Through the Roof: The High Cost of Barriers to Building New Housing in Canadian Municipalities

A Roadmap to Municipal Reform: Improving Life in Canadian Cities

“…Following the method used by Glaeser, Gyourko, and Saks (2005), I undertook with Vincent Thivierge to estimate indirectly the broad cost of barriers to building more housing (see the appendix to this chapter for details). In that study we used the market price of all housing, including both newly built and the existing stock (Dachis and Thivierge 2018). However, newly built housing is often of a higher quality than the existing stock.…”

“…To estimate income for those affected municipalities, we assume that income changed in that CA or CMA at the same rate as the rest of the province relative to the first year in which we have income data for the CMA. As of the publication date of Dachis and Thivierge (2018), Statistics Canada has also not released income data for 2016 at the CMA level. We use provincial-wide employment income from Cansim Table 384-0002 and assume that the year-over-year growth in income is the same across the province, and we apply that growth rate to each CMA's 2015 income level.…”

“…Average prices and costs are for the entire time period are weighted by the number of permits in each CMA per quarter. Source: Calculations fromDachis and Thivierge (2018) and from RPS, CMHC, and Statistics Canada data.…”

“…fromDachis and Thivierge (2018) and from Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs, RPS, and Statistics Canada data.…”

“…from Dachis and Thivierge (2018) and from Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs, RPS, Statistics Canada, and Bank of Canada data. GTA municipalities are those in Toronto and in Halton, Peel, York, and Durham regions.…”