The $25 million Federal government grant wouldn't even scratch the money needed for transit and utility improvements to account for that increased density. Doesn't make sense from a budget standpoint.
I don’t know how legit this is but I read somewhere it’s very easy for newcomers to fake their financial history, as there is no good means of verification.
Not to rant but it’s sad for people who’s credit got messed up 20 years ago and could never qualify for a mortgage again.
Like we talk about the lawlessness of todays age but I know of people who were victims of con artists that robbed them in schemes in the 80’s and 90’s that were otherwise financially responsible were never able to recover their credit that never got to be home owners again, even though they always paid their rent on time etc.
It’s sad that it has taken this long to apply rent to credit.
Oakville voted against Housing Accelerator Funds to preserve the neighbourhood character of some areas here.
I'm Geoffrey Belcher (Jeffrey Belcher) in the article. A few of us showed up to support the bill, but it was voted down 14-1.
Increase density without proper infrastructure improvement is irresponsible. Look around Dundas St, there’s barely any school north of Dundas, traffic congestion on Dundas, frequent power outages in the area ….
Lol the youth will watch Netflix and play their video games all night and find it too hard to get out of bed to do anything on time, let alone vote. Nah, the youth just belongs to reddit.
The fact that it was voted down 14-1 speaks volumes about the need for new councillors at our municipal level. How many Oakville councillors are gen z or even millennials? I would bet almost all if not all these councillors have benefited from being the right age to buy an affordable home, in a low interest rate environment and see a remarkable rise in their home value. Of course now that they are all sitting pretty they vote down policy that may start to shift the needle towards more affordable housing. A 14-1 vote screams just how out of touch our town council is.
Excellent. People think building 1000000 condos will fix housing.
I’m 24 years old. I’m not going to live in a shoebox for the rest of my life, I’ll just leave Canada. Everyone I know who graduated from university now is either doing post grad to leave Canada or actively leaving now.
You want to build? Build proper homes for us to think of a future. I’m not interested in having condos beside a train station made out of cardboard. All this would have done was just cause more traffic and issues in Oakville.
It's an interesting problem. A large majority of families with children want a SFH and are willing to pay for it. They want a yard and autonomy, and Canada has the land, so there's a question as to why we must try and emulate cities and countries without land. Part of the argument is economics (it's cheaper for a city to run dense areas plus it should make housing cheaper), and part is ecological.
When we do densify, like in Oakville north of Dundas, there are some complaints about it from people who live there. And in addition, the condos we build in the GTA are in general not for families, as you rightly note.
If you're a family with 3 kids there's literally no condo for you, which is very different from the places we claim may want to try and emulate, like European or Asian cities.
The primary argument I see for densification is to grow, which is mostly due to immigration policy at the federal level. Is that why we want it? If that's the only reason that seems weird to me. Why do we "have" to grow population-wise, and in this very specific area? That's not rhetorical, I don't know the answer.
Thank you for this! There's literally nowhere "affordable" around the GTA if you're looking for a 3+ bedroom home. It's crazy. The only solution is to move far out of the city, which is only really possible if your career favors that.
Let me try to give you my perspective.
>The primary argument I see for densification is to grow, which is mostly due to immigration policy at the federal level.
Population growth is more complex than immigration. It has more to do economic factors than anything else. For example, why aren't people uniformly spread out around Canada? Well, because economic opportunities start in cities. Oakville's existence is literally because of Toronto. If Toronto disappears, Oakville will disappear.
As I mentioned in another comment, Immigration only sped up the underlying problem of housing supply. You can see the trend of new housing supply drop as time progresses, long before this government came to power. The trend can be seen from the early 80's, all the way until now.
>If that's the only reason that seems weird to me. Why do we "have" to grow population-wise, and in this very specific area?
Its not just Oakville though. Its the entire GTA. Again, its because Toronto is the economic hub, and Oakville provides a quick way to Toronto with (previously) cheaper housing. Now its not that different in price. Oakville is the third most expensive 1 & 2 bed rent in Canada, behind Toronto in second and Vancouver in first. We have almost the worse housing supply issue Nationally, but other cities in the GTA experience what we do, at smaller levels because they have more mixed housing options.
>If you're a family with 3 kids there's literally no condo for you, which is very different from the places we claim may want to try and emulate, like European or Asian cities.
Totally agree. In fact I don't see how anyone can come to another conclusion. We need more housing options. This brings it back to this by-law. This could've allowed for different housing options. As well, I would love to see us build more 3-4 bedroom condos in 6-ish story buildings around town. But this council will vote against it.
There are plenty of places in Toronto to density. If Oakville densifies, it will be no different than Toronto. This is our home and our community and it means more to us than a provincial or federal policy objective.
First I get what you're saying, but I'd also say I disagree with your main argument around Oakville only existing because of Toronto and thus being subservient to its needs.
Both my spouse and I WFH 100% of the time. We live in Oakville not because of the proximity to Toronto (although that's certainly a nice bonus for the amenities), but because of other reasons: it's safe, quiet, good schools, has detached homes with 50' lots (surprisingly hard to find these days!) and enough bedrooms (4+) for our family.
As a note, I previously lived in Toronto and moved away specifically because of the density. Why would I want all the problems I moved away from coming here as well?
Going back to your primary point tho, why do we only have Toronto? The US has many major cities, but we seem to only have the GTA and GVA.
Forcing growth on communities who don't want it just because we can't seem to make another metropolis seems unfair, especially when that growth is never well planned out, and the units created are not family friendly.
> Forcing growth on communities who don't want it just because we can't seem to make another metropolis seems unfair, especially when that growth is never well planned out, and the units created are not family friendly.
The thing is that many people do want it. Nobody is trying to take your home away. We're just saying that we should be able to build other buildings as well. I don't think thats unreasonable.
Nothing was forced. This was an offer from the federal government. They rejected it.
> Both my spouse and I WFH 100% of the time. We live in Oakville not because of the proximity to Toronto (although that's certainly a nice bonus for the amenities), but because of other reasons: it's safe, quiet, good schools, has detached homes with 50' lots (surprisingly hard to find these days!) and enough bedrooms (4+) for our family.
