Given the sky-high cost of new builds, housing diversity that includes duplexes, townhouses and low-rises cannot address the needs of families and singles who have been priced out of the market.
According to CMHC, median pre-tax income in Victoria is close to $90,000. Using their figure of 30 per cent for affordability, those at the median and below should not be paying more than $2,100. Good luck with that.
Building unaffordable housing to address the problem of affordability seems like an oxymoron.
The notion of introducing enough homes so that demand lessens is naive. Will demand on the west coast ever lessen? If it did, the impact on housing prices is unlikely to be significant. Freeing up a “cheaper” apartment does not mean much when that apartment is already unaffordable to half the population.
All this building with its urban clear-cuts is very hard on Oak Bay infrastructure and abusive to Mother Earth.
Roberta Allen
Oak Bay
