Re: Housing money reinstated (News, Nov. 14)
It’s good that council has restored the Housing Trust Fund’s full amount. However, another distracting idea is still limping along: density bonus.
Save Our Sarasota (Florida) and Sarasota’s Coalition of City Neighborhoods say density bonus “has clearly failed.” Curbed L.A. warns that a “Density Bonus Lawsuit Arrives.”
Another article notes: “Affordable housing for the rich and the failure of zoning bonuses.”
Are our talented council and staff wedded to grand ideas without research?
Many homeless are wandering the streets tonight in the cold.
I voted for an end to homelessness. I didn’t vote for assuaging manipulations and fancy fiscal euphemisms in the name of reasonable policy: density bonus.
I voted for one council candidate because he had the plan to end homelessness straight away.
How come we never hear about Ben Isitt’s proven strategy?
His housing levy will generate enough money in one year to leverage the province and Ottawa for an amount to end the crisis in five years.
Neither density bonus nor the Trust Fund come close to that, the historical record shows.
As a landlord and property owner, I will happily pay the levy, the price of playing ball in Victoria, while others suffer through no fault of their own. Good intentions aren’t enough.
Rigorous research, follow through and political spine are required to end the silent scourge that homelessness is.
Frances Pearson
Victoria