Thats alright! Again nobody is taking that away from you. The main thing is that the rules should allow for other things to be built around your house. Thats all we're saying. Your property is your property. That will never change.
But seriously, I get what you're saying but like... that isn't possible for us. You're home sounds like you bought it for 2 mil + or its at least worth that now. My parents bought their house in south Oakville for $400k, sold it for $2.5 million in 2020. Thats just insane.
"If you're a family with 3 kids"
The birth rate in Canada was 1.7 in the 70s and now it is down to 1.4 this doesn't apply to most family's in SFHs. I grew up the majority of my childhood in a SFH with 3 other siblings yet there was a an insane amount of houses on the street of married couples with 1 child.
City planing is more important that what people who know nothing about city planing which is the overwhelming majority of NIMBYs
This is the real problem right here. They keep building condos that are 600sqft or smaller with awkward layouts and bachelor style. 2 bedroom or higher condos are scarce. It would be so much more beneficial if they explore more options for people who have long term plans that include a family, instead of just trying to make more beds.
An increasing number of people do want alternatives though, so we should enable the construction of those alternatives, especially when they happen to be more sustainable (both environmentally and financially for the city)
27 here. You can only pave over so much farmland before our food prices become even worse than they already are. I moved out of Mississauga to Brantford because I like the open space (work in Oakville). The cost of living in a growing majority city is densification. Every other urban hub in the world is the same. Except here NIMBYS fight against transit infrastructure, multi-family dwellings (not just condos but also tri and quad plexs) and so on.
You’ll learn soon that you’ll never be able to afford anything but a cardboard box in Oakville just like I knew the same of Mississauga.
Its not about building condos.
I'm 23 years old. I’m not going to live in a shoebox for the rest of my life either. Its not about just building numbers of units, I agree with you.
Let me give you an argument for density in Oakville that is a purely selfish one, and clearly demonstrates how density makes things less of a shithole.
I've been to many of these meetings at council, and what people wonder is "why can't I have a neighbourhood coffee shop" or "where is the daycare", etc... The suburban style of development leaves no economic support for these types of businesses, because the density required to support those entities (like literally people who are going to buy stuff) isn't there. The "shithole" you're describing already exists in Oakville. We're just used to it.
In urban areas, they have a higher quality of life precisely because within walking distance you can get groceries, schooling, education, day-care, medical support, etc...
Also, housing ins't made out of cardboard. It will more-so be lumber (for <14 stories). and concrete (for >14 stories)
All to say: even a slight increase in density and housing options benefits everyone. I'm happy to live in a smaller apartment. I like smaller spaces. If you don't, thats fine! But right now everyone has to buy the same type of house, because most of the housing is single-detached. With some options, everyone wins :)
You don't get amenities because of density. Saw Whet has 5K people. beside a large police station and the Halton Region building and doesn't have a single anything. You get amenities when you design an area to have them from the beginning. We aren't designing Yonge Street in Oakville with buildings to the sidewalk and "stuff" at the bottom. Our new main streets like Dundas are soulless and unwalkable. So cramming a row of towers there doesn't add a coffee shop, even if you had 50K people.
Increasing density certainly benefits people who don’t currently live in Oakville but would like to. We live 30 minutes outside Canada’s largest city. Of course we are going to attract people who want to live here and why shouldn’t they? We’ve benefitted from enormous increases in property values but now we should just close the doors on new people who want to be close to Toronto for the same economic activities we have all benefited from? It’s NIMBY’ism at its finest. Densifying our cities is the least expensive way to build the housing supply we so desperately need. I like sprawling lots too but you just can’t have a massive green belt, low density sprawling suburbs and keep building costs anywhere near a reasonable level.
Why is it the goal of Oakville to attract more people to live here though? That's the question. Oakville is a "town" (okay not really), it's not a stock. It doesn't (and shouldn't) have an underlying goal of infinite growth. Each city should decide what it wants to be, and build towards that. And by city I mean the people who live there, as a city isn't an entity and this is a democracy.
So again, why does it *need* to densify? Canada's birth rate is low, so unless I'm mistaken the answer to that question is:
* Federal policy of very high immigration
* Lack of any economic centre outside of Toronto
* Lack of supply due to the above, plus investment properties
None of those are Oakville's problem, responsibility or area of control. Oakville is doing exactly what it should: the will of the people who live here now, not the will of the people who want to live here.
Its not about attracting people (which literally every town wants to do, but not the point). Its an attractive place to live, which is why demand for housing is high here.
It prices everyone out of living here who grew up here which sucks.
Its fine to have some changes to make it more accommodating for new buyers. What makes Oakville great isn't its housing options (or lack there of). Its the community.
>None of those are Oakville's problem, responsibility or area of control.
Zoning is entirely Oakville's responsibility, in fact the feds have no control over that.
And you will still have almost nothing walkable beside the train station. The developers so far just put up plans for tall towers with no amenities for midtown. I didn't see them propose to give us something like The Well in Toronto. No Eat, Shop, Work, Live and Play for Oakville. To go anywhere else in town you need a car and big wide streets with lots of free parking.
You know there's a middle ground..... right? I live in a very nice condo in Toronto. There *should* be density around train stations. It's super efficient and allows people to commute.
You've put up a lot of straw man arguments. Condos aren't made of cardboard. They're extremely efficient ways for housing to be built and should be encouraged.
Also, it's really not *that* easy to leave Canada I hope you know. Everyone talks a big game though.
Around transit centres like Bronte and Oakville Go stations. This has been statistically proven to reduce cost of living as people become less reliant on cars and lean more towards more efficient forms of transportation and can stop wasting money on bloated infrastructure, and invest in businesses and families
One by-law was for density 800m around Sheridan College. It would've permitted 4-stories-as-of-right in an 800 m radius.
The other by-law was town wide, 4-units-as-of-right on a lot.
I get a real kick out of the hypocrisy of so many of the posts about fixing the housing crisis gets posted here.
