MarketUrbanismKamloops

Housing Affordability and Availability remains a fraught topic about town these days. On the Supply side, it is well known at this point that we need thousands more housing units, and that each year the deficit of housing grows. We are not keeping up to current demand, let alone making a dent in the existing shortages. Understanding a bit about the basics of economics and business cases for new housing supply might go a long way to understanding what is going on. When people hear of $300,000 for a micro suite, they react thinking its nuts. However when you dig a bit deeper, you find out that the rules that we have which guide development in our country basically mandate this situation - combined with modern work standards in both material supply and construction wages being strong (it's own supply/demand situation as well). This article is about new housing supply, building and developing it, not about the price of existing housing. Also of note - while housing prices may be coming...

 The IDEA series is just that, some crazy ideas, some pragmatic ones, that seek to enrich and strengthen our City. ----- Yup, you probably have heard about the Gondola! Yes it has been given over to the public domain and the casual bounce around of crazy ideas in town - sometimes mocked, sometimes advocated.  I first wrote about this in 2011 on my blog Stronger Kamloops, and then put it again in the 2012 book Stronger Kamloops  on page 174. That book didn't exactly make a splash, but it did get around, and that year Arjun held his Idea Fest, where the idea further got around. Why do I feel like bringing this up again? Well an idea, however misunderstood and teased, that has pervaded for a decade, ought I think to get a fair account of its true proposal. So without ambling too much: The Qualifier: In order to be used/effective new Public Transit has to be four things, and it HAS to be all four. Without being all four of these things for its demographic, it is unlikely to s...