Mayor proposes rental zone in city
Mayor Plante is proposing a rental zone to hold back condo conversions from eating up the rental stock this city has relied on for more than a century. But she doesn’t mention Airbnb-style rentals here, which I suspect have taken more rentals out of circulation than condos, and in a shorter time.
Bill 09:28 on 2020-01-22 Permalink
Well, at least it’s a start.
Another thing to be looked at that could be rezoning commercial buildings to residential. Where applicable, a lot of empty retail shops could be reconfigured for housing. Retail is undergoing a massive disruption and there’s a real shortage of housing out there.
JaneyB 10:06 on 2020-01-22 Permalink
I was also thinking some of the old/dying malls could be changed into rinks. They don’t have to have seating, just a place to skate. The rink time crisis in this city is nuts. Put them everywhere. Why not small rinks in neighbourhood strip malls where kids can skate?
Airbnb though is the real problem. Someone needs to break that beast and soon. Tenants renting spare rooms is one thing, the ‘distributed hotel’ thing by companies or huge landlords needs to stop.
Kate 10:13 on 2020-01-22 Permalink
Bill, but then spaces on commercial streets will be dead to retail forever.
In a sense that trend has been going on in a small way for a long time. When I moved into my current Villeray place in 2005, there were two dépanneurs within a minute of my front door. Eventually one closed, was boarded up, and the space was eventually converted into an apartment. Changes like this have happened gradually all over the Plateau and Villeray, and probably elsewhere. But that’s just occasional corner stores. Breaking up commercial streets with all-residential conversions would be deadly.
Spi 11:30 on 2020-01-22 Permalink
What does that do for la “mixité-social” that everyone keeps preaching about? The city bemoans that developers aren’t building enough family units and that families are forced to move off-island yet one of the few instances where people can find and own family-sized dwellings, the city wants to stop. All this does it lock in and amplifies the existing problems, existing family-sized homes and condo will keep spiraling in prices because there won’t be more available. Property owners that want to sell have no choice but to find deep-pocketed investors to buy the whole building and they will want to recoup their money through renovictions.
Kate 13:36 on 2020-01-22 Permalink
Spi, nobody is proposing not allowing anyone to build rental properties outside the zone. Inside it, or them if there’s more than one, it would be difficult or impossible to do condo conversions. Plante does not mention also outlawing Airbnb, but it would be a futile exercise if that’s still allowed.