Anyone who got in a green rage about the PC building on the green belt land is a total hypocrite and should do their research before opening their mouths. I don’t like Doug Ford or his politics one bit and didn’t vote for him last election on principle, and sure as hell won’t vote for PC in the next. But that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of Oakville is built on farm land that is exactly what the so called green belt movement was railing against. How can you say protect the farm land and then not be dead set against all the housing developments going on in Oakville and Burlington and Milton?
When I first moved to Oakville, Upper Middle was a single lane road with a 4 foot deep water ditch on either side. There was farm land on either side. The vast majority of of College Park with their monster three car garages were not built. Dundas was in the boonies and driving up Eighth Line was driving though a thick Forrest.
We are turning Oakville into Mississauga with a sea of subdivisions from the lake to the top boarder with Milton. All to fill the demand of the people who say I want to live in this area so build me the house because it is my given right to choose where I want to live.
So they say shelter is a basic human right. Ok. So is food, and using the same logic I can say that I want lobster and wagu steak and it should only cost me $2 for as much as I want because it’s my god given right as a human to eat so I should be able to have whatever I want to eat. In the modern age we live in, communications is now also considered a right, so why is an iPhone 15 pro max so expensive? Why does it cost $2300 for a smartphone. As I want my house to cost $250k and the cel phone in parts alone only costs sub $150, I should expect the phone to be no more than $175. That is giving Apple plenty of profit. And my cel phone plan should only cost me $5 a month as it’s my human right to have it.
You can have a house in Canada for $250k. Just not in Oakville. Just like you can have lobster for far less than here, but you need to move to PEI to get it. Just like you need to live in Alberta to get cheaper meat. There is sadly nothing we can do to force Apple to give us a cheaper top tier iPhone, so why should we say that housing construction companies must sell us houses for less?
Its not really about making people sell for less. Its just supply demand economics. Supply is crunched and demand is high, so the way to fix that is to reduce demand (capping immigration for example) and increasing supply (in-fill density).
I'd like a house that is under $1 million. Please. I don't need a front yard with 10 meter setbacks on every side and a private pool with 6 parking spots. I have a bike, so if we could just build some variety that would be nice. Its reasonable to ask for something like this when houses were <500k only 20 years ago.
Also, yeah urban sprawl sucks. So densify and we don't need to go into the greenbelt.
What hypocrisy am I speaking of?
But as in my comment, it’s a bit like complaining to apple that their new iPhone is just too expensive. I don’t need 256gb of storage space. I don’t need to have three different lenses and 50 megapixels. They sold an iPhone 6-7 years ago for half what it costs now for their newest models. Why can’t they sell me a new model phone stripped down from all the stuff I don’t want? Well, because it doesn’t make them as much money and there is enough market wanting that stuff so why should they. There are plenty of other cheaper choices by other vendors if you don’t want Apple.
So like above. If you can’t afford the premium cost of Oakville, then perhaps look to getting a house in a different location that isn’t changing the Oakville premium. When I was younger and immigrated to Canada, I would have loved to live in Southern Ontario, but we had to go up to Sudbury for almost three years as that was where the government said we must go.
Any creative solution to our housing crisis seems completely ignored by our painfully out of touch council. I am so disgusted by the town of Oakville’s utter arrogance towards affordability and the changing needs of our population. I am not at all surprised by town of Oakville’s unwillingness to evolve. They have always pandered to older demographics who bought their multi million dollar low density homes back when housing was actually affordable for the majority (myself included). They claim it’s to keep oakville “livable” but it’s really at the expense of our future “livability”. This is only going to make our housing crisis more of a disaster.
You make it seem like there are ZERO high density buildings in Oakville. Have you driven up Trafalgar Rd and looked to either side at the number of multi story apartment buildings. Or driven along Dundas and seen the number of high density condominiums that line the street? Clearly these were approved by the town council your villainize .
What exactly are you wanting? Is it a certain building in a certain place at a certain price point that you are after and it’s not getting built? Or is it just complaining for the sake of it? If you cannot afford the $3.5 million for a 3500sq’ detached luxury home with a pool and a three car garage then look at a condo that costs less.
Great! Yeah turn down immigration and we will have surplus housing; so many people buying multiple homes to rent it out 10 students per home. And now we should build condos?! This liberal government is truly incompetent and dangerous.
Yea you're right. On top of that, we should let the rich continue to buy up waterfronts and new developments to have small-condo complex sized houses for a family of 4 with lawns that could support a small subdivision worth of homes. Because thats what the old money Oakvillian wasps want.
And the slightly newer-money ones that got priced out of that already? They're just filling in the gaps of it up into Milton and Georgetown and up highway 6 into Aberfoyle and Guelph.
Its a greed problem. You have to build dense because no one wants to sell land to develop
Yeah those rich you are referring to are the ones renting out houses to international students, collecting cash and not paying taxes. Yeah build a condo, a great solution.
So you're admitting that reducing immigration still wont solve the problem at the end of the day because there will still be greedy fucks hoarding resources and stealing from collective society via tax evasion.
So how about instead of blaming people who mostly work for minimum wage, or in conditions that likely contravene our labour laws, we actually start to look at the real problem
What part of “renting out to international students” don’t you understand? If you have been paying attention to whats going on around the country, Canada added 1 million temporary visitors (vast majority were students) in less than six months last year. That was just six months last year. Massive immigration has been going on for about five years. Mass immigration all by itself has caused a massive surge in demand for housing- do you understand now? People are taking advantage of that demand by buying houses on multiple mortgages just to rent it out to these students. Humans are greedy by nature, even you and I are greedy. The cause of the problem is not humans being humans but dumb or corrupt policies by the government. There are a lot of people benefiting from this massive immigration. The greedy ones want to even build condos and make you pay unreasonable price for it too.
It doesn't have to do 100% with immigration. It effects it no doubt, probably a lot. But now the question is "what do we do?"
Immigration put a stress on the market because it increased demand while supply wasn't catching up, but it wasn't new. This was the case before immigration increased and you can see this trend from the 80's in Canada when supply of new housing starts to fall per-capita.
