Deny Sullivan
@DenySully
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I tweet charts. M.A. Economics. Subscribe to my newsletter @
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“Luxury condos”
Who's messed up on housing more? Justin Trudeau or Pierre Poilievre?
Both lost hundreds of thousands of affordable homes that went to developers.
Both have deep ties to rich real estate investors.
Neither can be trusted to fix this mess they've created.
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@mattyglesias
@blakehounshell
Biden is gonna reference it but say Black Brandon and it’s gonna be wild around here
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New post: Japan's population has been shrinking for decades - it still build more homes than Canada
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This kind of smart, boatable density is illegal to build in most Canadian cities
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This is incredible. Housing minister
@SeanFraserMP
demanding Halifax allow 4-units, 4 storeys by right, more near the universities. That’s more housing supply across a lot of the city
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FWIW about today's sprawl discourse, here's how far you can get by car in 1 hour *at night* from downtown Toronto. How much undeveloped suburb space is left in the orange?
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Housing choice is when we mandate single family homes on 70% of the land and force the young and poor to fight over 400sqft condos
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Huh, maybe all those business groups and chambers of commerce should've lobbied for more housing instead of years of arguing about parking and 3 cent gas taxes
Canadian businesses say housing crisis is forcing them to boost pay
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Had a nightmare last night of a truly terrifying fourplex
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DYK: Halifax has cut property tax rates by ~20% over the past decade? If you own a 500k home, that saves 1k/yr, if you own $10M portfolio, that saves 20k/yr. If you rent, that explains why the bus is always late
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If we were 7 years into a recession with 10%+ unemployment, I’d be very receptive to economist-bashing.
We’re years into a housing shortage (<3% vacancy), and many city planners seem to have not reconsidered…anything
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Related - Texas outbuilt every Canadian province in 2022, offering a release valve for NIMBY states that Canada doesn't really have
Booming population growth doesn't need to cause high house prices
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Another CBC article citing HAF opposition group in Halifax that is just one old professor being a housing crisis denier
Halifax group concerned about potential impacts of the Housing Accelerator Fund
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Student housing in the 1970s
The Province is building new student housing at four Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) campuses to provide students with more affordable options and ease pressure on the local housing supply
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I wouldn't say Nova Scotia's universities have a int'l student problem with the new cap. But Cape Breton University has a massive problem.
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Canada is a great country, arguably the best in history. We just didn’t build enough homes.
Nothing special. No great shame. Just an important technical failure that needs to be fixed.
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Compared to dismantling capitalism, I view reaching a 3% vacancy rate as a much easier goal. Others seem to disagree
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Mr Butts is just a guy with opinions like the rest of us, but I think this perfectly reflects the median left housing view.
Making a million dollars tax free on a 60s bungalow while fighting all new housing is Good Civic Behaviour.
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I refuse to believe that we can’t find enough two by fours, nails, and people to put them together, to get rents down to $1000 in any city in Canada.
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We can't allow NVDA to go down - I might fear for my retirement
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Westjet announced new flights from Halifax to Europe two weeks ago, and a $730 flight became a $284 flight within two weeks.
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Halifax Transit Knowers, has there ever been talk of the city taking over the CN track for public transit?
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There's nearly 3x more spending on single family renos than new apartment construction.
