive problem. Most people agree that building more homes would bring housing prices down. However, most cities have more than half of the land exclusively reserved for single family homes and have rules that prevent any creativity or density. They want other places to add the housing. I can't see the problems going away unless entire states reform zoning.
Housing doesn't need to be this way, but in much of the developed world we've artificially turned it into a zero-sum game with development restrictions, zoning rules, height limits, historic districts, green belts, and tons of other rules. None of those things is inherently bad on its own, and some are even a net good for society like a well managed green belt. Zoning in north america has an awful racist history and needs to be first on the chopping block. In combination all these restrictions have made adding density and housing units in areas with economic opportunity nearly impossible.
Those who already own property (myself included) are participating in a system that is increasingly pulling up the ladder on those who wish to join. The housing market is one of the least free. Rules requiring bedrooms have 2 points of egress and that building have minimum fire resistance are fantastic and need to stay. Rules that do things like prevent 2, 3 and 4-plexes, mandate a whole city can't go above 4 stories, and require 1:1 parking for every adult need to get tossed out right away.
I disagree that zoning alone is the problem as you see these market developments in almost all western nations and some of them have ample land to build upon.
Zoning could be more liberal, but it would still be massive stakeholders that would build new homes and rent them out to get a decent ROI.
In that case land acquisition costs make it too pricy since attractive downtown plots in a big city like Toronto are easily hundreds of millions per acre. Because they are zoned for 40+ story buildings.
And why would any land owner seek to zone for less than the maximal allowance?
If you mean forced downgrading of the zoning or replacing existing suburbia with mid density developments, or subsidizing mid density as opposed to suburbia, that’s an entirely political conversation since the roadblock is zoning laws and the legislature.
An underrated problem is that many suburbs use zoning to make small houses impossible to build. Urban YIMBYs don’t talk about it because they hate suburbs but forcing everyone to have a huge lot makes home ownership far more exclusionary, which of course was the intent.
The idea that zoning is the issue is always funny to me because it’s very easy to disprove. Plenty of paces in the US have permissive zoning (like the NY metro area). If zoning was the issue, then one would expect affordable housing in these areas, but it is still totally out of reach for most.
Zoning is the primary means by which supply is restricted in the US. That isn't facile, that is ordinary root cause analysis and reasoning in action.
Japan is proof that zoning doesn't have to represent a restriction on housing supply. But don't just dismiss Tokyo because you think other cultural factors are at play: Montreal, Chicago, Dallas, Calgary, and plentiful other US/Canadian cities have confirmed what Tokyo has already taught us.
We need to reduce zoning/land use restrictions and reduce the concentration of wealth which prevents the middle class from building small, dense housing/mixed-use developments to live/work/rent from. The wealth concentration only allows large capital investors to develop housing projects and they like feeling big so they build big things that the average (up to 90-99%) American has no chance of ever owning. When the middle class can't own or develop productive real estate they have to pay rent, move more frequently, and more easily lose touch with their community. When real estate is forced into the boom-bust cycle of the capital markets everything gets built in waves and then later falls apart all at the same time, straining local economies. Small, organic development spaced across decades is still the best option.
This is a simple supply-demand problem, not anything complicated. The solution is equally simple - make zoning laws basic and limited in scope.
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