#if you are a provincial or a federal politician who wants to make Any appeal to western canada you are Obligated to flip pancakes there

[battle-of-alberta]

that’s right alberta its one of the premiere events of the summer!! so come on down to whyte ave, did i mention the japanese souffle pancake franchise fuwa fuwa just opened?

[nkossovan]

Paid Sick Days: Are You Outraged Enough to Pay for It?

 As a part of the solution to get out of this COVID19 pandemic mess, which keeps sticking to us like sidewalk gum to a shoe on a hot July day, we need universal paid sick days.  

 On Monday, April 26th, for the 21st time since 2016, the Ontario Conservatives voted against provincial paid leave. Michael Coteau (Don Valley East, Liberal MPP) had put forward a bill that would have guaranteed 10 paid sick days for all workers in Ontario. Coteau's bill was voted down 20 - 55.

 Pandemic or no pandemic, should all workers in Ontario have easy access to paid sick days? Of course! All Canadians on a payroll, working full-time (no less than 35 hours per week) regardless of whom they work for, the industry they work in, or their employer's size, should.

 The lack of paid sick time is a public health concern. Long overdue is universal paid sick days. Workers need to be able to stay home and not bring sicknesses into the workplace.

 However, as with any social program, especially when birthing a new one, who pays is the thorny question. The last time I checked, Canadians don't like tax increases or any increase in living costs. It's as if Canadians, many at least, believe the many social services and social safety nets Canada offers don't have any expenses attached to them.

 For universal paid sick days, permanent and adequate, to happen in Ontario, taxpayers will have to pay. This can be equated to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP), which provides universal healthcare regardless of income, place of employment or any other factor other than being a resident of Ontario, being funded by taxpayers. I feel sick leave should be part of OHIP, where the government absorbs the cost up to a daily limit. This can only be achieved by increasing taxes while businesses absorb lost productivity.

 For the record, I'm okay with my taxes being raised to make universal paid sick days a reality.

 Yes, you read that right. I was brought up if you want something, you must pay for it. As a taxpayer, I want universal paid sick days (10 days annually), and I'm willing to have my taxes increased to pay for it.

 That's the "who pays" side of the equation. However, there's also the political side to entertain.

 It's not a stretch to consider because Coteau's bill was an opposition bill, the vote result was a juvenile rejection. If Coteau's bill had passed, that would've been a massive win for the Liberal. The Conservatives couldn't have that.

 A few days later, this past Thursday, Labour Minister Monte McNaughton tabled a bill that was quickly passed through the legislative process. The legislation gives Ontario workers 3 paid days of emergency leave. Businesses are expected to foot the upfront cost, which will be reimbursed up to $200 per day, per employee, through the Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB).

 This program has an expiry date of September 25th, as if at midnight on Saturday, September 25th, COVID will suddenly become history. Therefore, on Sunday, September 26th, workers in Ontario with no paid sick days provided by their employer will be back to square one.

 Michael Coteau's bill and Monte McNaughton, now legislated bill aren't even remotely comparable!

 Political partisanship has its place governing economic direction, but not when it comes to public health. COVID has taught us many deadly lessons, including how dangerous it is to approach a health problem as a political problem. Ford's handling of this pandemic, which undeniably has been guided by appealing as much as possible to his voter base, is a case in point. As well, to deflect, Ford has been leaning heavily on the federal government's Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (CRSB) program to claim an Ontario paid sick leave program would be redundant.

 The debate around paid sick days has been made into a political issue by politicians of every political stripe. There isn't a political party that can claim not to have been leveraging the social injustices COVID has bubbled up to serve their political agenda.

 The largest private-sector union in Canada, Unifor, recently conducted a poll to gauge the level of support for paid sick days (Never judge public appetite by social media posts. Most "social justice" posts are virtue signalling.). Unifor's poll found 70 percent of Ontarians support 5 days of paid sick leave, and 64 percent support 10 days of paid sick leave.

 Business interests are often touted as the main reason behind the lack of action on measures like paid sick days. There's much truth to this. Not one person reading this doesn't benefit from profitable businesses populating Canada's landscape. While the yin yang between political power and economic health is complex, it boils down to people wanting good-paying jobs.