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Halifax's yellowbelt. These areas are zoned exclusively for single family or duplexes, zoning that hasn't changed since 1945
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Halifax (like most of Canada) has a barbell housing stock: lots of single family homes, big towers in core(s), but not much "missing middle" housing. It's a key driver of our housing crisis
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@JohnPasalis
You are misunderstanding the important statistic: Canada has 3.5 new people for every new home, and the US has 0.6 new people per home. It’s a bidding war for homes here
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Can
@hfxgov
staff point to a successful ferry service that looks like this? 120 parking stalls, not walkable, no housing nearby
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Absolute 5 alarm fire from rents in the CPI. Average rents up ~15% in a year in Nova Scotia
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Halifax passes Housing Accelerator Fund reforms. Really amazing changes, 4-units city-wide, up to 8 in urban core, big lift in density on major streets and key sites! Now it’s time to build 🏗️🏡🏢
Halifax has unanimously passed the proposed Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) zoning reforms. I was really impressed by many councillor's remarks this afternoon and I feel a little more hopeful about this city. 🥳
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Rent in Halifax hardly changed from 1990-2015, and then surged after 2015. Is it from:
A sudden emergence of greed? ❌
A 25-yr lag impact from '95 public housing cuts? ❌
Fast population growth hitting brittle supply? ✅
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It's so frustrating to hear people say they care about the housing crisis and then act like "keeping things the way they are" is the most important thing
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@_scottreid
C'mon Scott, "pound", "poor bastards", "tax hostage". Please don't mix up the political backlash to higher property tax with objective reality that Toronto homeowners are some of the biggest winners in our economy for the last 20+ years
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It's crazy that Vancouver's rental vacancy rate has averaged 1.3% over two decades. It's also crazy that old Vancouver planners think we should listen to them
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Young people and workers are counting in the NDP to advocate for them in the housing shortage, and all they get is nonsense about corporations.
At some point the NDP need to decide to build more homes
Does the housing market feel rigged to you?
That’s because it is.
For years, Liberal and Conservative governments have sided with corporate investors, buying up housing in your community and driving up costs — instead of helping you.
It’s time to put an end to that.
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@the_transit_guy
Not having Calgary to Edmonton is really awful for a province with two cities
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Great piece. Nova Scotia needs 70,000 homes in the next five years. Over the past five, we built 20,000. If we don't fix that imbalance, every other housing policy is a lottery.
In the last five years, Nova Scotia has funded fewer than 1,000 new affordable housing units and expert say that won't make a dent in the housing crisis.
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New Blog! I argue that New Brunswick should build a new airport in the middle this triangle
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These cute homes are illegal across most of the peninsula (they touch each other and use up “too much” of the land area)
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Is there a good reason why the Halifax armoury couldn’t be a shelter? I walk by it most days and have only ever seen a few cadets go in or out.
@SeanFraserMP
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Department of defense owned land in Halifax
Federal land could be used for housing to bring down costs, minister Sean Fraser says.
Another recommendation from the Affordability Action Council making some waves.
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The typical Halifax homeowner is paying 30-50% less property tax than someone who buys today
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Families who lost homes in the wildfires cannot find rentals, and what is available costs a multiple of their mortgage
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Halifax under HAF - this $575k Dartmouth bungalow on a 7,300 sqft lot can now have 8 units, ~70k land cost per unit
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From
@WayeMason
, confirmation that a parking lot is being added on Citadel Hill. Not even 3 months from the first public *mention* to breaking ground, no public consultation.
It's outrageous that the government can move like a cheetah to build parking and a snail on housing.
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Agricola is packed full of people! Huge demand for walkable streets!
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Absolute gut job to new South End housing. Thousands of potential homes, something like 80% of new dense HR-1 zones gone
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One of these buildings is illegal in most of Halifax.
- 6 units (most of the city is 1 or 2 + basement/shed)
- No "set-back" (front yard)
-Probably other dumb things
1970s bungalows cost $500k+ because we've spent decades outlawing most other housing
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In 1976, Canada built 25 homes per 1000 working people. That's down by half since.
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Tim Houston and the PCs seem to believe they are doing a good job on housing (by cherry picking one month of data). Meanwhile, this is the reality we are living in.
Our PC government is getting more homes built, faster. In fact, housing starts are up 178.6% province-wide compared to this time last year.
Our plan is getting homes built right across the province.
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Fun fact, in Nova Scotia, you can sell your investment properties to children without triggering a property assessment cap reset. Basically you can hand over a cottage to kids at 2011 property tax rates
Trudeau's capital gains tax increase is going to devastate retirement plans & small businesses, while driving investment out of Canada. To fix what Justin Trudeau broke, Canada needs to make taxes low, simple, and fair. That’s what Common sense Conservatives will do.
