Dear Editor,
Re: “Compact living is greener living,” Letters, Jan. 23.
While reading Jiangyi He’s excellent letter, my eyes screeched to a stop at “However, the housing supply has not kept pace....Canada’s housing/cost-to-income ratio is the highest in the developed world” and “Increasing the supply of housing is a critical step to bringing housing costs to a more affordable level.”
With these two simplistic paragraphs, Jiangyi He, although living in Richmond, very surprisingly did not reiterate the reason why this has been occurring in this city and across the country.
Over the past 15-plus years in the Richmond subdivision where I live, every house that would have been eagerly moved into by a first-time detached home buyer was instead sold for out-of-average-reach price, torn down, and replaced by a grandiose house built solely as a commodity for financial gain.
All stand empty. On just my short block there are 14 such houses and one tear-down vacant lot eyesore.
A few are very sporadically inhabited; the rest, never. In summary, Richmond has plenty of new housing, albeit much of it not “compact,” not densely packed, not “cost-to-income” affordable, and very evidently not available for permanent residence.
This off my chest and I applaud the rest of Jiangyi He’s eloquent points.
Lynne Davis
RICHMOND