 For good-paying jobs to be created and exist, a business-friendly environment needs to exist—an environment that's conducive to do business in. Providing businesses with a competitive "cost of doing business" environment, when compared to conducting their business elsewhere (e.g., other provinces, overseas and let's not forget our next-door neighbour, the USA, where most states don't have paid sick leave.), will be the spark for rapid economic growth post-COVID.

 Then there's also automation, contracting out, et al., to consider which businesses migrate toward as ways to look after their profit margins. Mandating businesses to take on the financial cost and productivity loss of providing paid sick days will be another incentive for businesses to move elsewhere, outsource work to contractors, fast-track implementing automation, or simply close shop.

 The common narrative, born from a sense of entitlement, is that because a person owns a business, they are rich and living off the back of their employees. That perception is completely incorrect.

 Many small business owners—owners of restaurants, convenience stores, mom and pop travel agencies, dry cleaners, coffee shops, retailers—can't afford the financial cost (paying people not to work) coupled with the production loss (work not being done) to offer their employees paid sick days. Imagine the negative impact, financially and productivity-wise, on a flower shop with 5 employees and 2 call in sick or an autobody shop with a staff of 7.

 The application of economic principles and the ecosystems they create for businesses to thrive can't be dismissed.

 Ford has said, "he will not impose any additional burden on the backs of Ontario businesses." This is a fair statement, especially from a conservative perspective and given how most businesses are struggling to stay alive under the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. Many businesses are on the brink of permanent closure.

 You don't need to be an expert to see the economic damage the pandemic lockdowns have caused. Whenever any meaningful "recovery" happens (my guess that it'll be mid-2023), it won't be fair or straightforward. An environment that's attractive to businesses starting, expanding, or entice to come to Ontario will be crucial post-COVID for any type of healthy economic recovery to take place. Keep in mind all provinces will be on the same mission. So will countries worldwide, including our southern neighbours, who are the world's most adept capitalists and possess high energy of self-interest.

 My empathy for employers who can't afford to offer their employees 10 paid sick days annually, especially during a pandemic and with consumers constantly demanding cheap, is why I'm willing to pay more taxes.

 Adding to my empathy is my enormous respect for anyone who takes on the financial risk, a risk most people won't take, to start a business that creates jobs.

 Due to pandemic spending, Ontario now finds itself with a historic deficit (forecasted to be about $33.1 billion for the 2021-22 fiscal year based on four percent growth in the economy). I'm surmising Ford is reluctant to raise taxes. Inevitably somewhere down the line, taxes will need to be increased—the piper always needs to be paid. Right now, increasing taxes would be political suicide, thus permission needs to be given.

  I suggest the message to Doug Ford's government be: "The people of Ontario are demanding permanent paid sick days! Let us help you help every worker in Ontario regardless of whom they work for. Increase our taxes if need be."

 All Canadian political leaders should hear such a message.

 If such permission were granted, no political leader would have any excuse not to provide universal paid sick days.

 Call it reverse protesting.

 Currently, those of us, the 70 percent according to Unifor's poll, who favour universal paid sick days, are just sitting idly by watching politicians playing politics.

  Ontario taxpayers offering to put their money where their mouth is might be the protest required for Doug Ford's government to finally provide universal paid sick days.

 I’m outraged enough to be willing to pay more taxes to bring universal paid sick days to fruition in Ontario, are you?

[mikemortgage]

Terence Corcoran: Carbon tax trial full of alarmist political diversions no court should fall for

It is not quite the trial of the century, but the live video feed from Ontario’s Court of Appeal hearing this week on the constitutionality of Ottawa’s carbon tax does have its little moments of drama. At one point Tuesday, after Sharlene Telles-Langdon, on behalf of the Attorney General of Canada, had launched into her case against Ontario’s attempt to have the carbon tax declared unconstitutional, Justice James C. MacPherson leaned in with a pointed question.

Ontario’s carbon emissions are down 22 per cent without a carbon tax, said MacPherson — presumably citing data provided by Ontario during its presentation on Monday. “Why don’t you just leave them alone?” Ontario, he added, “has had a great result.”

