Ranking Nova Scotia's Housing Platforms
We’re well into a provincial election, and now have all three parties platforms to do sense-check of the respective housing platforms.
The Big Loser: Affordable Housing Plans
But first, if there’s cross-party consensus on housing, its that none of the parties intend to spend serious money on it. The single largest promise I’ve seen is the NDP’s $62.5 million/yr promise to develop rent-to own communities. That’s not to say the parties aren’t making big money promises. The PC’s want to cut the HST by 1% (~$275m), the Liberals want to double that ($543m), the NDP want to do a gas tax holiday ($137m) and cut home heating costs ($200m).
By comparison, I think Nova Scotia’s probably short about 40,000 housing units. If you (optimistically) think that you can build homes for $300,000 a pop, you have a $12 billion hole to fill. If you want to address any significant share of the housing crisis through government-funded affordable housing, you need to be talking billions. No one is willing to spend billions.
Add in the electoral map - where the key “swing” districts are more Lunenberg and Hants county than Halifax, and you get a provincial election during an widely-acknowledged housing crisis where housing just isn’t a top issue.
But enough about politics1, lets get to the policies. I picked a couple from each, so shout if I missed an important one, from the Liberals or NPD (the governing PCs only put two new policies in the window). Starting from the bottom:
D-Tier
2% Down payments (NSPC): A pretty standard demand-side measure, which isn’t very helpful with such limited supply. The program is also run through a credit union. If the whole mortgage needs to go through the credit union - this could be even worse for home buyers - who would be captive and could be forced to pay higher interest rates.
C-Tier
I’ve put two here - which share the trait of having good potential, but also being complicated - and carrying the possibility of having made no progress 3 years from now.
$1 Land for Affordable Housing (NSPC): This always sound great, which is why its often in platforms - like the 2021 PC platform. But most public land is not where new housing should go. And these projects will still face the all the red-tape that makes market housing long and expensive to build.
Rent-to-own on public land (NDP): I do like the potential of schemes like this, but the (lack of) details leave me skeptical. And the details point to a classic NPD dilemma on housing2. The homes should apparently “look” like 1940s single family homes3 (TBD), on public land somewhere (TBD), with rents approaching … (TBD). Add in the optimistic costing of 500 units for $65m ($130k each), and I’m not sure this is a Day 1 plan.
B-Tier
$900 for renters and mortgagors (NDP): This falls more into the “buying votes” space, like the HST tax cuts. And it’s big, at $195m. That’s because it’s very broad, with renters and mortgagors making less than $70,000 eligible. An estimated half of households will benefit. With such a broad base, this is really just income support, but one that should be more progressive than HST tax cuts. The other fascinating part is that it seems homeowners without a mortgage would not get it - that’s a relative win for young folk in a province that has trouble thinking of young people as anything other than cogs in a healthcare-provision machine.
A-Tier
Under the context - where we’re not willing to spend serious money, the Liberals have by far the clearest and most actionable housing plan.
Build 80,000 Homes (Liberals): They set their target, 80,000 homes, and follow up with details on where and how.
Establish increased minimum density standards across our province that take into account proximity to transportation and services,
Ensure appropriate zoning to encourage density near our province’s universities so students have a place to live, and
Eliminate any cases of restrictive covenants or exclusionary zoning that prevent housing from being built.
Proximity to transportation and services. Near our universities. Just to make it more clear, they also name the tool:
Re-think Municipal Zoning (Liberals): Provinces are fully within their right to force municipalities to stop playing zero-sum (or negative sum) games in blocking housing. Explicitly calling out this tool is a big step - an acknowledgment that municipal councils are well designed to lead us to red-tape and strict limits on new housing. The B.C. NDP have already paved the way for these policies - copy-pasting much of it would be great.
In the end, the Liberals have run the housing platform I’d want from the PCs. Faced with budget and political constraints on public money, we need to get the most out of our homebuilding industry. Upzoning areas close to universities and transportation *cough* the South End *cough* is the way to get the most homebuilding from a flick of a pen. Not to mention all the construction jobs, climate and traffic benefits of having students walk to SMU instead of driving in (or nurses to the IWK - no parking needed!).
If you’re voting on housing - I’d give your local Liberal candidate a good look.
I had to fill my chart quota somehow
They want to help but their base doesn’t want lots of housing near them, either
The NDP did a photo-op in front of a strawberry box home as an example of what it’d look like