Two years after Valérie Plante’s administration said a new housing bylaw would lead to the construction of 600 new social housing units per year, the city hasn’t seen a single one.
The Bylaw for a Diverse Metropolis forces developers to include social, family and, in some places, affordable housing units to any new projects larger than 4,843 square feet.
If they don’t, they must pay a fine or hand over land, buildings or individual units for the city to turn into affordable or social housing.
They were stupid to give the developers an out. It’s not hard to do some math and figure out what it would take to recoup the penalty in rent or sales compared to the much lower revenue stream of affordable housing.
Now the fine is just part of the cost of doing business. They’ll either eat the fine, or more likely spread it out across whatever they were gonna charge for whatever they’re building instead of the affordable housing.
You can’t give greedy assholes an inch, or they’ll take a mile and then bill you for it.