[thechat] canada's new democratic party

[Erik Mattheis]

On Monday, January 27, 2003, at 01:16 PM, Tara Cleveland wrote:
> Well, I may be speaking out of turn, but I think Martin's talking about
> requiring developers to have a percentage (not enough to put them
> totally
> out of business) of units be affordable.

Are such zoning regulations not already in effect in every urban area
in every developed country on the planet? Bitch-slap me if I'm wrong.
Where to zone affordable housing and such is a mainstay of local
political debate everywhere in the US. Are others elsewhere not
familiar with headlines such as "Neighborhood Group Confronts City
Council on Proposed Development Plan", "Change in Property Taxes Called
Racist",  "New Housing Planned; Local Family Fears Rise in Crime" ...
etc etc.

>  And he's not saying that the
> developers would have to be "interested" in it, he's saying that they
> wouldn't get planning permission to build without it.

I understand the idea. But those projects would never be profitable for
the developer without public subsidies, so there would be no motivation
to undertake them except philanthropic.

-----------------------
Erik Mattheis
(612) 377 2272
<http://goZz.com/>
-----------------------