Link to letter on the Times Colonist website
Flooded housing market could bring affordability
Toronto is experiencing its slowest condo sales in 30 years. Since the pandemic, the Vancouver market has slowed with almost 2,500 condo listings downtown alone!
Victoria? There are more than 800 condos and townhouses listed for sale in our city. Full page colour ads in the Times Colonist flogging newly built ones are common. Strata units are a hard sell, say some real estate agents.
Yet, the cry remains: “just build baby!”
If perpetual development was the answer to our housing shortage then Toronto and Vancouver would have solved the shortage years ago.
If building more and more was the answer to our so-called “affordability crisis,” then Toronto and Vancouver would have solved that years ago too.
Instead of the present assault on our neighbourhoods by developers, perhaps the province and the municipalities should learn from the oversupply in Toronto and Vancouver and listen to many of their constituents and take their foot off the gas!
Nope! Instead, large, majestic trees are felled, roads are dug up everywhere you look, new sidewalks and bike lanes installed seemingly willy-nilly and on and on.
Construction, construction and more construction.
People are stressed. Pissed about the traffic. Choked that development on steroids is being forced down their throats!
Many have formed protest groups. Others have simply moved out of town.
So far, the politicians have listened with their ears plugged.
If the market continues to get flooded and prices are reduced so things will sell, maybe then, we’ll have “affordable housing!”
—Dave Secco, Saanich