Dear Editor,
[Re: Painful Truth - New pipelines are a pipe dream, 91原创 Advance Times, April 23]
After reading Matthew Claxton's informative opinion piece in the 91原创 Advance Times about the fact that an oil pipeline across Canada is never going to happen, it reminded me of another promise being made by our hopeful party leaders currently running for election. That's the one whereby they are going to spend billions on creating new housing.
Decent housing for so many Canadians who are struggling to get by without it was definitely a hot item on the campaign trail. Apparently how to solve this problem is to throw millions, even billions, at it.
I suspect that none of these party leaders have ever built a house much less put together a real estate development.
The picture they prefer to sell is that of housing tracts built along a picturesque hillside or maybe that of a high-rise apartment building in the centre of a bustling community. It is somehow supposed that it is those federal millions that will put these desired homes in position.
However, the major issue that seems to be overlooked in these dreams is that in order for these wonderful abodes to be created, they require land, not just a piece of forgotten farmland that one might see along the highway but serviced land.
In order to build any kind of housing, a builder/developer needs to own a very expensive plot of Canadian land that has; both sanitary and storm sewer, water, gas, power, paved roads, sidewalks, parks and especially zoning 鈥� plus whatever else the local municipality may require, such as Development Cost Charges. It is the municipalities that grant the zoning that is required to get on with any housing project, no matter who is putting up the money.
Even before one house gets built, all of this has to be paid for. Either the developer buys a piece of property and waits a couple of years until these services come near enough that he/she can extend them over to his/her property. Or, he/she buys a very expensive piece of land that has all of these services and zoning already installed by some other group who then sells it as a finished product.
Of course, with all this cheap government money being promised, these scenarios will become even more profitable for the developer 鈥� and the limited available land even more expensive than it is now.
Evan Brett, Walnut Grove