#cdnpoli
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The Halifax peninsula has like 15 parallel roads in its grid road network. One of them could should look like this
@hamill_law
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods were created in London - resulting in big increases of kids cycling to school using the virtually traffic free streets
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Annoyed that the same boomers who complain about new housing got to reap the benefits of the greatest supply surge when they needed it
2023 was Nova Scotia's 12th best year for homebuilding. The 70s really stand out
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It's wild how people will just bring up nonsense when it comes to housing. Seemingly no thought given to the actual tradeoffs young families face today
Opinion: Housing plans’ impact on Canada’s fertility rate would strain economy, increase social tensions
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For context, Nova Scotia added 30,750 residents in the past 12 months. So these 247 public housing units only cover about a week's worth of our population growth
25 new modular housing units will be installed across the province next month, giving up to 88 people a safe and affordable home.
These are in addition to the 222 units announced last September. In total, over 600 people will be housed in 247 new public housing units.
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The nation, held hostage by our most unserious level of government, and forced to endless engage in a 10th grade debate club argument about fairness
Ottawa calls development fees a housing tax, but without them, who pays for new infrastructure?
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Great video. The next time
@SeanFraserMP
is in Halifax he should make a similar video where he shows all the cutesy historical housing that is now illegal in most of the city
A few days ago I used the phrase “legalize housing” and I saw that people had questions.
The reality is, many cities and neighbourhoods don’t allow you to build the kinds of homes that are going to help solve the housing crisis.
We’re working with cities to change that.
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Fascinating to learn that Halifax's tallest building was only allowed because of 1970s rules still being in place - and it replaces the 1970s-era Fenwick tower as Halifax's tallest.
*Boomers were much less picky about buildings and heights when they needed apartments*
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Max building height is 2-3 story's (red) in most of Halifax/Dartmouth. West end :(
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Premier
@TimHoustonNS
is expecting landlords with insane leverage over tenants to voluntarily choose not make thousands of dollars of additional income. Its absurd.
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This is exactly what Toronto/Vancouver have done to the rest of the country. And Halifax is on track to do it to the rest of NS - do we want more people commuting on the 102?
Housing shortages are actually housing spillovers.
Everyone needs a home. So when we don't build, demand doesn't evaporate—it floods into other neighborhoods, other cities, other metro areas or even whole regions. 🧵
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Hahahahahaha
I can assure you, you can’t say “nobody wants” Toronto condos bc they aren’t selling for prices that need payments 2x rent
In the thick of a housing crisis, there is suddenly a record number of homes for sale in Toronto that nobody wants.
“The condo market right now is a ghost town. I have zero action.”
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A rare miss by Coyne. Other than the toll idea (good). the rest of the piece is lazy arguments for why property taxes are bad. On the 3 criteria:
1. Simplicity: Property taxes assessment isnt hard - we have observed prices in home sales - just update the values past 2016
My latest: There’s an alternative to sky-high municipal property taxes. It’s a municipal sales tax
(Also: transit reform!)
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Did you know? I have an easier time finding data from the median Latin American statistical service than Statcan
Did you know? Canada is a world leader in data accessibility. Almost 75% of all federal non-geospatial content on the Open Government Portal comes from Statistics Canada! .
@OpenGovCan
#ODD24
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On days like this its worth remembering the median NS voter is a 58 year old homeowner who exclusively drives
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New from me: VIA RAIL IS BROKEN (east of Montreal). I take a look at Via's Ocean service from Montreal to Halifax
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Great news, Nova Scotia's housing starts have hit the ~8k mark over the past 12 months. A record high.
Nova Scotia sees busiest 1st quarter on record for housing starts
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Why is zoning so simple and permissive? Its set by the national government, who have national interests in mind, instead of being chained to local interests and their insistence on maintaining neighborhood character
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The big lie in municipal budgets - acting like the property tax base isn't growing during a 2-decade property boom
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I still can't believe 1 in 5 Toronto renters are late on rent. 10x larger than delinquency rates for any other type of financial product
Mind blowing stat:
19.6% of rental units were in arrears in Toronto in 2023, per CMHC's annual rental market report.
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NEW BLOG: Halifax is in a budget crunch, but keeps cutting property tax rates. That's horribly regressive, giving most of the gains to the rich. How can progressives raise property taxes?
