Our readers comment on public works project
Crystal Mancesa – Thanks for digging into this a bit. Keep going though. There’s so much more to this than meets the eye. We really need to push for a referendum so that the staff and council are forced to be accountable for every ideological thought that occurs to them. Climate nonsense. Gender ideology is really horrific.
Seriously, people are truly going to lose their livelihoods, their homes, health and retirement savings if this SDG and DEI nonsense isn’t stopped. We ALL need to call it out for what it is when we see it. How many drugged out born Canadians do we need to see on the streets before we get real honest about what’s going on in Canada… as dictated down from the Ottawa bureaucracy (who are full on UN foot soldiers or?).
Not to get too far into the weeds but Canadians are dying. New Canadians probably don’t have a clue. I can only imagine how confused they are when they get here. This is not the Canada they were hoping for or can be proud to participate in…. divide and conquer eh?
Anyway. Do what you can. Thank you.
Ian MacNeil – Why would we trust council to do a thorough review, they are the woke ones who approved it. The first question that needs an answer: is the maintenance facility a cover for something else?
Noni Bartlett – Agree Merv. We want to know about every single nut and bolt they propose to put into that facility
Wanda F Newman – Well said. Council is not upgrading our Public Works yard, they are creating a whole new Centre. State of the Art and if they are then why not include the RCMP building. Combine it in there as we need a new detachment too
Clayton Kristiansen – This is not an upgrade of the city works yard it’s the first phase of construction of the Nanaimo operations centre, there’s a big difference! Nanaimo is slated to become an intelligent city aka smart city and this project combined with a few others will continue to aim at your privacy and freedom. If that’s something you could admire move to china.
Kathleen Jones – Very well stated and so very true. We don't truly know what the City is planning as detailed plans are not forth-coming. IMO we really do need to know what we're buying and it sure doesn't seem like a simple up-grade to the Public Works Yard so we can fix a big truck. What is most disconcerting is that our City Hall doesn't seem to be listening to what us Taxpayers are saying. From everything I have read most of us agree we need upgrades to what is in the yard now however WE seem to be talking about a bigger repair bay while City Hall is talking gold plated frivolous items driven, as you say, by a Woke Agenda.
Lois Powell – Have you asked google what “gender neutral” means? Very confusing. Take out the urinals (do not have at home), might be a challenge training the men to put up the seat, women do not have a problem putting the seat down. Problem solved, haha! Oh oh, would the genders be willing to wash their hands to in the same room, that is another problem. Restaurant in Victoria has 10 doors with toilet and sink in each all the same. The only people we should be catering for are the disabled. They NEED slightly different facilities. Everyone else, pick a cubical and sit down. You don't need to stand to pee!
BC United Party housing policy
makes no sense whatsoever
By Don Bonner
4 points as part of the policy
1) Establish a new Rent-to-Own program to unlock homeownership
2) Eliminate the Property Transfer Tax up to $1 million to help buyers save
3) Use empty public land to build affordable housing
4) Eliminate the PST on residential construction to build more homes
The policy will do nothing to fix housing in BC. It will put money back into the pockets of builders and developers but do nothing to make housing cheaper .
Let’s do some math, that BCUP can’t do, and talk about how housing pricing works which BCUP hasn’t figured out yet.
For this article we are talking about mortgages, and we will be using the suggest prices by the BCUP of $600,000 and $900,000 examples. We will be using a 4-year interest rate of 5.99, amortization period of 30 years and a once monthly payment frequency.
Establish a new Rent-to-Own program to unlock homeownership suggests that the rent for three years will be applied as a down payment after 3 years. For the $900k accommodation the downpayment will be $108,000 and the $600K will be $72,000. After three years the renter will be able to apply the downpayment to pay for the accommodation. For the $900K unit the mortgage will be $792K and the monthly payment will be $4,706.00 and you need to make at least $230,000/year to qualify for loan. For the $600K unit the mortgage will be $528K and the payment will be $3,137.00 and you need to make $160,000/year. These calculations don’t include mortgage insurance. That would add another 3.14% to the total mortgage driving up the qualification income up higher. These are not affordable prices for the majority of people in BC. To encourage this type of housing options the BCUP will cover the carrying costs for the builders/developers. (Remember this, there is a theme here)
An important note is that the downpayment is too low for mortgage requirements so the feds require that your amortization to be 25 years instead of 30 which increase the payments drastically.
Next, we have Property Transfer Tax Relief. On a $900k accommodation the Property transfer tax would be 1.8% or $16,200 and $10,800. If we add that amount to the mortgage payments the monthly payment goes up about $20/month. Which will make no difference whatsoever on the cost of the accommodation. The BCUP would suggest that this amount is some windfall making housing more affordable. It’s not.
Next, we have 99-Year Leases on Government Land. I’m not aware of any BC government land available in Nanaimo so not sure what land they have to give. But let’s say they do. This property will be leased for $1/year. However, the builder or not-for-profit has to build rental housing at below market rate. However, there is no money to do this in the policy statement. As far as I know, in BC, housing of below market rate rentals is done by BC housing and not other not-for-profits. So why would a developer get into the game of building below market rentals even if the land was free when there is so much demand for market housing where they can actually make money.
Finally Eliminate the PST on residential construction to build more homes. The BCUP still hasn’t figured out that the price of housing is set by the market and not by how much it costs to build the house. Actually, I think they have figured it out but, they are hoping that we haven’t figured it out. The builder/developer will sell the house for what they can get for the house on the open market. Make as much profit they can, and this is policy is going to reward them by giving them another 12% of the construction cost back as more profit from out taxes dollars. Doing absolutely nothing to lower the cost of housing.
As you can see from the above, the theme here seems to be, as we would expect from the BCUP, of taking taxpayers dollars and giving them to the builders/developers and doing it under the disguise of making affordable housing and doing absolutely nothing about affordable housing.