Housing issue is simply supply and demand

Re: “Mayors oblivious to woes of taxpayers,” April 20.

Jordan Bateman writes of the Lower Mainland mayors who “never take responsibility” for issues, instead blaming the province and demanding more money. The column could just as easily have been written about Victoria’s council.

On Friday, we hear that they are demanding the province implement a 15 per cent foreign tax to curb “speculative” property purchases by non-residents. Seriously? Ask any real-estate agent: The “problem” is a significant shortage of listings, not foreign “speculators.”

There is more demand than supply. That is basic economics, and incidentally, a “problem” that no homeowner in Victoria is crying about.

Victoria has only 6,700 single-family homes and no room for more. The only way to expand the housing supply is to build more multi-family units.

If council is concerned about rising prices, it must get serious about higher densification downtown. It must stop standing in the way of five- or six-storey buildings on busy inner-city thoroughfares and stop standing in the way of higher buildings.

It must consider the redevelopment of the urban wasteland in the Douglas Street corridor north of Caledonia, and it must stop the incessant pre-occupation with “affordable housing,” and other artificial and useless means of manipulating the market.

The choice is clear and completely in Victoria council’s control: Save all the nondescript buildings in downtown and the car dealerships, strip malls and fast-food joints to the north, or densify as other cities have done. Victoria might just be a more exciting city as a result.

Chris Lawson Victoria