PelhamToday received the following reader letter in reaction to a recent commentary by MPP Sam Oosterhoff:
As always ‘the devil is always in the detail’ and I’m not sure MPP Sam Oosterhoff has concerned himself with some pretty basic details regarding Ontario housing.
The first, of course, is there is no mention of those who have been longstanding, generational families within communities, and others who discovered a home and community, perhaps many years ago, made it their home, and have integrated and been accepted because they share the same love for the same communities.
These, of course, would be the NIMBYs that Sam’s government continues to blame for the present housing crisis, rather than the crisis being caused by many, and ongoing, political and government planning for years.
I liked his first bulleted comment and wonder if he actually has any idea of what it refers to.
Provincial policy states that any land, specifically in rural areas, sold for development, can build up to a maximum of three single detached family residences, no more, on that land.
I’m not quite sure just how his claim of ‘as of right’ zoning might apply to urban or city developments where such zoning and far, far worse, already exists. Any casual research on urban sprawl type development within rural areas will show many bad planning developments recommended by rural planners that simply ignore any such maximum.
His second bullet, to reduce taxes on affordable housing, can only make any young family hoping to buy their first house, shake their heads in disbelief.
Whilst we have city and rural planners, by far the biggest lobby group supporting the developers demands for ever more urban sprawl are realtors, who cry crocodile tears over rising property prices, whilst happy to encourage bidding wars, and an increasing number of dumb and dumber politicians, too scared of their unelected staff to even question them, then the housing crisis will only continue.
In today’s development ‘industry’ the prime, and only aim, is profit. That is all developers do. Building ‘affordable housing’ is not profitable.
The only practical way for any government, federal, provincial, regional and even municipal government, to build ‘affordable housing’ for their citizens is for them to do it themselves, and that would require a 100 percent subsidy, there is no other way.
It’s hardly surprising that politicians no longer have the integrity and honesty to even discuss this obvious truth.
They’d far rather support for-profit developments, at the expense of the communities that elected them to office, in the hope that every single additional property tax that comes along will somehow, one day, bring enough into their tax base to stop all the bleeding of wasted and lost revenue caused by their bad past policies and ‘investments’.
I no longer have a political party or politician I can support or vote for. As far as I can see every one of them, from every party, only promises to ‘invest’ more and more of our taxes to make Ontario’s/Canada’s economy grow and provide a great life for all of us. Really? After all, all they are asking is to raise our taxes to pay for this Utopia.
Bottom line is there is no one making any real attempt to solve a housing crisis that has been brought about by successive governments, of every political party, for many years.
I think I met Sam once. He’s a nice enough young man but has no life experience apart from as an MPP.
I’m not sure that is nearly enough to claim that he and his party have any real clue about the communities they claim to represent where the ‘housing crisis’ and ‘affordable housing’ are concerned.
And so far any results they can claim are far from any sort of a solution.
Andrew Watts
Wainfleet