Interesting and pertinent question: if Ontario is already cutting carbon emissions without a carbon tax, it seems redundant to impose a constitutionally iffy tax to do something the province is already doing on its own. The question also seemed to momentarily fluster Telles-Langdon, who then began rifling through pages of her briefing book in search of the big alarmist arguments Ottawa is advancing to support the imposition of a national carbon tax on all Canadians.

Peter Foster: Mark Carney and Michael Bloomberg’s ‘sustainable’ scheme to dismantle Canada’s economy

Terence Corcoran: The Liberals manipulate a climate report to justify handouts to Loblaws

Terence Corcoran: Toronto floats the idea of making Big Oil pay for climate change damage. What damage?

Once she got back on track, Telles-Langdon proceeded to summarize Ottawa’s standard claims about the need for urgent action to curb greenhouse gas emissions and how Canada, without a carbon tax, was failing to meet its international targets. Ottawa’s case is filled with political diversions. Global climate change is happening now, the science is “well established,” extreme weather is increasing along with risks to human health, Lyme disease, melting permafrost, and so on and so on. The factum also throws in the irrelevant and discredited insurance industry claim that carbon-induced extreme weather is “now costing up to $1.2-billion a year.”

Canada needs to cut 200 megatonnes from its carbon emissions, said Telles-Langdon, and without a carbon tax it seems unlikely to exceed a reduction of 50 megatonnes. Provincial action is not enough to solve this national and international economic, environmental and political problem. It’s time to invoke the peace, order and good government clause of the constitution and impose a carbon tax.

With a carbon tax, said Telles-Langdon, Ottawa is introducing a “price signal” that will prompt Canadians to reduce their consumption of carbon-based fossil fuels.

How deep into climate science and the international global warming political swamp is Ontario’s court of appeal going to descend? Are the five justices expected to reach conclusions on the merits of climate change science, the validity of scaremongering geopolitical activists at the United Nations, and the soundness of the economics of price-signalling taxes?

Is the court expected to make a decision on the basis of — or somehow in agreement with — an intervention from, say, the David Suzuki Foundation that claims “Canada and the world are engaged in an existential struggle against climate change.” A carbon tax, said the Suzuki Foundation, is “urgently necessary to address a national emergency.”

None of these claims, from Ottawa and others, should sway the court. Nor should the justices fall for the economic arguments that a carbon tax is a superior form of government intervention — if intervention is necessary — on account of its alleged foundation in a market economy.

Canada’s Ecofiscal “Commission” filed a 115-page intervention arguing that a carbon tax is a “market-based instrument” that is less costly and far superior to any other policy models. As is now routine, the Ecofiscal Commission claimed the B.C. carbon tax has been a success because it reduced carbon emissions in the province — a claim that is dubious at best.

By filing its intervention, the ecofiscalists are essentially asking the court to approve and adopt its theories as justification for approval of a federal carbon tax. Since the court has heard little evidence to the contrary regarding economic critiques of carbon taxes, the court has no reason to accept the ecofiscal evidence that carbon taxes are just another form of efficient market pricing.

A carbon tax is not a market-based price. It’s a state-imposed fixed price that has no connection with supply and demand, except to the extent that its proponents aim to reduce demand for carbon.

What the court should know, but will not hear, is that a carbon price turns the role of prices upside down. In a market economy, prices contain thousands of pieces of information about a product: the unmeasurable individual wants of millions of people, the costs of hundreds of inputs, the supply and demand circumstances at a point in time, assessments of future conditions, the relationship of all the prices for similar and competing products. Price is part of a process, jam-packed with unmeasurable information.

In a market economy, prices are not a fixture in time that just needs to be tweaked to get a different, desired result. Taxes are not market prices.

Government price-fixing regimes such as carbon taxes throw all the real price information out, declare that it’s all wrong and claim we need a new price that will incorporate the information politicians think should be in the price or would be in the price if people only knew what we the politicians know.

Carbon pricing, in effect, tears down the market price and all the information it contains and imposes government-regulated pricing. That’s not a market system and the Appeal Court of Ontario should understand that fact — whatever it decides on the legal issues.

Financial Post

• Email: tcorcoran@nationalpost.com | Twitter: terencecorcoran

from Financial Post http://bit.ly/2Disgsm via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[rebeccahpedersen]

Should Toronto Be Building More 3-Bedroom Condos For “Families?”

