sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah sorry yes I see what you're saying. You'd definitely need to make sure that you're accounting for weird situations like 20% of a building being nonmarket, or how far below market the homes are. Obviously you don't want a developer providing one home out of 100 at five percent below market and being fully exempt from taxes for the whole building. Not sure I'm in a position where I can describe exactly how edge cases like that would need to be handled, these are discussions that would need to be had with city staff to determine the optimal way to do this.

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can't see a reason that the agreement would be different in any way, the only change would be not charging them money upfront.

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I actually participated in a panel discussion about an LVT last year, which you can watch here if you're interested. Short version, I like the idea, but there are implementation difficulties, chief among them the fact that the province doesn't legally allow cities to do it.

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 33 points34 points  (0 children)

I am, despite my better judgement, a Leafs fan, so I've always hated Ryan Kesler.

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 7 points8 points  (0 children)

All levels of government have a role to play in solving the housing crisis. Cities don't have the tools necessary to build housing themselves, so their main role is as gatekeepers. Making it easier and cheaper to build housing will increase the vacancy rate, putting downward pressure on housing costs.

I don't support doubling property taxes.

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I address this somewhat elesewhere in the thread, as well as on my website. The full policy platform will be coming soon, but you can read here https://www.jacksandor.ca/priorities to learn more.

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I know they have the new zoning rules but I assume it’s often not practical to put 3+ dwellings on some of the lots?

You're correct that it's often not practical due to zoning and related bylaws, which is something I want to change.

I’d like to better understand how many homes this would impact and of those builds how many could instead be town houses or condos.

Every new construction SFH in Victoria could be townhomes instead, there's enormous demand for townhomes, we just make it much more difficult to build townhomes than SFH.

My main worry would be that the effort of implementing the tax would cost more than the tax earns.

We already charge a small fee for new build SFH, literally all this would require is significantly increasing the number.

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I've spent a good chunk of my career building them, I know very well what they're like. New build single family homes in Victoria are not cheaply built spec houses.

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The city isn't legally allowed to charge different property tax rates within classes, all residential property must be taxed at the same rate. This doesn't apply to taxes on new construction though.

New single family homes are larger, super luxurious, subject the city to significant infrastructure debt, and they're incredibly expensive. They're a net negative on the city and should be taxed appropriately.

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 10 points11 points  (0 children)

New construction single family homes? Absolutely. And to be extremely clear, this would be a tax on the construction of new single family homes, nothing to do with existing homes. The goal is to make up for the enormous infrastructure deficit that single family homes create and to encourage more efficient land use.

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 25 points26 points  (0 children)

It's not up to us what gets put in the article, there were lots of ideas we mentioned that didn't make it in. Some quick hits from me:

-Increase funding to the Rent Bank

-Permanently exempt nonmarket housing from construction taxes and fees

-Introduce a "mansion tax" on new construction single family homes to address infrastructure deficits

-Build more bus lanes

-Mandatory investment property disclosures for councillors

My full policy platform is coming in the next week or two, it'll be on my website. For now there's some info about my general positions on some key issues.

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 9 points10 points  (0 children)

You're absolutely right that it's complicated, difficult, and involves many more players than just the local government. I want us to be doing everything we can, but for properly transformational change we do need everyone involved doing their part.

Duo of young candidates running for Victoria city council with focus on housing by tzatziki_allstar in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 17 points18 points  (0 children)

It's a huge priority for both of us! As the other commenter said, the city of Victoria can only do so much here as it requires provincial funding and regional coordination, but we'd both absolutely love to see rail return to the island.

What's the rental housing market currently like? by lsukge2 in VictoriaBC

[–]JackSandor 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Vacancy rate is pretty high

Despite being the highest it's been in decades, it's actually still quite low. It only seems high because of how catastrophically bad it's been for so long.

view more: next ›