"Heritage Conservation Districts are powerful planning tools that must be applied selectively. When used across a large and evolving urban area, they can unintentionally discourage reinvestment, add regulatory burden, and limit the kind of redevelopment a downtown needs to remain vibrant."

We support this petition for the Region of Waterloo to adopt a Public Camping Bylaw that would allow for multiple encampment sites for unsheltered people. For more legitimacy: Expand the signature box to include a postal code. Click on it. Add a valid postal code 1/4 www.change.org/p/demand-wat...

New housing lowers rents.

Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? This just feels like a waste of everybody's time. Why on earth do we think we need neighbours to weigh in on this?! Just build it already. www.therecord.com/news/waterlo...

Very much looking forward to this talk in DTK tonight at 6 with some excellent co-panelists. We'll be talking about Social Development Goals (no poverty or hunger). I'll talk about how addressing our high housing costs is necessary to end poverty.-- Martin events.sdgideafactory.ca/default/Deta...

Idle thought, we all understand that dense urban infill improves the net lifecycle balance of infrastructure costs. So why do we charge high development fees on this kind of infill?

For the Star, I make the case for the condo/apartment as aspirational -- that the Canadian dream can also be an apartment in a dense neighbourhood and not, as is so often the case in this country, be taken to only ever mean a detached house. www.thestar.com/opinion/star...

Fantastic piece that avoids naivete while offering a needed defense of condo living in the national discourse. The preening condescencion from comfortably housed progressives in Canada about "shoebox" living is often insuffocating, and presumptuous about the choices they think people should make.

Despite planning dogma, “stable residential neighbourhoods” aren’t

Yesterday I sat for a lecture by 3 folks from ReHousing. Hosted by UofT's school of Arch, they detailed the history of change in Toronto, how post-war suburbs rubber-stamped neighbourhoods as repetitive as a 100 floor condo does today, horizontally, & how for half a century we've seen near no change

Kitchener's Draft Official Plan is up for you to comment on! www.engagewr.ca/kitchener2051 For background, we made some preliminary comments on what we would like to see in an Official Plan- back in February last year- static1.squarespace.com/static/5f6b5...

"The convenience and choices cars provide can’t be denied, but cars also take priority over people all the time. We’ve structured our entire approach to housing around the needs of cars. In many cases, if a development can’t accommodate enough parking spaces, it can’t be built at all." -Philip Mills

Anyone concerned with encampment evictions in Cambridge and the lack of shelter space (despite denials) should follow @reganbrusse.bsky.social's work here: www.mymothernamedmesunshine.ca?fbclid=IwY2x...

For real though, the stage 3 Waterloo route would connect the 4 largest growth areas outside Uptown. The only thing is it would be ludicrous to not rezone the Boardwalk for mixed use, because it's actually the perfect candidate for retrofitting sprawl* *it's ludicrous we haven't done it yet period

We'll be discussing @cwhitzman.bsky.social's book Home Truths on November 23rd, 2pm, downtown Kitchener. DM us for the address if you'd like to join this book club!

With the federal budget introduced on November 4, it’s worth highlighting the opportunity Canada has to significantly increase its social housing stock through Build Canada Homes. This can help us end homelessness. 1/5

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New housing stops landlords from raising rents—take it from the CEO of AvalonBay, one of NYC's largest landlords: "We're well-positioned… we face significantly less new supply. Land entitled for multifamily is hard to come by, the amount of time it takes to get those entitlements… sets us up well.”

PSA: Stacked townhomes, rowhouses, apartments, and yes, even 'towers' are RESIDENTIAL. #HousingForAll

We've seen opposition to immigration due to housing affordability, and it's important to push back as housing advocates ourselves- immigration is an important source of broader opportunity in an unequal world. We can't be for removing barriers to housing while pushing for + barriers to citizenship

WR YIMBY is very concerned with the federal government’s Bill C-2 and the replacement Bill C-12, because each bill includes troubling measures that would limit migrant rights, including their right to claim asylum. We urge the federal government to rescind these bills @mark-carney.bsky.social 1/6

The thing about "gentle density" is that it's never gentle enough.

I actually think there is value in considering which properties/areas should be 'protected' in some way, however, this article fails to mention some of the trade-offs that might come with the mass heritage protections that are proposed. www.therecord.com/news/waterlo...

