Infill housing, yes. For profit, no.

Re: "In Greater Victoria, infill housing could be the new recycling," Comment, July 5.

The following claim, made by the Comment referenced above, is pure fantasy:

"Even if the new housing initially costs more than low-income households can afford, it increases affordability through filtering, as local families move from existing homes into the new units, making them available to new tenants, and over time as they depreciate in value and add to the lower-priced housing stock."

What actually happens, from San Francisco to New York City, Lisbon, Berlin, Belgrade, Vancouver, Victoria, and every other city, large and small, in the collective West is that building "market rate" housing reduces the relative availability of "affordable" – meaning less expensive but not publicly financed and managed – units to the total housing market.

Small holders cash out into this market, which is vastly inflated relative to when they bought, and sell their long-held, lower-rent properties to hedge funds, real estate holding corporations, and other aggregators, who make cosmetic renovations and increase rents to be more "in line" with the market as a whole; or, as with Village Green at Menzies and Niagara, tear down affordable housing, displace low-income tenants into a mercilessly predatory housing market, and build upscale units with a few token "below market" units that rent for more than the units torn down thrown in for appearance's sake. Small holders who do not sell are emboldened to demand higher rents as fewer and fewer actually affordable units remain.

Infill housing is a good idea as it spares surrounding wild and agricultural areas from urban sprawl, eliminates long commutes, and reduces the need for motorized transport within city limits. But replacing one $1.2 million single home with four $750,000 townhouses ($3 million) or twelve $550,000 condos ($6.6 million) is a huge bonanza for developers that can easily be eliminated with precisely the social housing policies responsible for Montreal's success story, recounted with no reference to how it came about, in the Comment.

Here is a link to Montreal's social housing story: https://www.omhm.qc.ca/fr/a-propos-de-nous/historique.

Builders and the trades they employ build housing. They do not care who signs their paycheck. Middlemen tacking profit untethered to costs onto housing units builders build are socially destructive and totally unnecessary dead weight burdening the productive economy.

Social housing is publicly financed housing constructed for everyone so that housing is affordable for everyone.

One question remains concerning the Comment being discussed: Who funds the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, which is credited for its preparation? No mention is made of its funders on its website.