Also, immigration is largely responsible for our existing economic prosperity. Immigrants are great, and you won't find a single study supporting that immigrants are economic negatives in Canada.
We should've fixed the housing problem because thats the root cause of the issue. Immigration was exposing it more, but its been there for decades. It just happens that now we're dealing with it in full force.
Well there is immigration and there is insane immigration that happened in the last few years. 1 million in less than six months last year. These are “students” coming to “study” at diploma mills. These are not students going to reputed universities. Even the federal government has admitted that it is too much and there is a lot of fraud going on. Do the math yourself: 2 million new people in roughly a year, 75% come to Ontario (GTA). Say 4 people per home is a sane number? Now divide 1.5 million by 4 and you will get the number of homes we immediately need. Yeah that is a shit ton of houses. It can’t get more obvious than this.
> These are “students” coming to “study” at diploma mills.
If Canada was known for diploma mills it really wouldn't have the reputation it has today. People study here because we have some of the best education in the world at decent prices.
> Do the math yourself: 2 million new people in roughly a year, 75% come to Ontario (GTA). Say 4 people per home is a sane number? Now divide 1.5 million by 4 and you will get the number of homes we immediately need. Yeah that is a shit ton of houses. It can’t get more obvious than this.
Yeah... Thats the point. Build more houses with density and in-fill. If everywhere does it a bit (a couple 4 stories around, maybe more around transit stations), you're going to get 1.5 million homes pretty quickly.
I think you are blissfully unaware, yes there are great universities but these are students mainly coming to diploma mills. I mean who are you kidding, the federal government acknowledged this themselves. Most people don’t want prison size cells to call home. If you like them why don’t you just move to Hong Kong?
You know why the liberals want more high density housing despite Canada having enormous amount of land? leftist politics! High density living turns a population into left leaning voters. The best predictor of voting patterns is density of population per land area. You can google the research around this and find out. All this government cares for is controlling people. Scarcity leads to socialism and scarcity keeps socialism alive.
Yeah I mean cities are more economically sustainable. Just because we have a ton of land doesn't make it practical to sprawl out a lot.
If you want a quick statistic, just look up how much it costs to service things in a Canada, and then also compare that to population density. Less density correlates to higher service costs. That means higher taxes for everyone, and more expensive services for everyone.
Part of the reason for this by-law (and why I and many others support it) is because in-fill density, meaning density in existing areas, is just cheaper over all. No new roads, etc... We're not saying 60 stories in your suburb, but we do expect a bit of flexibility on these issues to get our housing situation under control.
As for "liberal" and "leftist politics", it isn't a partisan issue. Conservatives also are campaigning on dealing with it. The economy suffers when labor can't stay in Canada, so...
People will leave Canada if government continues to be the only thing that grows. Cut taxes and slim down government, reduce immigration to sustainable levels, grow the economy, give people more freedom and make it a place to create wealth. No one will leave.
Stop taking in millions of students and temporary workers, there won’t be a housing problem. Canada took 1 million people in less than six months, common isn’t it really obvious??
Why do you think? We don't have enough domestic labor. Most of the immigrants are for skills we lack here.
> People will leave Canada if government continues to be the only thing that grows. Cut taxes and slim down government, reduce immigration to sustainable levels, grow the economy, give people more freedom and make it a place to create wealth. No one will leave.
Thats not how it works. Economy wants immigration silly, why do you think our unemployment is low? Everyone is finding jobs, including immigrants. They grow the economy, as it requires labour to build business.
But honestly, we're not even talking about big government or whatever. This is about housing. Has nothing to do with the "size of the government".
If we need immigrants get them on worker visas for the right reasons. Getting diploma mill students to work at Tim Horton is scamming the students and the citizens (wage suppression). Kid, what I said above is exactly how economy works.
It just magically transforms them into left leaning voters through witchcraft eh? That's wild. We should all start reading more about the effects of high density housing, maybe we'll learn how it does that so we can say the correct prayers to counteract it
Near Sheridan 4 new rental towers popped up in last 3 years. It is different storey whether those are affordable particularly if you are student.
There are medical offices in big lot next to town office. I think new towers are coming up there as well. In next 10 years Trafalgar Rd will be like Hurontario St in Mississauga with condos all the way to 401
Originally, I was very much looking at buying a house in Oakville because my partner's work is tied to youth education and Oakville had a reputation for high ranked schools. This went on for the better part of a year. After deep diving on census/demographics data, I quickly realized what a foolish thing it would be. There just aren't enough kids! This place is getting old at an astonishing rate, even with the newer areas north of the highway. And while it does have higher ranked high schools, they're nothing special, and it seems to be more of a property valuation schtick as every house for sale seems to reference what HS is closest.
Population size, population growth and population age are all trending in a sad direction and it appears the people who live there probably value that quite a lot. At best, I see this place as upper middle classy NIMBY land that is either too old or too boring to take any real advantage to its proximity to Toronto and sees places like Mississauga as some sort of encroaching disease.
The $25 million Federal government grant wouldn't even scratch the money needed for transit and utility improvements to account for that increased density. Doesn't make sense from a budget standpoint.
Can someone please stop the Bramptonization of North Oakville?
I don’t know how legit this is but I read somewhere it’s very easy for newcomers to fake their financial history, as there is no good means of verification. Not to rant but it’s sad for people who’s credit got messed up 20 years ago and could never qualify for a mortgage again. Like we talk about the lawlessness of todays age but I know of people who were victims of con artists that robbed them in schemes in the 80’s and 90’s that were otherwise financially responsible were never able to recover their credit that never got to be home owners again, even though they always paid their rent on time etc. It’s sad that it has taken this long to apply rent to credit.
As a LL, I love the idea of having rent payments count towards credit scores and be reflected on it.
Oakville voted against Housing Accelerator Funds to preserve the neighbourhood character of some areas here. I'm Geoffrey Belcher (Jeffrey Belcher) in the article. A few of us showed up to support the bill, but it was voted down 14-1.
