It’s time Canadians woke up to the costly, complex housing deals being done by different levels of government across the country. Their house — or house value — could depend on it. Take my hometown of Saskatoon. In 2024, the federal government committed $41.3 million to the city over three years, as part of the national Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF). The goal? To fast-track affordable housing by “upzoning” — in other words, building row houses, townhouses, and multiplexes in already-established neighbourhoods.There were also other ideological strings attached. .JOHNSON: ‘Civilizational Erasure’ — US sanctions Europe, Canada will be next.In exchange for the federal money, the city had to invest in green initiatives — in Saskatoon’s case, green transit. It’s been doing that, or trying to, although it remains to be seen how green the $250 million “LINK” rapid transit system, currently cutting its way through neighbourhoods, can be in a frigid winter climate. That’s a story for another day.However, what most Saskatonians don’t realize is that, as part of new upzoning bylaws, if a house within 800 metres of a LINK route is sold, a low-rental multi-unit can replace it. The governing principle here is “density,” advanced by those who consider suburb-living to be climate-unfriendly and “exclusionary.” Writing in the Globe and Mail, residential zoning expert Jordan Moffatt exposed the underlying agenda: “Ending ‘exclusionary’ zoning by allowing multiunit buildings in formerly single-detached-only neighbourhoods expands housing options for more people — an important shift given our housing affordability crisis.”.In Saskatoon, the feds insisted on doing the HAF deal before the 2024 municipal elections, thereby securing the votes of a retiring mayor and councillors with pro-green creds who baked HAF into the budget, then headed into the sunset.Now, unless new councillors move to repeal HAF upzoning, we’re stuck with it.Cue Calgary. Last year, Calgarians for Thoughtful Growth (CFTG) launched a judicial review of their city’s upzoning bylaw. CFTG is also calling for more transparent, accountable city planning; the preservation of neighbourhoods’ character and green spaces; elected councillors, not administrators, leading city policy; and a return to funding core city services..BARCLAY / WILSON: Jews, guns, and the truth about personal security in Canada post-October 7.During Calgary’s recent municipal election, a majority of candidates campaigned on repealing “blanket upzoning.” Most won, and they are now undertaking the complex job of unravelling it. Wartime housing modelThe federal government says it’s basing its current $25 billion housing strategy on the Wartime Housing fund, which saw 30,000 pre-fabricated homes built between 1941-47. Wartime houses, however — in contrast to multi-unit infill housing — were mainly sold, not rented, and helped create neighbourhoods, rather than being superimposed on existing ones. Back in the 1940s, the federal government also wasn’t $70 billion in debt. .Montreal Economic Institute recently analyzed New Zealand’s mis-fated experiment with publicly-funded housing. KiwiBuild, launched in 2018 and backed by $1.7 billion in taxpayer money, aimed to build 100,000 affordable housing units within a decade. By 2024, however, only three percent had been built, and KiwiBuild is now “refocusing priorities.”Canadian housing minister Gregor Robertson recently said “average” home prices would come down as more government-subsidized “non-market housing” gets built. But the conundrum remains. Before his departure, Justin Trudeau said that, while housing has to become more affordable, it must also retain its value because it’s a “huge part of people’s potential retirement and nest egg.” Density is terrible for real estate values..WELLS: Faith, family, and freedom — does Western independence put too much under one banner?.As the Globe and Mail recently pointed out, “Non-market housing may reduce the average cost of the overall pool of homes, but only by creating a theoretical average home. Non-market and market homes do not exist in parallel universes. They are in the same city, sometimes side by side on the same street. Adding a lot more of the former would reduce demand for the latter. Which would, naturally, have an impact on prices.”Governments shouldn’t meddle in the housing market. They should reduce municipal development fees, property and construction-related taxes, and red tape. They should not pursue interventionist, command policies that thwart social mobility and personal, financial choice. This article appeared in a modified form in the Toronto Sun.