"Whatever was meant, the othering of future neighbours was not persuasive to Council then, and it shouldn’t be now." Beyond the policy aspects, Don Iveson really hits at the most key ingredient for housing change: city councils with the moral imagination to brave opposition for a better city.

On brand for us: all four of our volunteers came by bike (one of them even did a multi-modal bike-bus-bike trip!)

Happening in half an hour- until 6pm!- Waterloo Region Climate Fest at Gaukel Block! Perfect timing to reshare this: “Households in denser neighborhoods close to city centers tend to be responsible for fewer planet-warming greenhouse gases, on average” 1/2 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Whenever people talk about "luxury housing," I remember there are literal mansions in Hartford, CT that are now selling for less than it costs to buy a starter home in Silicon Valley. If we judge luxury by market value, there is no housing that is intrinsically, permanently "luxury housing."

Interested in learning more about ending exclusionary zoning and scaling up non-market housing? Worth registering for the recording later even if you can't make it noon PT, 3 EST on October 1:

"Growth should pay for growth" is a political choice to socialize the benefits of immigration while privatizing its infrastructure costs onto younger cohorts, insulating established homeowners and corporations from financial responsibility open.substack.com/pub/missingm...

@jensvb.bsky.social; @tomdavidoff.bsky.social; @lausterna.bsky.social and Tsur Somerville find that expediting permitting processes and reduced parking mandates were crucial components determining the success of BC upzonings:

Limiting housing supply below demand makes a neighbourhood/city more exclusive. Who gets excluded? It’s not the people on top of the income spectrum. They can live where they want.

Exactly this. "It doesn’t matter if there’s room for people to live; if there’s no space for cars, people don’t get to move in. We don’t ask, “Is this a good place for someone to live?” We ask, “Where will the cars go?” -Philip Mills www.therecord.com/opinion/cont...

Residents complaining that nobody wants to live in characterless glass boxes in the sky while also actively working to make those homes less livable is really something. www.therecord.com/news/waterlo...

I understand that today's @cambridge.ca council meeting will be debating a motion to study the impact of evictions of encampments during extreme weather events. This is the type of study that will help council make informed decisions to protect people and uphold their fundamental #HumanRights. –MJH

Yesterday, I visited #Cambridge and #Kitchener, Ontario. I heard about the challenges experienced by people living in #encampments and organizations that support them.

The approach - govt land for nonmarket hsg, definition of affordability, designated funds to address homelessness thru supportive hsg, including acquisition of apts, supporting construction innovation - is right. Now we need targets, timelines, action. www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/art...

There’s something so deeply cynical about the neighbourhoods with “all are welcome here” and “#lovemyhood” signs being the most opposed to giving that gift of their neighbourhood to anyone else. (As was given to them by previous generations)

One reason that public housing advocates should oppose NIMBYism in principle - NIMBYism is particularly harsh (see below) for public housing and shelters + it's part of the same trend for market housing (Hat tip to @russilwvong.bsky.social for sharing the graph below in his excellent newsletter) 1/3

NIMBYism in a nutshell: people support housing (and shelters) but not in THEIR neighbourhood (pg. 8 below): web.uri.edu/harrington/w... 1/2

Community advocates have written some excellent responses in favour of Cllrs Hamilton and Earnshaw's motion re preventing extreme weather encampment evictions in Cambridge this Tuesday 1/6 pub-cambridge.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx...

Walkable cities aren't just more convenient, enjoyable places to live but it seems that they are also good for your health. www.cbc.ca/news/health/...

My neighbourhood NIMBYs want to heritage-protect a parking lot so nobody can build housing towers there 🤬

NIMBY neighbours gatekeeping who gets to live in their neighbourhood and who gets a say- and the homeowner question is outright classist

Upcoming meeting & motion: City of Cambridge Council Meeting September 23, 2025 Highlighting Motion: “Preventing the forced removal of unhoused persons during extreme weather events"

Evergreen. This happens all the time in Waterloo Region as well.

Instead of “growth pays for growth” as a guiding principle of planning, I propose a better alternative: “sprawl pays for sprawl”

Happening tomorrow (May 29th) at 5pm- "Artivism" against Bill 6 and the 100 Victoria encampment eviction bylaw!

Please sign this petition and when you sign this, expand the signature box to include a postal code or your signature will not be counted by the Region. It will then be transcribed to the form preferred by the Region.

In addition to the petition to the Region of Waterloo, please sign this petition to rescind Bill 6 and stop criminalizing homelessness: win.newmode.net/encampmentju...