The NDP government says it will be continuing to review the speculation tax as it seems to be having a mix bag of results.
Selina Robinson says the tax has only been in place for a short period of time and it will make adjustments as required. “The Minister of Finance is committed to continually monitoring this tax and making sure that it’s working and making sure the housing market is there for the people that live and work and build their communities and build the economy of this province in different regions.”
One concern from the opposition was that the tax is making developers look elsewhere. “What we really need is we need more homes to be built and what these taxes are doing is creating uncertainty and creating disincentives and the developers are basically leaving towns and many of them are developing in other parts of North America” said Liberal Housing Critic Sam Sullivan.
Robinson says there are many factors as to why developers are going elsewhere including the development approval process. She also believes we need to tamper new building expectations. “Well I do want to remind everybody that housing starts are still higher than the 10 year average. Cause remember, it was a super hyped up market. Numbers are still really high, so we need to remember how crazy things were.”
She says they are making communities do housing assessments every five years so municipalities are aware of what infrastructure they need. “This is why we put in a 30 point plan because we also need the right kind of supply. We have been seeing an over-representation of bachelor and one bedroom condos in places where families need two or three bedrooms, or downsizers need something bigger than 600 square feet and the product wasn’t being built.”
Robinson does acknowledge that it could be just pushing buyers to other markets where the spec tax isn’t applied. She stresses it’s still early days and the tax will be reviewed.
Sullivan also has issue with some people who have to work outside of the country or province that are committed to being here, but now are being called speculators.
