Two years after Valérie Plante’s administration said a new housing bylaw would lead to the construction of 600 new social housing units per year, the city hasn’t seen a single one.
The Bylaw for a Diverse Metropolis forces developers to include social, family and, in some places, affordable housing units to any new projects larger than 4,843 square feet.
If they don’t, they must pay a fine or hand over land, buildings or individual units for the city to turn into affordable or social housing.
This has always been ridiculous. This kind of Inclusionary Zoning doesn’t apply to detached homes, only to highrise condos - that is, to small units that are for many people how they’re entering the housing market. Expecting builders to cover affordable housing raises costs for those buyers.
I firmly support affordable housing developments, but expecting housing for those most unable to afford it to be funded by the second-most-unable is insanity. Every other social project is funded by taxpayers, but somehow in a housing crisis where we’ve a massive shortage of housing, we expect to shove a boat-anchor onto the costs of the very people we expect to solve the crisis and let them bear the cost? That’s lunacy.