Comment 116709

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted March 02, 2016 at 09:37:37 in reply to Comment 116707

Property prices rise (and sometimes fall) at different rates at different times in response to various stimuli. It's not a matter of whether prices "have peaked", but how fast they are increasing. All the evidence suggests that prices will increase especially quickly in the next decade in this part of Hamilton.

In Vancouver the average house price is over $2.5 million. Toronto prices are still more than double Hamilton prices. This suggests Hamilton has plenty of "catching up" to do in real estate prices.

$300k for a hovel is nothing: in Vancouver a tear-down worse than anything in the North End sells for $2.5 million!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-co...

Leasing, rather than selling, the land is one way for the City to avoid selling too low and take advantage of future price increases.

Or they could develop the land themselves, like Vancouver did developing a mix of affordable housing and coops in the 1970s with the South Shore of False Creek.

Or they could mix options for Pier 8 and the other lands (like Jamesville): some land sold to private developers, some leased, some developed by the city, and add inclusionary zoning to require some of the private units to be affordable. Even as little as 10% would make a difference if some of the other (City) developments had larger proportions. Maybe partner with the feds or province.

Vancouver is now trying to decide whether to sell the south shore of False Creek land now, at vastly higher values than they could have got 40 years ago (taking into account general inflation) or re-develop at higher densities.

On the other hand, the general opinion is that Vancouver made a terrible deal when they sold the north shore of False Creek to Lee Kai Shing in the 1980s for about $200 million. The City was responsible for cleaning up the toxic industrial land and Lee Kai Shing ended up building much higher density than planned, which vastly increased the value of the land.

Cities can take a long view when it comes to land.

The "ghetto" label is because the plan is to concentrate all affordable housing from 500 MacNab and JamesVille and 170 more units in 400 total units at Barton-Tiffany rather than integrating affordable housing in mixed communities, or having smaller scale developments.

The experience of the last 50-60 years is that massive social housing developments do generally turn into poverty ghettos with a lot of social problems. That's why most other cities are moving to mixed developments, sometimes through inclusionary zoning and sometimes through private-public partnerships, or simply through city-led developments.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2016-03-02 09:58:53

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