Our ideas to fight the housing crisis

The vast majority of municipalities require a minimum number of parking spaces for each residential or commercial unit. This significantly increases housing costs and removes options for citizens who prefer local businesses and public transportation. It also increases the tax burden on taxpayers through higher infrastructure costs.

Canada is the second developed country with the fewest elevators per capita, behind only the United States. We are the only two countries that use the ASME A17.1/CSA B44 standard. The rest of the world uses EN 81. This small regulatory change would make it possible to build housing with elevators at much lower cost, which would reduce construction costs and facilitate the construction of three to ten-story buildings.

Canada is the most restrictive country regarding the number of stairwells required for residential buildings. Countries on all other continents can build six-story residential buildings with a single stairwell. This small regulatory change would make it possible to build more housing for families at lower cost, because having two stairwells requires dividing a building in half down the middle with a corridor, which takes up a lot of space and prevents having a unit that spans the full width of the building.

Permettre sur tous les terrains résidentiels la construction de logements de trois étages et d'au plus 8 logements. Allow construction of up to three storey, eight units buildings on all residential land.

Take action to limit public consultation and appeals for small and medium projects, subsidized housing projects and shelters.

Plan to train and bring in additional construction workers.

Use public land to maximize building new subsidized housing.

Construction of new rooming houses should be allowed as of right in all municipalities.

Increase the target for completion of subsidized housing construction (e.g., social housing, co-ops). Avoid targets based on percentages, as this creates a perverse incentive to reduce regular construction in order to artificially inflate the percentage of subsidized housing.

Establish "housing first" as a policy goal with concrete steps to end homelessness over the next 20 years.

Implementation of a provincial rent registry for price control and statistics. Effective rent control reduces citizen opposition to new construction and limits forced displacement that accelerates neighborhood gentrification.

Establish predictable mechanisms to increase housing supply when vacancy rates drop below 5%.

A general goal of reducing the financialization of housing and making it less of an investment based on capital appreciation. Generally speaking, it should be more profitable to build housing than to simply own it.

Rapid transit costs a lot to build. We should allow six story buildings in a 200m radius around a station to maximize public investments and the positive impact it has on its environment.

Specific policies that encourage densification over urban sprawl.

In order to take the issue seriously, we must recognize the existence of a housing crisis.

Recognizing the expert consensus that the crisis fundamentally requires increasing the housing supply. Regardless of the type of housing and allocation method, a housing shortage harms citizens, either through increased prices (for private housing) or through longer waiting lists (for subsidized housing).

Housing is a necessity for every human. Recognizing this right is important for taking action on the housing crisis.