5 points
*
So let’s not subsidize sprawl. Let’s make it so all Canadian cities look like Montreal: dense, walkable, pretty, and transit and cycling oriented. But the idea that existing owners should be given a pass is antisocial.
3 points
My point is that the principle of existing homeowners funding infrastructure for new homes is only tenable when
- developers are not creating huge externalities by creating ever larger suburbs with infrastructure funded by the core (take Ottawa as an example for that dynamic)
- when the base of established homeowners is large enough to support the rate of growth.
In the first case, development fees based on lot size for new sprawling burbs are a reasonable way to push the market towards density.
In the second case, with a high rate of growth in a specific market, other means of redistribution such as government subsidies may be a better way to redistribute.
2 points
-3 points
I’d be fine with a free market approach. Let developers build density where it is in demand, and sprawl where it is not.
7 points
1 point
*
