Raise the Hammer

I think the only really effective way to enable people with lower incomes to stay in areas of rapidly increasing property values is to mandate that new construction includes a certain percentage of geared-to-income units and for the city to build more social housing in the area. The increased tax revenues could provide revenue for the city to build the housing, and the profits available to developers would make it attractive to make some units geared to income. Keeping an area poor, rundown and without good employment options is not an acceptable social policy.

But it is important to remember that, at least in terms of residents, many of the existing buildings that have been restored along James St N had in fact been largely empty above the ground for decades. I think what we're beginning to see is that the first generation of shopowners (and possibly some residents) who started the revival are beginning to be pushed out by higher rents.

The same thing was pointed out by Glen Norton on the downtown renewal Jane's walk

https://raisethehammer.org/article/2584/...

One of the City's big challenges is that most of the older commercial buildings along King St downtown have been empty for decades above ground level. The city has tried providing incentives, but many owners are just not interested in looking for tenants. In downtown Hamilton, at least, the major problem is not so much hundreds of residents being evicted by landowners renovating their buildings, but owners who didn't invest anything in their buildings for decades, to the point of not even bothering with tenants.

The problem may get more severe for areas with currently very cheap houses as housing values rise, but the "mixed use" buildings were not actually providing much accommodation relative to what was potentially available. Another issue is the limited supply of rental apartments, but that may beginning to change as developers finally start building large rental apartment buildings again.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2015-07-08 16:16:16