this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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That is ultimately the same situation. If you don't build them an 'unaffordable' house then they will outbid the poor for what otherwise would have been an affordable house, taking the affordable house away from someone of lesser means. These rich people are not going to go without a house.
It remains that fining developers for building houses is not going to incentivize developers to build more houses. Council recognized that the only way to get more affordable housing on the market is to build new houses, but then disincentivized the activity for some reason. It is like they wanted to make housing less accessible.
I'm not saying a fine will work, I'm saying that building houses for just the richest with the idea it will lift up the poor won't work, the assumptions behind it are unrealistic.
As houses trickle down the market many get rented out instead of sold, or just owned as a secondary property. I know a guy with a house in NYC and SF and he flies between them, I know other people who have their house and their pad for when they're working in Toronto.
If you only increase supply for the rich, it only marginally increases supply at the bottom, and by less than you've built.
If you only built houses for the poor you'd help more people, because the classes aren't evenly split, they're exponentially divided. But building only for one market is foolish.
Affordable housing only increases the supply for the rich. After all, if they are affordable, they are especially affordable for those who are rich. The only way to break out of that is to construct so many homes that the rich no longer want any more. Policies to scare developers away from building homes does not get you there.