After selling his software business for millions, Marcel Lebrun decided to pour his time and money into an affordable housing project in Fredericton. CBC’s Harry Forestell takes a closer look at the 12 Neighbours community and its impact on the people who live there.
I agree it is not perfect but planning for that 40 unit build might take 5 years before breaking ground with the way cities work. If he is that rich maybe he could fund both , with the tiny homes as a gap measure. That lady that lost her husband and could no longer afford her previous living space did need immediate affordable housing.
The issue with your suggestion is that you’re presuming that this guy can keep building more buildings, but he sold his company to be able to do this. It’s a one-time deal, unless if he manages to start another company, raise it to a great value, then sell it off again. Even then, that’s a decade venture at least. Planning as well doesn’t take that long, it’s the approval process that does. Planning can be over with in less than a month, and that’s presuming he doesn’t go for an existing plan.
There are always people on the verge of destitution, so either save a handful today, or save several times that many a year or two later. Low and mid-rise apartments are not only massively space efficient, but cost only a fraction to build compared to a hundred individual homes, as the single building shares many of the same components for all the units. Not only does it use less parts, but the amount of labour is only a fraction of so many houses.
By planning i meant getting the city to agree to run sewer or , water or power. They often have their own development agrenda that means a sewer won’t extens to an area for 5 years, etc. I had a well for a long time, getting city water is something I wanted no matter the cost, but city would only run the line if every farm for 10 miles bought in, so they could run it once. This is the type of stuff you have to deal with when talking with City Planners