TorontoRealtyBlog

Two important things to note about the title of today’s blog, before we get started:

1) Toronto can’t build condos; it’s a city.  Developers build condos. 2) I put “families” in parenthesis for a reason.

Ryerson University released a report this week lamenting the lack of 3-bedroom condos, and most of the media reports refer to “Toronto” doing the building, as opposed to “developers.”

Since when have developers been tasked with urban planning and civil engineering?

Why would anybody expect the free market to take us in the “right” direction?

I’ve been barking up this tree for a long time!

Believe it or not, the topic of “building larger condos for families” has been in discussion since 2009.

Check this out:

Final Report – Official Plan Amendment to Encourage the Development of Units for Households with Children

This report dates back to October 13th, 2009.

Eight years.  Wow.

And here we are, in 2017, with the average home price up around 95% since the report was written, and maybe a handful of 3-bedroom condos built in the same time period.

Did the city fail us?

Or did they merely allow nature to take its course?

In that 2009 report, it was suggested that Toronto’s Official Plan be amended to require that developers of condominium units with more than 100 units include at least 10% 3-bedroom units.

I can’t find, with any certainty, a section of the Official Plan that specifies whether or not this amendment was made.

But over the last few years, the 3-bedroom units that have been built are not, in any way, suitable for “families.”

Why do I keep putting the word families in parenthesis?

Because I think it’s a word that gets thrown around a lot in the world of politics, and most of the time, it’s being used by somebody who has an agenda, is trying to prove a point, and/or wants something.

What is a family, anyways?

A married couple and their dog?

A husband and wife with an “only-child?”

One of those clans from Arkansas with 19 children who get their own TV show?

Call me cynical, but I can already see some politician, municipal, provincial, or federal, saying, “We need to build more housing for families,” to a roaring applause.

But perhaps I should back up a little…

This week, Ryerson University’s City Building Institute, in partnership with Urbanation, released a report on the state of condominium development in the city of Toronto, entitled: “Bedrooms in the Sky: Is Toronto Building the Right Condo Supply?”

For the life of me, I can’t find the report online.

But I did speak to Globe & Mail columnist, Jeff Gray, on Monday about the topic, and you can find his article here:

Toronto Faces Shortage of Family-Friendly Condos: Report

Here’s an excerpt:

A study by Ryerson University’s City Building Institute and Urbanation, a real estate consulting firm, says that only 41 per cent of condominiums under construction or in preconstruction in the GTA have at least two bedrooms. That’s down from 67 per cent in buildings completed in the 1990s.

After a decade spent catering to millennials in the 25-34 age demographic and building small studio or one-bedroom condos, the report says, the city faces a shortage of large units as that cohort ages and starts having children. The GTA will be home to an additional 207,000 residents in the 35-44 age bracket over the next decade, steeper growth in that demographic than it has seen for 20 years.

The report, entitled Bedrooms in the Sky: Is Toronto Building the Right Condo Supply?, warns that many of those millennials will be looking to “upsize” and find larger – and affordable – condos in which to raise families in the city. But if they cannot find those units, the report says, they may be forced to seek more affordable housing on the city’s fringes, or even beyond the province’s Greenbelt.

  The Toronto Star’s Tess Kalinowinski also picked up the story with her column:

“Not Enough Family-Friendly Condos To Match Demand: Report”

Here’s an excerpt from this article as well:

The report called, “Bedrooms in the Sky: Is Toronto Building the Right Condo Supply?”, shows the price gap between detached houses and condos has tripled since 2007 — from $200,000 to $600,000.

In the City of Toronto, 38 per cent of condos in the pipeline have at least two bedrooms, compared to about 60 per cent in the 1990s. Across the entire region, only 41 per cent of condos being built have at least two bedrooms, down from 67 per cent.

The decline in the number of two-bedrooms may be a result of investor demand for smaller units. Sixty per cent of new construction condos are bought by investors, said Urbanation’s Shaun Hildebrand.

At the same time, buildings are getting taller — averaging 21 storeys compared to 15 in the 1990s. That’s not always appealing to families and seniors, said Burda. Only 7 per cent of coming units are in buildings five to eight storeys and only 3 per cent are low-rise walk-ups — the kind of housing planners call the “missing middle.”