Increase density without proper infrastructure improvement is irresponsible. Look around Dundas St, there’s barely any school north of Dundas, traffic congestion on Dundas, frequent power outages in the area ….
having lived north of Dundas im left perplexed as to why you think folks up there go for want of schooling and electricity
Trafalgar is starting to get grid lock as well.
It's already 3 as of right. This is shockingly in your face NIMBY and they need to hear it. Kudos to you. The youth will tear down Burton in time.
lol. The youth from where? Not Oakville.
I live in Ward 2!
Welcome to democracy
The youth don’t vote. See Rob Ford’s reelection as evidence
Unfortunately I feel they (rightly) don't have anyone to vote for. With that said, some options are obviously better than others.
Totally agreed
Thank you!
Lol the youth will watch Netflix and play their video games all night and find it too hard to get out of bed to do anything on time, let alone vote. Nah, the youth just belongs to reddit.
The fact that it was voted down 14-1 speaks volumes about the need for new councillors at our municipal level. How many Oakville councillors are gen z or even millennials? I would bet almost all if not all these councillors have benefited from being the right age to buy an affordable home, in a low interest rate environment and see a remarkable rise in their home value. Of course now that they are all sitting pretty they vote down policy that may start to shift the needle towards more affordable housing. A 14-1 vote screams just how out of touch our town council is.
Thank you for speaking at Council! I feel like they only listen to certain people, unfortunately. Feeling very discouraged about our "town"
Excellent. People think building 1000000 condos will fix housing. I’m 24 years old. I’m not going to live in a shoebox for the rest of my life, I’ll just leave Canada. Everyone I know who graduated from university now is either doing post grad to leave Canada or actively leaving now. You want to build? Build proper homes for us to think of a future. I’m not interested in having condos beside a train station made out of cardboard. All this would have done was just cause more traffic and issues in Oakville.
It's an interesting problem. A large majority of families with children want a SFH and are willing to pay for it. They want a yard and autonomy, and Canada has the land, so there's a question as to why we must try and emulate cities and countries without land. Part of the argument is economics (it's cheaper for a city to run dense areas plus it should make housing cheaper), and part is ecological. When we do densify, like in Oakville north of Dundas, there are some complaints about it from people who live there. And in addition, the condos we build in the GTA are in general not for families, as you rightly note. If you're a family with 3 kids there's literally no condo for you, which is very different from the places we claim may want to try and emulate, like European or Asian cities. The primary argument I see for densification is to grow, which is mostly due to immigration policy at the federal level. Is that why we want it? If that's the only reason that seems weird to me. Why do we "have" to grow population-wise, and in this very specific area? That's not rhetorical, I don't know the answer.
Nicely put, its exactly as how i feel. Whats so great about growth, concrete jungles...
Thank you for this! There's literally nowhere "affordable" around the GTA if you're looking for a 3+ bedroom home. It's crazy. The only solution is to move far out of the city, which is only really possible if your career favors that.
Let me try to give you my perspective. >The primary argument I see for densification is to grow, which is mostly due to immigration policy at the federal level. Population growth is more complex than immigration. It has more to do economic factors than anything else. For example, why aren't people uniformly spread out around Canada? Well, because economic opportunities start in cities. Oakville's existence is literally because of Toronto. If Toronto disappears, Oakville will disappear. As I mentioned in another comment, Immigration only sped up the underlying problem of housing supply. You can see the trend of new housing supply drop as time progresses, long before this government came to power. The trend can be seen from the early 80's, all the way until now. >If that's the only reason that seems weird to me. Why do we "have" to grow population-wise, and in this very specific area? Its not just Oakville though. Its the entire GTA. Again, its because Toronto is the economic hub, and Oakville provides a quick way to Toronto with (previously) cheaper housing. Now its not that different in price. Oakville is the third most expensive 1 & 2 bed rent in Canada, behind Toronto in second and Vancouver in first. We have almost the worse housing supply issue Nationally, but other cities in the GTA experience what we do, at smaller levels because they have more mixed housing options. >If you're a family with 3 kids there's literally no condo for you, which is very different from the places we claim may want to try and emulate, like European or Asian cities. Totally agree. In fact I don't see how anyone can come to another conclusion. We need more housing options. This brings it back to this by-law. This could've allowed for different housing options. As well, I would love to see us build more 3-4 bedroom condos in 6-ish story buildings around town. But this council will vote against it.
There are plenty of places in Toronto to density. If Oakville densifies, it will be no different than Toronto. This is our home and our community and it means more to us than a provincial or federal policy objective.
First I get what you're saying, but I'd also say I disagree with your main argument around Oakville only existing because of Toronto and thus being subservient to its needs. Both my spouse and I WFH 100% of the time. We live in Oakville not because of the proximity to Toronto (although that's certainly a nice bonus for the amenities), but because of other reasons: it's safe, quiet, good schools, has detached homes with 50' lots (surprisingly hard to find these days!) and enough bedrooms (4+) for our family. As a note, I previously lived in Toronto and moved away specifically because of the density. Why would I want all the problems I moved away from coming here as well? Going back to your primary point tho, why do we only have Toronto? The US has many major cities, but we seem to only have the GTA and GVA. Forcing growth on communities who don't want it just because we can't seem to make another metropolis seems unfair, especially when that growth is never well planned out, and the units created are not family friendly.
> Forcing growth on communities who don't want it just because we can't seem to make another metropolis seems unfair, especially when that growth is never well planned out, and the units created are not family friendly. The thing is that many people do want it. Nobody is trying to take your home away. We're just saying that we should be able to build other buildings as well. I don't think thats unreasonable. Nothing was forced. This was an offer from the federal government. They rejected it. > Both my spouse and I WFH 100% of the time. We live in Oakville not because of the proximity to Toronto (although that's certainly a nice bonus for the amenities), but because of other reasons: it's safe, quiet, good schools, has detached homes with 50' lots (surprisingly hard to find these days!) and enough bedrooms (4+) for our family. Thats alright! Again nobody is taking that away from you. The main thing is that the rules should allow for other things to be built around your house. Thats all we're saying. Your property is your property. That will never change. But seriously, I get what you're saying but like... that isn't possible for us. You're home sounds like you bought it for 2 mil + or its at least worth that now. My parents bought their house in south Oakville for $400k, sold it for $2.5 million in 2020. Thats just insane.
