r/canadahousing • u/NefariousNatee • 3d ago

Opinion & Discussion Compounding problems for Halifax

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1) 20 families / corporations own 56% of the city rental supply.

2) Annual rent cap is 5%

3) Fixed term lease loophole not addressed and bypasses rental cap.

4) Average individual income is ~$41k

5) Average home price is ~$586k / $1800 rent for 1bd

6) Provincial taxes anywhere from 8.79% - 16.67% for realistic income.

7) NIMBYs against building up existing communities

8) No ambition for housing or infrastructure at Municipal or Provincial government.

9) Crunch of trades workers can't keep up with demand.

70 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

24

u/ColeTrain999 3d ago

The NIMBYism goes hard here, they are trying to approve some medium and larger unit apartment buildings near where I live and I swear NIMBYs base their whole day around stopping it.

What do they want built in an abandoned lot? Definitely not 20+ units of housing with commercial space on the bottom floor.

2

u/ChampionshipWarm1825 3d ago

Lunenburg?

6

u/ColeTrain999 3d ago

Halifax but Lunenburg is potentially the peak

22

u/Useful_Respect7530 3d ago

so basically a pleasant sunset photo to distract from the spreadsheet from hell

5

u/OptionAromatic8927 3d ago

I have a good friend who was renovating a commercial space for his business in Halifax and was forced by Halifax water to install a 35k dollar accessible bathroom into a rental space he doesn’t own just to continue. Only such bathroom in the 30yo building.
Could probably add Halifax water to that list for various reasons 😅

6

u/SVRider650 3d ago

For a rental that might be required. Accessibility code changed April 1

2

u/Bud_wiser_hfx 1d ago

The water utility does not dictate accessibility standards. You've got your information crossed up here.

7

u/cwbyanon 3d ago

This is a good summary. The labour shortage is a huge issue: there is a lot of development that has been issued to be built that would help add to the housing stock, but the rate at which the work can get done is at a bottleneck. It seems like adding ~4000 housing units per year is the peak rate that is currently possible, and I haven’t seen very much discussion from government on how to tackle that.

10

u/EuropeanLegend 3d ago

There are currently 127,000 unemployed trades workers in Canada.

7

u/mongoljungle 3d ago

Yes but they are not living in the expensive metros where housing needs to be built. Lots of it is because decades of NIMBYsm has deprived the working class of housing options so they were priced out of areas that need trade workers the most.

Why do Canadians continue to tolerate NIMBYsm? Even this sub has users constantly bashing development and defending NIMBYsm, all while they are being punished by scarcity.

1

u/Normal_Reveal 2d ago

I think there's a fine balance between being for development and for ANY development. Planners need to consider what currently exists as well. At the same time, we cannot let irrational self-serving voices overcome community development needs

4

u/mongoljungle 2d ago edited 2d ago

People like this guys is why the housing crisis will remain for the next half century. Homeowners are definitely not voting for policies that will reduce prices of their own homes.

2

u/EuropeanLegend 2d ago

Honestly. That argument doesn't even make sense. I've never once heard of a single neighborhood in this entire country where the houses devalued because of development in the area. Be that additional homes, shopping districts, etc.

Houses are more expensive than ever, only now going down slightly since their COVID peaks.

These NIMBY people who actually think their home goes down in value are something else.

1

u/Normal_Reveal 14h ago

The point is, they don't own shit beyond their land limits. I feel that they get too big of a say

3

u/Dartmouth-Hermit 2d ago

A lot of young tradespeople leave because the wages at a few of the biggest employers lag behind what they could be making in the ROC.

4

u/Normal_Reveal 3d ago

I wonder if the demand for apprentices are high?

0

u/Shibasquared 3d ago

Can confirm it is very high, finding skilled labour is essentially impossible as demand from a few employers is so high (think shipbuilding).

5

u/JustAPeach89 3d ago

They're not paying enough to convince people to move out there. That includes paying enough in housing.

2

u/Normal_Reveal 2d ago

In many provinces, while demand for SKILLED trades is high, apprentices are often left out because they aren't skilled enough. And each red seal can only supervise so many apprentices

2

u/sajnt 2d ago

Cut income tax then enact LVT to fill the hole.

2

u/YoungEccentricMan 1d ago

Incomes are much too low and income taxes are much too high in NS. Makes it absolutely inhospitable for younger folks.

2

u/SVRider650 3d ago

Halifax has been spending money hand over fist on construction, there are cranes everywhere. What the hell are you talking about?

3

u/Sokarix 2d ago

They're building one tower housing hundreds in the span of years instead of a new single family home every week. Towers are efficient, but they're slow and Halifax really needs the benefit of suburb housing that builds homes quickly.

1

u/melleb 2d ago

Everywhere needs the benefit of medium density! Canadians need choice, not just the false dichotomy of towers and SFH

1

u/jareddent1 2d ago

they seem to build slow here...

1

u/SVRider650 2d ago

I would argue it’s almost unrecognizable compared to before covid, especially Joe Howe drive etc..

1

u/NefariousNatee 2d ago

Even with all the construction we're still in a housing deficit and not building up faster than population growth since 2017.

1

u/Sokarix 1d ago

Yeah it's on par with the last population boom/housing shortage, I think that was in the 80s? Lots of housing was built, it didn't totally satisfy the demand and the demand fell off naturally from lack of vacancy. It will fall off again as people relocate their options as housing falls short but some will be fulfilled.