FAQS
政府问责
政府问责
Homes Not Bank Machines is a Canadian housing affordability advocacy site that argues government taxes, fees, and regulations are a major driver of high home prices and rents, especially in Vancouver and Toronto areas. Policy changes would reduce these costs and speed up building approvals. Below is a short, plain-language Frequently Asked Questions about this website.
政府问责
A large share of the cost of new homes comes from government taxes, fees, charges, and regulations, which can reach roughly one third of the price or more in some cities.
政府问责
Builders must pay these fees upfront on every new project, and those costs are then built into the final sale price or rent paid by homebuyers and renters. Thousands of pages of "red tape rules" add building delays and hundreds of thousands in costs.
政府问责
Cities like Vancouver and Toronto have hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit going to various levels of government through development charges and related fees, about a third of the cost and growing.
政府问责
Instead of blaming “greedy builders,” put the blame where it belongs, the growing share of costs driven by governments and passed on to buyers and renters.
政府问责
The BC government building code rules (red tape) are 1,908 pages long -- a stack 8 inches or 23 cm high. On top are various civic building requirements that also conflict with one another, because different government departments don't coordinate. An East Vancouver home builder’s viral tweet thread shows city staff highlighted the costs passed to consumers when city staff required an expensive arborist (tree expert) report for a simple bathroom renovation. Ontario Building Code's legal "summary" is a whopping 664 pages but the whole Code is 2,262 pages. This is almost Guinness World Record length for longest book — 2,400 pages. Compare this to 1976, when Canada built the most housing ever at 273,200. Back then, the national building code was only 198 pages long! Watch the video for more....
政府问责
The three main solutions are: reduce government housing taxes and fees, remove rent controls on new buildings, and speed up approvals by cutting red tape.
政府问责
Rent control on new buildings discourages construction and maintenance and ultimately hurts renters by limiting the supply of affordable homes.
政府问责
High executive pay at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and dividend payments to the federal government are signs that housing-related revenues are being used to fund large bureaucracies.
政府问责
It says governments do not actually build homes themselves and that people can only live in completed homes, not in government “plans,” “targets,” or “announcements.”
政府问责
Visitors are encouraged to learn about the issues, share information on social media, engage with content from builders, tax experts, and academics, and share their own ideas by email or online.