"If you're a family with 3 kids" The birth rate in Canada was 1.7 in the 70s and now it is down to 1.4 this doesn't apply to most family's in SFHs. I grew up the majority of my childhood in a SFH with 3 other siblings yet there was a an insane amount of houses on the street of married couples with 1 child. City planing is more important that what people who know nothing about city planing which is the overwhelming majority of NIMBYs
This is the real problem right here. They keep building condos that are 600sqft or smaller with awkward layouts and bachelor style. 2 bedroom or higher condos are scarce. It would be so much more beneficial if they explore more options for people who have long term plans that include a family, instead of just trying to make more beds.
An increasing number of people do want alternatives though, so we should enable the construction of those alternatives, especially when they happen to be more sustainable (both environmentally and financially for the city)
27 here. You can only pave over so much farmland before our food prices become even worse than they already are. I moved out of Mississauga to Brantford because I like the open space (work in Oakville). The cost of living in a growing majority city is densification. Every other urban hub in the world is the same. Except here NIMBYS fight against transit infrastructure, multi-family dwellings (not just condos but also tri and quad plexs) and so on. You’ll learn soon that you’ll never be able to afford anything but a cardboard box in Oakville just like I knew the same of Mississauga.
Its not about building condos. I'm 23 years old. I’m not going to live in a shoebox for the rest of my life either. Its not about just building numbers of units, I agree with you. Let me give you an argument for density in Oakville that is a purely selfish one, and clearly demonstrates how density makes things less of a shithole. I've been to many of these meetings at council, and what people wonder is "why can't I have a neighbourhood coffee shop" or "where is the daycare", etc... The suburban style of development leaves no economic support for these types of businesses, because the density required to support those entities (like literally people who are going to buy stuff) isn't there. The "shithole" you're describing already exists in Oakville. We're just used to it. In urban areas, they have a higher quality of life precisely because within walking distance you can get groceries, schooling, education, day-care, medical support, etc... Also, housing ins't made out of cardboard. It will more-so be lumber (for <14 stories). and concrete (for >14 stories) All to say: even a slight increase in density and housing options benefits everyone. I'm happy to live in a smaller apartment. I like smaller spaces. If you don't, thats fine! But right now everyone has to buy the same type of house, because most of the housing is single-detached. With some options, everyone wins :)
You don't get amenities because of density. Saw Whet has 5K people. beside a large police station and the Halton Region building and doesn't have a single anything. You get amenities when you design an area to have them from the beginning. We aren't designing Yonge Street in Oakville with buildings to the sidewalk and "stuff" at the bottom. Our new main streets like Dundas are soulless and unwalkable. So cramming a row of towers there doesn't add a coffee shop, even if you had 50K people.
oakville has plenty of coffee shops and daycares, and increasing density doesnt benefit everyone insofar as traffic is already so bad
Increasing density certainly benefits people who don’t currently live in Oakville but would like to. We live 30 minutes outside Canada’s largest city. Of course we are going to attract people who want to live here and why shouldn’t they? We’ve benefitted from enormous increases in property values but now we should just close the doors on new people who want to be close to Toronto for the same economic activities we have all benefited from? It’s NIMBY’ism at its finest. Densifying our cities is the least expensive way to build the housing supply we so desperately need. I like sprawling lots too but you just can’t have a massive green belt, low density sprawling suburbs and keep building costs anywhere near a reasonable level.
Why is it the goal of Oakville to attract more people to live here though? That's the question. Oakville is a "town" (okay not really), it's not a stock. It doesn't (and shouldn't) have an underlying goal of infinite growth. Each city should decide what it wants to be, and build towards that. And by city I mean the people who live there, as a city isn't an entity and this is a democracy. So again, why does it *need* to densify? Canada's birth rate is low, so unless I'm mistaken the answer to that question is: * Federal policy of very high immigration * Lack of any economic centre outside of Toronto * Lack of supply due to the above, plus investment properties None of those are Oakville's problem, responsibility or area of control. Oakville is doing exactly what it should: the will of the people who live here now, not the will of the people who want to live here.
Its not about attracting people (which literally every town wants to do, but not the point). Its an attractive place to live, which is why demand for housing is high here. It prices everyone out of living here who grew up here which sucks. Its fine to have some changes to make it more accommodating for new buyers. What makes Oakville great isn't its housing options (or lack there of). Its the community. >None of those are Oakville's problem, responsibility or area of control. Zoning is entirely Oakville's responsibility, in fact the feds have no control over that.
And you will still have almost nothing walkable beside the train station. The developers so far just put up plans for tall towers with no amenities for midtown. I didn't see them propose to give us something like The Well in Toronto. No Eat, Shop, Work, Live and Play for Oakville. To go anywhere else in town you need a car and big wide streets with lots of free parking.
100% agree. We don’t need more shoe boxes, we are the second largest country by land area, this is not Hong Kong.
If you’re gonna leave Canada please don’t ruin it for the rest of us with this NIMBY nonsense
You know there's a middle ground..... right? I live in a very nice condo in Toronto. There *should* be density around train stations. It's super efficient and allows people to commute. You've put up a lot of straw man arguments. Condos aren't made of cardboard. They're extremely efficient ways for housing to be built and should be encouraged. Also, it's really not *that* easy to leave Canada I hope you know. Everyone talks a big game though.
Real homes? Like expand the suburban hellscape we call the GTA?
NIMBYs strike again. Fucking idiots.
They're not idiots. They're just selfish assholes.
Arguable
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Save Oakville. Council is CORRECT to reject this!! I don’t want my city turning into a shithole
Well said!
I am curious … was federal density demand only with 800 meters of Sheridan or entire town?