In downtown Toronto, low-rise buildings account for only 9 per cent of development, compared to 29 per cent in the 1990s.

About 70 per cent of condo development is in the City of Toronto with 47 per cent (45,000 units) in the core. Toronto’s old suburbs, which contain about five times the amount of land, have about half the number in development.

  I’ll be sure to update the blog this week if/when I get a copy of the report, but I think this is one report you don’t really need to read to know what it’s going to say:

1) Toronto real estate is expensive. 2) Developers are primarily building 1-bedroom condos.

What more is there to say before you start to draw conclusions?

It’s expensive to buy a house in Toronto?  No kidding.

Anybody wanting to have children will need more than one bedroom?  That’s true.

Do the math, and we realize that with not everybody being able to afford a freehold home, some people will have to consider raising a family in a condo.  Right.

So then we get to the crux of the matter: that developers aren’t building “family-friendly” condominium units, ie. those with 3-bedroom condos.

But the obvious conclusion, to some, is that “developers need to start building more 3-bedroom condos downtown.”

And I’m here to tell you, quite simply, that I disagree.

Now here’s where I risk making things political, and I’ll try to keep the rhetoric to a minimum.

But if we are to assume that the free market will continue to determine the price of real estate (again, without going into politics, I believe a certain political body is crazy enough to start legislating the price of real estate…), then what good is building 3-bedroom condos if “families” can’t afford them?

As I said in the Globe & Mail article, the city’s heart was in the right place.  They realized that there weren’t enough 3-bedroom condos, so they tried to force developers to build more of them.

But as is always the case with government intervention in the real estate markets, every action has unintended consequences.

Requiring developers to build more 3-bedroom condos, presumably for “families,” isn’t a bad policy.

But the problem is: there was no requirement on the size of the required 3-bedroom units.

So what we’ve seen over the past few years is a slew of 800 square foot 3-bed, 2-bath units, which I called, in the Globe & Mail article, “a dorm.”

I’ve seen these units before, where your living/dining/kitchen is one small, combined room, with micro-appliances, and no real room for a couch and a dining table.  The three doors to the three bedrooms are all within arm’s length, and there’s absolutely no way to envision a family comfortably living there.

Who would comfortably live there?

Three foreign students.

Three foreign students, who don’t really need the use of a kitchen, don’t want to interact, and who basically study in their rooms, and unwind by watching Netflix on their laptops, on their beds.

Do foreign students buy condos?

No.

But real estate investors do, and they crank out an incredible yield if they choose to rent out the condo room-by-room.

So let’s say, for argument’s sake, that the government got both of the first two parts of the condos-for-families equation correct: they required developers to build more 3-bedroom condos, and they mandated that the units must be, say, 1,400 square feet or more, so a family could comfortably live there.

What is the third part of the equation?

If it’s not obvious by now, you’re not following along.

Price.

So now you’ve required developers to build 3-bedroom condos for families.  Great.

You’ve required the units to be large enough to avoid the units only being suitable for students.  Perfect.

Now are you going to step in and legislate the price of these units in a free market?

Because if the government is willing to do that, then what the hell is the point of all this?

A 1,400 square foot, 3-bedroom condo in the downtown core would likely average around $1.1 Million.

What kind of “family” can afford that?

The whole notion of “building for families” is, in my opinion, ridiculous.

One might suggest that to stand back and do nothing isn’t the answer, but don’t worry – I have the answer for you.

The answer to “how to house families living in the downtown core” isn’t to force developers to build 3-bedroom condos, perhaps of a certain size, that families can’t afford.

The answer, and I’m not being facetious here, folks, is for families to not attempt to live in the downtown core, because the idea is, as I said, ridiculous.

If you think I’m being a jerk, I’m not.

I’m being reasonable, rational, and logical.

Market dynamics dictate price, price dictates affordability, and affordability dictates who lives where.

I don’t think we need to bring the word “should” into this, either.

Families should be able to live downtown, or they should be able to live wherever they want.

But “should” leads to fantasy.  And our market is a daily reality.

Again, if we want to get political here, then we can.

It seems to me that our increasingly-socialist government is not only allowing the population to believe that every single man, woman, and child should be able to afford their own home, but actually promoting it.