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This is a very good piece by
@jen_taplin
. Years of back and forth with a developer, is it to:
Maximizing Housing Units? No❌
Enforcing Obscure Design Vibes? ✅
United Gulf Developments was rejected on their updated plan for two, 21-story towers in downtown Halifax, including a hotel with 69 rooms, ground-floor retail, five levels of underground parking and 349 residential units.
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This just in: Local councilors facing huge housing shortage confident that they can hit housing targets without change
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Nova Scotia's untaxed real estate wealth is up to $35bn. Up 418% since 2020
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How long do interest rates need to stay at 4-5% for the macro/ZIRP types to accept that the Bank of Canada isn’t to blame for $1m homes in Oshawa?
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CMHC says Nova Scotia needs 50k homes by 2030 home *on top* of current construction, which has now fallen by 28% since its peak. We are going the wrong way on housing
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My Latest: If you hate sitting in traffic, you should push for more housing on the Halifax Peninsula . In a city where 80%+ of people drive to work, the majority of peninsula residents bus/bike/walk to work - keeping cars off the roads (linkinbio)
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@JonFlynnREstats
Huh? I can buy all sorts of imported products at fine prices. But looking for a rental is like applying for a prestigious university. Sounds like a shortage to me
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The Housing accelerator fund exists because the feds can’t tell cities what to do. Provinces can. Premier Houston can exercise his jurisdiction to build more homes, faster, at any time. Do your job.
Premier Tim Houston says his government needs to be involved when Nova Scotia municipalities want a share of federal funds to build new homes. But Halifax Mayor Mike Savage says adding another level of government to the process will delay new housing sta…
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It's incredible that
@hfxgov
indulges these "concerns". This is in regards to about a block-thick of apartment zoning next to our universities. "Many" here = 170 emails
Crime?
Parking?
Low property values?
Lack of single family homes?
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How many boomers are paying 2.3% management fees for mutual funds and <0.5% for property taxes? Cut your own damn costs!
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Democracy manifest!
Halifax residents weigh in on Young Street redevelopment that could see 11,000 units
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The Point Pleasant Park Palisade: Despite record population growth, the area in blue did not build a single new housing unit in the 5 years up to 2021
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The most thorny issue in housing is WHERE, because the answer is always “somewhere else”
Nova Scotia still searching for sites to put tiny shelters for homeless
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Homelessness (by name list) is still rocketing upwards, recently by 4% a month. If trend continues, that's thousands more by the end of 2025
Halifax plans for new homeless encampments as current ones fill up
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New Data: Nova Scotia has added 40,000 people in a single year, a 4% growth rate
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Housing shortages create bidding wars. When you have bidding wars for housing, low income folks get priced out.
New analysis shows significant loss of affordable rentals in low-income Halifax neighbourhood
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~60% of homeowners have a lower tax burden today than 2019, despite a doubling of house prices, but the Mayor insists HRM's fiscal issues are because poor people are getting free bus passes
Halifax mayor, councillors talk cost of growth in HRM and who will pay
Story by me
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International student permit allocations out for Nova Scotia universities, 35% decline overall, with a 52% decline for CBU
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A great piece. And it’s not just Ontarians who will suffer. Ontario is nearly 40% of Canada’s population, and its refusal to build is a problem for us all
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So when the Mill Cove parking fills up by 8am, and remains mostly full until 6pm, where will people park to go to the library?
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We hitched our wagon to condos in big cities while making most of the neighborhoods untouchable. It wasn’t enough. And now those condos might not even be profitable, so surely it’s the developers fault
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Some go-to NIMBY moves from Councilor Lovelace:
-"Not a good fit"
-"Sewage disposal concerns"
-Asking for staff study to deflect
Why do we let the most myopic level of government call the shots on housing?
Pam Lovelace wants council to rescind decision on Tantallon property for affordable housing use
by
@Suzanne_Rent
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Surrounding our hospitals with single family homes is not good for recruiting and retaining healthcare staff
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This is very scary for Halifax's housing shortage. Ontario is not being serious about fixing its problem, more Ontarians will move east
NEW: After lots of internal deliberations about fourplexes (four units as-of-right) province wide - Premier Doug Ford shuts down the effort.
Ford says that’s “off the table for us” largely because there would be push back from residents.
#onpoli
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