this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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50k new homes, in the middle of nowhere.
Exactly how much would it cost to build those new homes, including the infrastructure? How much would it cost to maintain? How much more would it cost compared to changing zoning laws and making high density housing near the city cores?
Who's going to be paying for all that? Ah yes, from our taxes.
In Ontario, "growth pays for growth", which is a pithy way of saying that developers are required to pay for the expense of deploying new infrastructure required for their development. There are debates about whether or not this is the best way to do things.
That would be fine, but there's no system in place for the companies developing that land to actually pay for the building and maintenance of roads and sewers.
And you know there isn't, as suburb houses don't cost $2M each or anything. If that cost isn't on the price tag for buying the house, then there's only one other place the cost could have come from.
AFAIK they do "actually pay" for the construction of sewers, roads, electricity, water mains, and any other required infrastructure. They don't pay for the maintenance, the municipality does. This is different than Quebec, where the municipality pays for deployment and maintenance. Again, there are pros and cons and ongoing debates about which way is better. One of the Canadian urban planning channels covered this a year or two ago.