Show me a city on planet earth where the ownership rate is 100.00%, I challenge you.

So why in the world are we talking about families being able to afford 3-bedroom condos in the downtown core?

Don’t worry, yet again, I have the solution.  And it’s such an easy one, even a Premier could understand it.

Ready for this?

Move out of the city, and commute.

There.  Your solution.

The solution is not to force developers to build 3-bedroom condos that families will never be able to afford, but rather to encourage, promote, and advise families that there are other areas in the GTA or Golden Horseshoe in which the could live.

There are 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom houses available in Pickering Village for $550,000.

It’s a 38-minute GO Train ride from Ajax Go to Union Station.

I’m not saying I’d want to do that every day, but if we’re talking about people who can’t afford to live downtown, then why don’t we give them options?

I had lunch with a few Manhattanites on Tuesday, and I asked them where they lived.

One of the guys said he lived in New Jersey, and took the train to the Financial District every day.

An hour, he said it took him, to and from work, every day.

And when I asked why he didn’t live in lower Manhattan, he looked at me as though the answer was obvious and said, “Because I can’t afford it.”

So why is Toronto any different?

Yes, I know; different political climates, and thus different expectations of the population.

But it seems to me that people who live in Toronto have this idea that they “should” be able to afford to live here, and when they can’t afford to live here, they don’t understand that they don’t have to live here, even if they work here.

Something has got to give.

I pull my hair out when I think about the government forcing developers to build crappy 3-bedroom condos that nobody wants to buy, just to say “We’re doing something about the problem.”

How about building infrastructure?

How about building another 150 subway stops across the GTA, more train tracks, more highways, more roads, and more transit?

How about connecting the Golden Horseshoe, so that people can move around freely, and efficiently?

How come in the Provincial Liberal budget this past spring, the City of Toronto was basically shut out?

Right, I forgot, we’re not going to make this political.

If you think the answer to the “where to we house families?” question is to force developers to build 3-bedroom condos, then let me know.

Otherwise, I’d love to hear your solutions…

The post Should Toronto Be Building More 3-Bedroom Condos For “Families?” appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

Originated from http://ift.tt/2m6tLnk

[rebeccahpedersen]

Should Toronto Be Building More 3-Bedroom Condos For “Families?”

TorontoRealtyBlog

Two important things to note about the title of today’s blog, before we get started:

1) Toronto can’t build condos; it’s a city.  Developers build condos. 2) I put “families” in parenthesis for a reason.

Ryerson University released a report this week lamenting the lack of 3-bedroom condos, and most of the media reports refer to “Toronto” doing the building, as opposed to “developers.”

Since when have developers been tasked with urban planning and civil engineering?

Why would anybody expect the free market to take us in the “right” direction?

I’ve been barking up this tree for a long time!

Believe it or not, the topic of “building larger condos for families” has been in discussion since 2009.

Check this out:

Final Report – Official Plan Amendment to Encourage the Development of Units for Households with Children

This report dates back to October 13th, 2009.

Eight years.  Wow.

And here we are, in 2017, with the average home price up around 95% since the report was written, and maybe a handful of 3-bedroom condos built in the same time period.

Did the city fail us?

Or did they merely allow nature to take its course?

In that 2009 report, it was suggested that Toronto’s Official Plan be amended to require that developers of condominium units with more than 100 units include at least 10% 3-bedroom units.

I can’t find, with any certainty, a section of the Official Plan that specifies whether or not this amendment was made.

But over the last few years, the 3-bedroom units that have been built are not, in any way, suitable for “families.”

Why do I keep putting the word families in parenthesis?

Because I think it’s a word that gets thrown around a lot in the world of politics, and most of the time, it’s being used by somebody who has an agenda, is trying to prove a point, and/or wants something.

What is a family, anyways?

A married couple and their dog?

A husband and wife with an “only-child?”

One of those clans from Arkansas with 19 children who get their own TV show?

Call me cynical, but I can already see some politician, municipal, provincial, or federal, saying, “We need to build more housing for families,” to a roaring applause.

But perhaps I should back up a little…

This week, Ryerson University’s City Building Institute, in partnership with Urbanation, released a report on the state of condominium development in the city of Toronto, entitled: “Bedrooms in the Sky: Is Toronto Building the Right Condo Supply?”

