thommyjo
Senior Member
Downtown subsidizes taxpayers’ suburbs….so….
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Downtown Real Estate
- Thread starter Daveography
- Start date
kcantor
Senior Member
My guess is that doing that with the same dollars would drive more new development than this program with a lot less admin.
IanO
Superstar
Not mutually exclusive and given that our Downtown continues to lag behind the rest of Canada's big cities, it can use all of the help it can get (for now).
IanO
Superstar
Infill Development in Edmonton Association — IDEA Blog
www.infilledmonton.com
policyenthusiast
Senior Member
Downtown has supply and low prices, and yet no one is moving there. So why would we not build affordable housing where people want to be?
If anything, the welfare approach to housing construction (and the concentration of low-income residents to Downtown) is a detractor to commercial investment.
thommyjo
Senior Member
Downtown has the highest average rental prices. What do you mean “low prices”?
I think you need to review some data to recalibrate your perspectives. “Low income residents” are the ones filling up Sky residences, parks, Falcon, switch, sync 111, CX, legends, and thousands of other condos being rented by owners for well over $1800/month??
policyenthusiast
Senior Member
I could provide the chart which I've already shown in the past showing constant value declines of DT residences since 2009, or I could link the CMHC's average rent by neighborhood by bedroom type showing that Downtown does not have the highest prices, CMHC data showing vacancy rates, or I could show the CoE map listing the city-supported affordable housing developments by neighbourhood, or I could show the CBRE reports demonstrating sustained weakness of economic investment of downtown CRE.
I believe that new supply should be where supply is lacking. Downtown supply is not lacking. You are free to disagree with both or either of those points, and it is not my duty to convert you.
kcantor
Senior Member
There’s a big difference between actual help today and simply giving up future tax dollars from 2029 to 2039 for no real impact today.
It’s past decisions like this from previous councils and administrations that are a larger part of what is financially hamstringing our current council.
policyenthusiast
Senior Member
Great analysis. I question excluding Boyle St's older rentals due to the downward pressure on averages without also excluding luxury condos due to the upward pressure, but still. Unless these prices are median and not mean values, in which case the difference is likely nominal.
Glenco
Senior Member
I think (sometimes) that they are counting on other new developments in the downtown to offset the tax deferral. Here’s hoping
Kosy123
Senior Member
I honestly wish there was a downtown centric, easy to see database for downtown statistics. I know the Downtown Investment Plan said they had KPIs to meet, but are they going to be publicly released once that gets going? Who knows.
kcantor
Senior Member
Sometimes the cynic in me thinks these things aren't readily available - either statistics or KPI's - because that would also introduce accountability.
And then we get to convolute things even more by ever-changing vernacular - homelessness to houselessness, affordable housing to attainable housing etc. - and the use of different or changing boundaries.
policyenthusiast
Senior Member
Likely a similar situation happening in the Bank of Canada. They keep changing the benchmarks to maintain the illusion of a resilient economy, because recognizing economic weakness would disincentivize investment, further making economic weakness a problem.
thommyjo
Senior Member
Yeah, i don’t think rossdale and boyle street are downtown. If anything, going west of 109st best represent downtown rentals, potentially all the way to 124st. I think 105ave, 100st as boundaries tells a very different story. (Pearl, citizen, promenade condos, Macleran, etc are all prettymuch downtown and luxury).
And when you factor in how most of the suburban areas don’t even have “old stock” yet, the contrast is even higher.
If you compared rents based on year built, and especially if you factored in sqft, not just bdrms, you’d see downtown way above any suburban areas.
Which is why any claims of downtown have low rates and low income residents feels beyond disconnected from reality.
Oilers99
Active Member
Downtown rents are sluggish and that’s why projects are now much smaller (6 and 7 storey buildings). Rents in suburban Edmonton are very comparable to downtown and from a return standpoint due to reduced land costs sometimes pencil better.