Affordable housing: problems and (possible) solutions

Winnipeg has been abuzz with excitement over a surge of recent commercial and residential development in the downtown.

Several new projects have been kick-started by the $20 million Centre Venture grant program (likely to be extended shortly). There are also tentative plans for the former Salvation Army Citadel on the corner of King and Rupert.

Meanwhile, Red River College’s expansion into the Union Bank Tower, the revitalization of Portage Avenue’s Avenue Building, and the development of the Peace Tower; an affordable residential complex for new immigrants, have all been approved.

Additionally, we may soon see a new hotel on Waterfront Drive.

This storm of new development is exciting and will undoubtedly benefit downtown Winnipeg. However, it is important to remain skeptical.

The city still faces a chronic shortage of affordable housing units as well as a vacancy rate that hovers around or below one per cent.

Although this recent development boom will help aid that situation, the majority of these new developments are either apartment complexes with high per-unit costs (the revitalization of the Avenue building is costing the developers $144,000 per unit) or similarly costly, and certainly unaffordable, condominiums (the conversion of the Penthouse Furniture building into a condo complex on Princess Street is costing the developers $175,000 per unit).

Blogger Robert Galston of the Rise and Sprawl has actively questioned the city’s development strategy by criticizing the bunker-like aesthetic of the proposed Peace Tower.

In a recent post, he also outlined the costs associated with these developments, citing a more proactive (and affordable) solution to the affordable housing problem.

I entirely agree with Galston’s position that the city, in co-operation with the province, should make it easier for people to build extensions on to their home, or to rent out portions of their home to others, and that a bizarre process of receiving committee approval is completely unnecessary.

Only naysayers and NIMBY neighbors would protest a living arrangement between two citizens or the development of high density lane housing, he wrote.

However, there is clearly a NIMBY-like bias in downtown Winnipeg favouring development based on economic wealth and status. When the development is not a condominium, the popular consensus is to develop student or immigrant housing.

The idea of affordable housing for a multiplicity of people seems to have been rejected.

It is good to have a mix of housing downtown. However, a confluence of condominiums is largely another means to benefit a wealthy class segment of Winnipeg.

One solution might be to transform Centre Venture’s $20 million into a series of conditional grants for affordable rental units.

Or, as the great George Carlin once said:

“I have just the place for low cost housing…golf courses!”