For the life of me, I can’t find the report online.

But I did speak to Globe & Mail columnist, Jeff Gray, on Monday about the topic, and you can find his article here:

Toronto Faces Shortage of Family-Friendly Condos: Report

Here’s an excerpt:

A study by Ryerson University’s City Building Institute and Urbanation, a real estate consulting firm, says that only 41 per cent of condominiums under construction or in preconstruction in the GTA have at least two bedrooms. That’s down from 67 per cent in buildings completed in the 1990s.

After a decade spent catering to millennials in the 25-34 age demographic and building small studio or one-bedroom condos, the report says, the city faces a shortage of large units as that cohort ages and starts having children. The GTA will be home to an additional 207,000 residents in the 35-44 age bracket over the next decade, steeper growth in that demographic than it has seen for 20 years.

The report, entitled Bedrooms in the Sky: Is Toronto Building the Right Condo Supply?, warns that many of those millennials will be looking to “upsize” and find larger – and affordable – condos in which to raise families in the city. But if they cannot find those units, the report says, they may be forced to seek more affordable housing on the city’s fringes, or even beyond the province’s Greenbelt.

  The Toronto Star’s Tess Kalinowinski also picked up the story with her column:

“Not Enough Family-Friendly Condos To Match Demand: Report”

Here’s an excerpt from this article as well:

The report called, “Bedrooms in the Sky: Is Toronto Building the Right Condo Supply?”, shows the price gap between detached houses and condos has tripled since 2007 — from $200,000 to $600,000.

In the City of Toronto, 38 per cent of condos in the pipeline have at least two bedrooms, compared to about 60 per cent in the 1990s. Across the entire region, only 41 per cent of condos being built have at least two bedrooms, down from 67 per cent.

The decline in the number of two-bedrooms may be a result of investor demand for smaller units. Sixty per cent of new construction condos are bought by investors, said Urbanation’s Shaun Hildebrand.

At the same time, buildings are getting taller — averaging 21 storeys compared to 15 in the 1990s. That’s not always appealing to families and seniors, said Burda. Only 7 per cent of coming units are in buildings five to eight storeys and only 3 per cent are low-rise walk-ups — the kind of housing planners call the “missing middle.”

In downtown Toronto, low-rise buildings account for only 9 per cent of development, compared to 29 per cent in the 1990s.

About 70 per cent of condo development is in the City of Toronto with 47 per cent (45,000 units) in the core. Toronto’s old suburbs, which contain about five times the amount of land, have about half the number in development.

  I’ll be sure to update the blog this week if/when I get a copy of the report, but I think this is one report you don’t really need to read to know what it’s going to say:

1) Toronto real estate is expensive. 2) Developers are primarily building 1-bedroom condos.

What more is there to say before you start to draw conclusions?

It’s expensive to buy a house in Toronto?  No kidding.

Anybody wanting to have children will need more than one bedroom?  That’s true.

Do the math, and we realize that with not everybody being able to afford a freehold home, some people will have to consider raising a family in a condo.  Right.

So then we get to the crux of the matter: that developers aren’t building “family-friendly” condominium units, ie. those with 3-bedroom condos.

But the obvious conclusion, to some, is that “developers need to start building more 3-bedroom condos downtown.”

And I’m here to tell you, quite simply, that I disagree.

Now here’s where I risk making things political, and I’ll try to keep the rhetoric to a minimum.

But if we are to assume that the free market will continue to determine the price of real estate (again, without going into politics, I believe a certain political body is crazy enough to start legislating the price of real estate…), then what good is building 3-bedroom condos if “families” can’t afford them?

As I said in the Globe & Mail article, the city’s heart was in the right place.  They realized that there weren’t enough 3-bedroom condos, so they tried to force developers to build more of them.

But as is always the case with government intervention in the real estate markets, every action has unintended consequences.

Requiring developers to build more 3-bedroom condos, presumably for “families,” isn’t a bad policy.

But the problem is: there was no requirement on the size of the required 3-bedroom units.

So what we’ve seen over the past few years is a slew of 800 square foot 3-bed, 2-bath units, which I called, in the Globe & Mail article, “a dorm.”