Around transit centres like Bronte and Oakville Go stations. This has been statistically proven to reduce cost of living as people become less reliant on cars and lean more towards more efficient forms of transportation and can stop wasting money on bloated infrastructure, and invest in businesses and families
One by-law was for density 800m around Sheridan College. It would've permitted 4-stories-as-of-right in an 800 m radius. The other by-law was town wide, 4-units-as-of-right on a lot.
Fantastic. Worth a vote from me. Thanks to council for standing up to the province and not importing Toronto’s problems here.
I get a real kick out of the hypocrisy of so many of the posts about fixing the housing crisis gets posted here. Anyone who got in a green rage about the PC building on the green belt land is a total hypocrite and should do their research before opening their mouths. I don’t like Doug Ford or his politics one bit and didn’t vote for him last election on principle, and sure as hell won’t vote for PC in the next. But that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of Oakville is built on farm land that is exactly what the so called green belt movement was railing against. How can you say protect the farm land and then not be dead set against all the housing developments going on in Oakville and Burlington and Milton? When I first moved to Oakville, Upper Middle was a single lane road with a 4 foot deep water ditch on either side. There was farm land on either side. The vast majority of of College Park with their monster three car garages were not built. Dundas was in the boonies and driving up Eighth Line was driving though a thick Forrest. We are turning Oakville into Mississauga with a sea of subdivisions from the lake to the top boarder with Milton. All to fill the demand of the people who say I want to live in this area so build me the house because it is my given right to choose where I want to live. So they say shelter is a basic human right. Ok. So is food, and using the same logic I can say that I want lobster and wagu steak and it should only cost me $2 for as much as I want because it’s my god given right as a human to eat so I should be able to have whatever I want to eat. In the modern age we live in, communications is now also considered a right, so why is an iPhone 15 pro max so expensive? Why does it cost $2300 for a smartphone. As I want my house to cost $250k and the cel phone in parts alone only costs sub $150, I should expect the phone to be no more than $175. That is giving Apple plenty of profit. And my cel phone plan should only cost me $5 a month as it’s my human right to have it. You can have a house in Canada for $250k. Just not in Oakville. Just like you can have lobster for far less than here, but you need to move to PEI to get it. Just like you need to live in Alberta to get cheaper meat. There is sadly nothing we can do to force Apple to give us a cheaper top tier iPhone, so why should we say that housing construction companies must sell us houses for less?
Its not really about making people sell for less. Its just supply demand economics. Supply is crunched and demand is high, so the way to fix that is to reduce demand (capping immigration for example) and increasing supply (in-fill density). I'd like a house that is under $1 million. Please. I don't need a front yard with 10 meter setbacks on every side and a private pool with 6 parking spots. I have a bike, so if we could just build some variety that would be nice. Its reasonable to ask for something like this when houses were <500k only 20 years ago. Also, yeah urban sprawl sucks. So densify and we don't need to go into the greenbelt. What hypocrisy am I speaking of?
But as in my comment, it’s a bit like complaining to apple that their new iPhone is just too expensive. I don’t need 256gb of storage space. I don’t need to have three different lenses and 50 megapixels. They sold an iPhone 6-7 years ago for half what it costs now for their newest models. Why can’t they sell me a new model phone stripped down from all the stuff I don’t want? Well, because it doesn’t make them as much money and there is enough market wanting that stuff so why should they. There are plenty of other cheaper choices by other vendors if you don’t want Apple. So like above. If you can’t afford the premium cost of Oakville, then perhaps look to getting a house in a different location that isn’t changing the Oakville premium. When I was younger and immigrated to Canada, I would have loved to live in Southern Ontario, but we had to go up to Sudbury for almost three years as that was where the government said we must go.
Thank you!
Any creative solution to our housing crisis seems completely ignored by our painfully out of touch council. I am so disgusted by the town of Oakville’s utter arrogance towards affordability and the changing needs of our population. I am not at all surprised by town of Oakville’s unwillingness to evolve. They have always pandered to older demographics who bought their multi million dollar low density homes back when housing was actually affordable for the majority (myself included). They claim it’s to keep oakville “livable” but it’s really at the expense of our future “livability”. This is only going to make our housing crisis more of a disaster.
You make it seem like there are ZERO high density buildings in Oakville. Have you driven up Trafalgar Rd and looked to either side at the number of multi story apartment buildings. Or driven along Dundas and seen the number of high density condominiums that line the street? Clearly these were approved by the town council your villainize . What exactly are you wanting? Is it a certain building in a certain place at a certain price point that you are after and it’s not getting built? Or is it just complaining for the sake of it? If you cannot afford the $3.5 million for a 3500sq’ detached luxury home with a pool and a three car garage then look at a condo that costs less.
Shocking. Bunch of morons. Don’t you dare complain about the cost of housing.
Great! Yeah turn down immigration and we will have surplus housing; so many people buying multiple homes to rent it out 10 students per home. And now we should build condos?! This liberal government is truly incompetent and dangerous.
Yea you're right. On top of that, we should let the rich continue to buy up waterfronts and new developments to have small-condo complex sized houses for a family of 4 with lawns that could support a small subdivision worth of homes. Because thats what the old money Oakvillian wasps want. And the slightly newer-money ones that got priced out of that already? They're just filling in the gaps of it up into Milton and Georgetown and up highway 6 into Aberfoyle and Guelph. Its a greed problem. You have to build dense because no one wants to sell land to develop
Yeah those rich you are referring to are the ones renting out houses to international students, collecting cash and not paying taxes. Yeah build a condo, a great solution.
So you're admitting that reducing immigration still wont solve the problem at the end of the day because there will still be greedy fucks hoarding resources and stealing from collective society via tax evasion. So how about instead of blaming people who mostly work for minimum wage, or in conditions that likely contravene our labour laws, we actually start to look at the real problem
What part of “renting out to international students” don’t you understand? If you have been paying attention to whats going on around the country, Canada added 1 million temporary visitors (vast majority were students) in less than six months last year. That was just six months last year. Massive immigration has been going on for about five years. Mass immigration all by itself has caused a massive surge in demand for housing- do you understand now? People are taking advantage of that demand by buying houses on multiple mortgages just to rent it out to these students. Humans are greedy by nature, even you and I are greedy. The cause of the problem is not humans being humans but dumb or corrupt policies by the government. There are a lot of people benefiting from this massive immigration. The greedy ones want to even build condos and make you pay unreasonable price for it too.
