海角社区官网

Allowing sixplexes is not a magic solution. It’s just a small and relatively easy nudge closer to one. But even that proved a step to far for 海角社区官网city council.

At a meeting in late June, .

This was predictable: when it comes to accepting change, 海角社区官网council traditionally has all the spine of a smack of jellyfish. This is the specific reason former mayor John Tory asked for and received dictatorial strong-mayor powers: to be able to ram through multiplex permissions over the objections of his suburban council allies. His successor Mayor Olivia Chow chose not to use those powers in this instance, to the dismay of some housing advocates.

It was a decision by city council that runs contrary to the requirements attached to federal funding for housing in 海角社区官网(as a result, tens of millions of dollars are now in jeopardy). It also runs contrary to generational political winds that have seen younger voters insisting that making housing more affordable is at the top of their list of political concerns.聽

In the last federal election, , voters under 44 considered making housing more affordable to be a more important issue than dealing with Donald Trump, growing the economy and fixing the health care system. Older voters decidedly did not share that ranking of priorities. More than three times as many voters under 35 considered housing affordability a top issue than did voters over 60.聽

It’s not rocket science to understand why that generational divide exists: older people bought their homes in the 1970s and ‘80s and ‘90s, when they were cheap. Moreover, the skyrocketing prices over the past 20 years have made them rich, as a house they may have paid $50,000 or $200,000 for is now worth $1 million or $2 million 鈥� money they can get by selling, pass on to their children or access at any time through home equity lines of credit. A big part of this demographic of people doesn’t want housing prices to come down. A steep drop in prices would diminish their own wealth.聽

Meanwhile, younger people who don’t already own property are being forced out of the city. , especially young families. Last year, for a house in the GTA. And while those folks are trying to save up, rents are absurd: in recent years, the .

Statistics like that will lead a generation not just to move somewhere else, but to be hopping mad about it. And understandably so. This anger has been a driving force of right-wing populism particularly attracting younger voters. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre made housing affordability one of his core rallying cries, and it might have swept him into office had Trump not launched a trade war against Canada 鈥� even with the “Elbows Up” wave as the election approached, . In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford has made building housing his signature issue, even if in practice over seven years it led to more authoritarian huffing and puffing than results. In Toronto, Coun. Brad Bradford is the most vocal critic of Chow from the populist right, and also the one who makes building housing his biggest signature issue.聽

Looking at the debate about sixplexes in 海角社区官网in June, you’d notice that it wasn’t progressives holding things back while conservatives chanted “build, baby, build.” Chow and her housing chair Gord Perks (who may be the most left-wing member of council) were pushing for the citywide change. Among those most stridently opposed were steadfast suburban conservatives such as Stephen Holyday and Vincent Crisanti. Only nine of the city’s 25 wards will allow sixplexes under the bylaw that passed, and none of the councillors representing areas left out raised their hand to object. Keeping housing unaffordable is a cross-partisan project among city councillors.聽

That’s at least in part because of a dynamic that has long driven political decision-making at city hall. Existing homeowners are considered the kings and queens of the city, whose whims should be catered to above all else, while the needs of everyone else 鈥� tenants, children of homeowners, unhoused people, anyone hoping to move here and become a homeowner 鈥� are an afterthought.

Part of the reason you see this is the same at all levels of politics: homeowners tend to be older, and older people are more reliable voters (just ask Mark Carney). But in a no-party municipal political system in which each councillor only represents voters in one specific area, there’s more: homeowners tend to stay put, while tenants might move to another area of the city in a year or two or three. Or tenants might move to Edmonton or New Brunswick, as so many young families have, and no longer be 海角社区官网voters at all. Homeowners are more likely to have been in the community longer, and feel proprietary about it, meaning they show up and shout about local ward-level issues.

Crucially, existing homeowners tend to think the housing affordability situation in their area is just fine, since they afforded it. They tend to resist any change to their community, since they liked it enough to buy a home there and any change might upset something they liked about it.聽

It’s worth noting the fears of sixplexes as a threat to neighbourhood character are, I think, patently silly. Such buildings and larger walk-up apartment blocks exist in many of the city’s most desirable (and pricey) neighbourhoods, and as I’ve written before they make those places better places to live, not worse.

They and a variety of other different, more affordable housing options also make 海角社区官网a better city for everyone. I recently watched from a scenester hang-around group to international success. Alongside the band’s story, it paints a picture of an era in 海角社区官网in which musicians and artists could still afford a decent apartment, subsisting and making art and throwing parties the rest of us could attend. What resulted was a movable feast. For me as a viewer, that element of the film evoked mournful nostalgia.聽

Where are the next generation of those artists supposed to live? A bunch of news stories in recent years have told us where they do live, more and more: in other parts of Ontario, and . And in all those stories, the artists basically say they moved out of 海角社区官网to find a place they could afford to live. Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene himself actually moved to Northumberland County during the pandemic, and .

Maybe as the song title the film is named after predicted, it was always all gonna break. But it sure seems broken now. Not just for artists, but for any young person who is not phenomenally wealthy.聽

If you cared about Toronto, as you’d expect a city councillor should, a generation of people being priced out of the city might look like a giant concern, one worth taking a small step聽鈥� like sixplex permissions 鈥� to help address.

But if you only care about being re-elected, then maybe seeing the people likely to be angry about your decisions forced to move somewhere else (where they can’t vote in 海角社区官网elections) looks more like a solution than a problem.