I’ve seen these units before, where your living/dining/kitchen is one small, combined room, with micro-appliances, and no real room for a couch and a dining table.  The three doors to the three bedrooms are all within arm’s length, and there’s absolutely no way to envision a family comfortably living there.

Who would comfortably live there?

Three foreign students.

Three foreign students, who don’t really need the use of a kitchen, don’t want to interact, and who basically study in their rooms, and unwind by watching Netflix on their laptops, on their beds.

Do foreign students buy condos?

No.

But real estate investors do, and they crank out an incredible yield if they choose to rent out the condo room-by-room.

So let’s say, for argument’s sake, that the government got both of the first two parts of the condos-for-families equation correct: they required developers to build more 3-bedroom condos, and they mandated that the units must be, say, 1,400 square feet or more, so a family could comfortably live there.

What is the third part of the equation?

If it’s not obvious by now, you’re not following along.

Price.

So now you’ve required developers to build 3-bedroom condos for families.  Great.

You’ve required the units to be large enough to avoid the units only being suitable for students.  Perfect.

Now are you going to step in and legislate the price of these units in a free market?

Because if the government is willing to do that, then what the hell is the point of all this?

A 1,400 square foot, 3-bedroom condo in the downtown core would likely average around $1.1 Million.

What kind of “family” can afford that?

The whole notion of “building for families” is, in my opinion, ridiculous.

One might suggest that to stand back and do nothing isn’t the answer, but don’t worry – I have the answer for you.

The answer to “how to house families living in the downtown core” isn’t to force developers to build 3-bedroom condos, perhaps of a certain size, that families can’t afford.

The answer, and I’m not being facetious here, folks, is for families to not attempt to live in the downtown core, because the idea is, as I said, ridiculous.

If you think I’m being a jerk, I’m not.

I’m being reasonable, rational, and logical.

Market dynamics dictate price, price dictates affordability, and affordability dictates who lives where.

I don’t think we need to bring the word “should” into this, either.

Families should be able to live downtown, or they should be able to live wherever they want.

But “should” leads to fantasy.  And our market is a daily reality.

Again, if we want to get political here, then we can.

It seems to me that our increasingly-socialist government is not only allowing the population to believe that every single man, woman, and child should be able to afford their own home, but actually promoting it.

Show me a city on planet earth where the ownership rate is 100.00%, I challenge you.

So why in the world are we talking about families being able to afford 3-bedroom condos in the downtown core?

Don’t worry, yet again, I have the solution.  And it’s such an easy one, even a Premier could understand it.

Ready for this?

Move out of the city, and commute.

There.  Your solution.

The solution is not to force developers to build 3-bedroom condos that families will never be able to afford, but rather to encourage, promote, and advise families that there are other areas in the GTA or Golden Horseshoe in which the could live.

There are 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom houses available in Pickering Village for $550,000.

It’s a 38-minute GO Train ride from Ajax Go to Union Station.

I’m not saying I’d want to do that every day, but if we’re talking about people who can’t afford to live downtown, then why don’t we give them options?

I had lunch with a few Manhattanites on Tuesday, and I asked them where they lived.

One of the guys said he lived in New Jersey, and took the train to the Financial District every day.

An hour, he said it took him, to and from work, every day.

And when I asked why he didn’t live in lower Manhattan, he looked at me as though the answer was obvious and said, “Because I can’t afford it.”

So why is Toronto any different?

Yes, I know; different political climates, and thus different expectations of the population.

But it seems to me that people who live in Toronto have this idea that they “should” be able to afford to live here, and when they can’t afford to live here, they don’t understand that they don’t have to live here, even if they work here.

Something has got to give.

I pull my hair out when I think about the government forcing developers to build crappy 3-bedroom condos that nobody wants to buy, just to say “We’re doing something about the problem.”

How about building infrastructure?

How about building another 150 subway stops across the GTA, more train tracks, more highways, more roads, and more transit?

How about connecting the Golden Horseshoe, so that people can move around freely, and efficiently?

How come in the Provincial Liberal budget this past spring, the City of Toronto was basically shut out?

Right, I forgot, we’re not going to make this political.

If you think the answer to the “where to we house families?” question is to force developers to build 3-bedroom condos, then let me know.

Otherwise, I’d love to hear your solutions…

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