From the kelowna community on Reddit: Kelowna developers get a bone, but it is big enough to stimulate the market? Explore this post and more from the kelowna community

Kelowna makes temporary 25% DCC cut.

My comments on Reddit in the link below, using the Castanet article title:

www.reddit.com/r/kelowna/s/...

I am deeply disappointed to learn that multiple RISE memorial trees, dedicated to those who lost their lives in the tower crane collapse, have been reduced to stumps and destroyed.

I hope the vandals are caught and punished appropriately, this is absolutely unacceptable.

City of Kelowna has announced a re-opening of new Airbnb applications beginning June 1 (as an operating day, afaik)

I assume it will hit Castanet soon. Interested to see the community reaction.

The UCP doing this will take the gloves off across the country, for any governing political party with no shame or scruples.

This is how we import broken American-style countermajoritarian democracy. Where parties that lose the popular vote win supermajorities in the leg. Awful.

Both gerrymandering by border and gerrymandering by riding quotient skew should be unconstitutional, but neither are.

In fact, the courts have all but confirmed that both are acceptable.

It’s absolutely something that should be fixed before it spirals out of control.

A good reminder, any “deal” with the US right now is barely worth the paper it’s written on.

Those advocating for appeasement to secure a “deal” are fooling themselves.

Welcome to local politics.

New buildings (to some people) must be smaller on the outside, bigger on the inside, cheaper than old buildings and both close to jobs and amenities while not near heritage areas.

We should plan for success Cities shouldn’t just settle for “enough” housing.

A very strong article from Yglesias on the fundamental issues of demand-forecasting that becomes a self-fulfilling downward ratchet on potential supply. We raise home prices deliberately through the resulting scarcity.

www.slowboring.com/p/we-should-...

(Personally I’d argue that 15/10 when combined with the popularity of the Liberal brand could be hubris, but hopefully they know what they’re doing by not going 4-4-4 or even less)

It’s good to see future alignment in Vancouver on the benefits of RCV for mayor.

Ideally they get there for councils as well to stop the horse-trading agreements in time for 2030.

After *choosing* to cut $5 Billion from the long-promised-not-delivered Permanent Public Transit Fund, he now *chooses* to subsidize gasoline companies by more than $2 Billion.

He makes choices, Canada’s urban communities have not asked for this, but will bear the load of those choices.

FairVote and Unlock Democracy did a campaign as part of the recent BC Electoral Reform committee (STV). Including for local gov.

Eby rejected it out of hand.

The exact people who say this have no problem preferring a newly built million dollar house.

They’re just completely opposed to consumer choice and private property rights.

An astonishing admission of economic illiteracy, very unbecoming of a mayor.

Real rental competition in Edmonton... says landlords! YouTube video by Michael Janz | Ward papastew | Edmonton

More housing is helping to make renting more affordable in Edmonton… don’t take my word for it. Listen to the landlords talking about incentives for tenants! youtube.com/shorts/udD7J...

www.kelownadailycourier.ca/news/article...

Unemployment up in Kelowna even as the labour force shrinks. A very bad combination, as the latter should help counteract the former.

Now the second-highest unemployment rate in BC at 7%.

www.kelownanow.com/watercooler/...

Very concerning for forest fires, as well as lake levels.

Zoned capacity just measures the upper limit of the supply curve: it's the quantity of new housing that developers will produce when prices are infinitely high.

I, for one, am not interested in paying $∞ for housing.

1/

I ran on multi-member STV wards in 2022, but my preference has been advocacy towards unicameral STV at-large. Unfortunately, BC makes this impossible by law (currently)

Notable.

Susan Ames announced her plans to seek a seat on Kelowna council this fall.

Besides being the most vocal and prominent NIMBY in Kelowna, she strongly supports single-member wards and stronger controls on new construction, from single family to apartment.

Nice empirical data how upzoning works to reduce prices. By reducing the cost of the land component of housing.
Also a good explanation of why one can’t take the observations from upzoning a single parcel and think they work the same for broad upzoning (a fallacy also known as Condonomics).

Bruh.

> Replacing the wage tax with a non-distortionary land value tax would bring 26,000 jobs from the suburbs into Philadelphia. Such gains triple when we allow for productivity agglomeration forces.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

“Dozens of cities”…

Still encouraging everyone I know in BC to email their MLAs about this.

STV / RCV in local elections would be a notable improvement in accountability and proportionality in local government.

From the kelowna community on Reddit: Notorious mass murderer's parole review shifts, raising concerns for those who remember West Kelowna family Explore this post and more from the kelowna community

www.reddit.com/r/kelowna/s/...

There’s no public benefit in even having parole hearings for this kind of crime.

I’m anti death penalty mainly because the state absolutely does inflict false convictions from time to time, but in a world where that wasn’t possible…I wouldn’t be opposed

I’ve stepped down from the board for now, but happy to advertise the Strong Towns Kelowna newsletter.

DM for discord info as well.

strongtownskelowna.org

Ok, neat

Yes! Chris England is a great researcher. I’ve read the paper.

It was fairly common across western Canada, not just Vancouver.

Nelson, BC, is the best “small town” example where you can see the remnants of the tax policy in the historic buildings.

Thing is, those who support spot-rezoning see that as a feature, not a bug.

More evidence that shifting local tax policy away from productivity and onto LVT attracts investment, productivity, and job creation.

BC still needs to allow cities to split their milliage rates, while phasing out the DCC/ACC systems.

Thankfully, no (local) wage or sales tax to get rid of.