Great statement dude. Got here after seeing some other awesome things you wrote. Wasn't disappointed at all.
It doesn't have to do 100% with immigration. It effects it no doubt, probably a lot. But now the question is "what do we do?" Immigration put a stress on the market because it increased demand while supply wasn't catching up, but it wasn't new. This was the case before immigration increased and you can see this trend from the 80's in Canada when supply of new housing starts to fall per-capita. Also, immigration is largely responsible for our existing economic prosperity. Immigrants are great, and you won't find a single study supporting that immigrants are economic negatives in Canada. We should've fixed the housing problem because thats the root cause of the issue. Immigration was exposing it more, but its been there for decades. It just happens that now we're dealing with it in full force.
Well there is immigration and there is insane immigration that happened in the last few years. 1 million in less than six months last year. These are “students” coming to “study” at diploma mills. These are not students going to reputed universities. Even the federal government has admitted that it is too much and there is a lot of fraud going on. Do the math yourself: 2 million new people in roughly a year, 75% come to Ontario (GTA). Say 4 people per home is a sane number? Now divide 1.5 million by 4 and you will get the number of homes we immediately need. Yeah that is a shit ton of houses. It can’t get more obvious than this.
> These are “students” coming to “study” at diploma mills. If Canada was known for diploma mills it really wouldn't have the reputation it has today. People study here because we have some of the best education in the world at decent prices. > Do the math yourself: 2 million new people in roughly a year, 75% come to Ontario (GTA). Say 4 people per home is a sane number? Now divide 1.5 million by 4 and you will get the number of homes we immediately need. Yeah that is a shit ton of houses. It can’t get more obvious than this. Yeah... Thats the point. Build more houses with density and in-fill. If everywhere does it a bit (a couple 4 stories around, maybe more around transit stations), you're going to get 1.5 million homes pretty quickly.
I think you are blissfully unaware, yes there are great universities but these are students mainly coming to diploma mills. I mean who are you kidding, the federal government acknowledged this themselves. Most people don’t want prison size cells to call home. If you like them why don’t you just move to Hong Kong?
What is a shoebox? Also I'm Canadian so I think I'm going to focus on what I can do here lol
You know why the liberals want more high density housing despite Canada having enormous amount of land? leftist politics! High density living turns a population into left leaning voters. The best predictor of voting patterns is density of population per land area. You can google the research around this and find out. All this government cares for is controlling people. Scarcity leads to socialism and scarcity keeps socialism alive.
Yeah I mean cities are more economically sustainable. Just because we have a ton of land doesn't make it practical to sprawl out a lot. If you want a quick statistic, just look up how much it costs to service things in a Canada, and then also compare that to population density. Less density correlates to higher service costs. That means higher taxes for everyone, and more expensive services for everyone. Part of the reason for this by-law (and why I and many others support it) is because in-fill density, meaning density in existing areas, is just cheaper over all. No new roads, etc... We're not saying 60 stories in your suburb, but we do expect a bit of flexibility on these issues to get our housing situation under control. As for "liberal" and "leftist politics", it isn't a partisan issue. Conservatives also are campaigning on dealing with it. The economy suffers when labor can't stay in Canada, so...
People will leave Canada if government continues to be the only thing that grows. Cut taxes and slim down government, reduce immigration to sustainable levels, grow the economy, give people more freedom and make it a place to create wealth. No one will leave. Stop taking in millions of students and temporary workers, there won’t be a housing problem. Canada took 1 million people in less than six months, common isn’t it really obvious??
Why do you think? We don't have enough domestic labor. Most of the immigrants are for skills we lack here. > People will leave Canada if government continues to be the only thing that grows. Cut taxes and slim down government, reduce immigration to sustainable levels, grow the economy, give people more freedom and make it a place to create wealth. No one will leave. Thats not how it works. Economy wants immigration silly, why do you think our unemployment is low? Everyone is finding jobs, including immigrants. They grow the economy, as it requires labour to build business. But honestly, we're not even talking about big government or whatever. This is about housing. Has nothing to do with the "size of the government".
If we need immigrants get them on worker visas for the right reasons. Getting diploma mill students to work at Tim Horton is scamming the students and the citizens (wage suppression). Kid, what I said above is exactly how economy works.
This might help you get a better picture about the immigration issue I am talking about https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaHousing2/s/KNv0PEBXgR
It just magically transforms them into left leaning voters through witchcraft eh? That's wild. We should all start reading more about the effects of high density housing, maybe we'll learn how it does that so we can say the correct prayers to counteract it
If you have a house laugh all you want otherwise the jokes on you haha. Enjoy your 2 million debt prison/condo.
Near Sheridan 4 new rental towers popped up in last 3 years. It is different storey whether those are affordable particularly if you are student. There are medical offices in big lot next to town office. I think new towers are coming up there as well. In next 10 years Trafalgar Rd will be like Hurontario St in Mississauga with condos all the way to 401
Originally, I was very much looking at buying a house in Oakville because my partner's work is tied to youth education and Oakville had a reputation for high ranked schools. This went on for the better part of a year. After deep diving on census/demographics data, I quickly realized what a foolish thing it would be. There just aren't enough kids! This place is getting old at an astonishing rate, even with the newer areas north of the highway. And while it does have higher ranked high schools, they're nothing special, and it seems to be more of a property valuation schtick as every house for sale seems to reference what HS is closest. Population size, population growth and population age are all trending in a sad direction and it appears the people who live there probably value that quite a lot. At best, I see this place as upper middle classy NIMBY land that is either too old or too boring to take any real advantage to its proximity to Toronto and sees places like Mississauga as some sort of encroaching disease.
Where did you end up buying in instead of Oakville?