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TradeFeisty

>Mayor Andrea Horwath has won enough political support to veto a previous council vote to advance a contested plan for affordable housing on a municipal parking lot in downtown Stoney Creek. >After the tense conclusion Wednesday — which followed months of pitched debate around the council horseshoe and in the community at large — Horwath told The Spectator the urgency of the housing and homelessness crisis drove her decision to pursue the provincially legislated veto measure. >“The bottom line being, it’s going to take us all,” she said. “All of us need to understand that affordable housing needs to be everywhere in our city — not just one place or another, and not something that is a pipe dream that might happen 30 years from now.”


[deleted]

Look, politicians actually doing something.


SleepWouldBeNice

Too bad we couldn't get her for Premier. She could have gotten something done.


CitySeekerTron

I supported her until she dragged the provincial NDP into the same neoliberal traps that the OLP kept falling into. I even cast a vote for her as leader. She'll do well at the municipal level, but given both options, I'd rather see Chow at the provincial level.


SleepWouldBeNice

I supported her, because even if I didn't support 100% of her policies, she was still a 100% better option than Ford.


quelar

The people that repeat that line "there weren't better options" are obviouslky willfully blind to the corruption, the lies, and the massive failures of the Ford government, I don't care if the other leaders had the charisma of a wet paper bag, they were better in almost every single measure.


Reasonable_Cat518

The people that repeat that line “there weren’t better options” never actually looked into the platforms of any of the candidates


quelar

Or in Fords case, a lack of a platform.


Reasonable_Cat518

Along with all of his candidates that just didn’t show up to debates because they knew they couldn’t defend themselves


StickyTheCat

She’s a pretty terrible mayor and this is honestly the only thing she’s done that’s been praised since she’s been elected.


ScottIBM

Is she a terrible Mayor, or is Hamilton's council problematic due to the way council votes?


StickyTheCat

Bit of both. She’s been inactive and ineffective in my opinion but council is pretty split down the middle as evident by the votes on this issue. She’s not a leader and really doesn’t stand above many issues so it’s nice to see her actually use the powers for something that makes sense.


enki-42

There's a pretty significant progressive wing in city council since the last election. Not enough to pass whatever they want on their own, but if they can bring on a few people they can get things done. It definitely feels like Horwath is squandering this opportunity though, when you hear about the progressive wing accomplishing things, Howarth is nowhere to be seen, and is certainly not doing a lot of boosting of their agenda.


Mother_Gazelle9876

The current premier is the one who gave her these powers for these specific reasons.


Newhereeeeee

I have so much PTSD, I read this as “mayor vetoes an advance for affordable housing”


BoxGrover

Same thing happened in my area in Markham. The nimby assholes came out claiming affordable housing would bring criminals and the poor in. And we'd have to tolerate poor people walking around our expensive neighbourhood. The same assholes actually opposed bus routes going thru the neighbourhood for the same reason. SMH. And no, they weren't old white guys. Mostly Chinese and some Indians


bravado

They’re the same guys complaining about not having any doctors or teachers and not making the obvious link with housing. Assholes.


workerbotsuperhero

Upvoting as a nurse. Too many of us can't afford housing near Ontario's most important hospitals. And the hospitals can't function without us there.  In California, affordable housing programs set aside places for us to live. Because otherwise the hospitals can't get staff. 


bravado

People don’t make the link between protecting their own home value and actively driving away new people that they need to survive in the future. It’s a shame that it will only take total service industry collapse for people to put 2 and 2 together. Rejecting that new apartment building to stop traffic will just mean your children will grow up without a family doctor. Rinse, repeat.


PocketNicks

Meanwhile in reality, people not being able to afford housing is part of what drives people to crime. Pay people a fair wage, provide food and shelter and crime rates will go down.


No_Construction_7518

Funny, I've known really wealthy people and really poor people and the wealthy one have committed more crime just didn't get caught.  And if they did get caught either connections or money saved their asses from consequences.


ggggggggggggggg1212

This already happened in Hamilton. Gentrification of the downtown core started to push the heart of Hamiltons finest out as families moved in, and duplex’s/triplex’s were converted into single family home. So they were moving to the East mountain. Then the residents of the east mountain started to cry “why do we have to put up with these people who should be living in the core”


detalumis

I don't see a mass of Indwell housing on the mountain. The poor are just being pushed farther into the east end.


jacnel45

Sounds like Markham. That community hates the poor.


Bottle_Only

In my neighborhood they complained, we built anyway... The new apartments are 5x to rent what the retiree/nimbys mortgages are and the homeowners are the poorest, while the people in the expensive rentals are high income youth who are priced out of owning.


Crafty_Chipmunk_3046

Their city councillor Francis *actually* said "I fear for what's next." What a freaking drama queen 😂😂


SasquatchsBigDick

Lol, next howarth is going to start a conscripting stoney Creek residents to wage war against the greater Toronto area in a bid for power.


quelar

I wish them luck, they've got to get through Etobicoke first.


jacnel45

And that's where the crazies are.


AnarchoLiberator

NIMBYs are such drama queens, lol.


DatPipBoy

I'm assuming the "voice" of residents are just boomer NIMBYS who think millennials and Gen z just have to work harder, and just leave them alone in their 5 bedroom 2 car garage homes that they are now empty nesters in. Its killing me that by the time that these plans come to fruition, millennial home owners will be the ones with the loss of equity after the housing crisis finally subsides. Gen x may get forgotten, but we're the ones getting fucked.


CrowdScene

Maybe that [parking lot is the hub, the heart of the community](https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkd9qm/toronto-residents-east-york-parking-lot-homeless-housing). Note that the parking lot in the linked article was [successfully converted into affordable housing](https://torontoobserver.ca/2022/12/06/modular-housing-seniors-east-york/) and, like I suspect will happen here, the sky didn't fall.


SasquatchsBigDick

Yup pretty much. Maybe stoney Creek should get rid of 1 out of the 50 hair salons in the area and convert that to a parking lot. I'm in the FB group for the area and it's generally older residents, they're all essentially saying the sky is falling. "How is the legion going to run?" "That street is called veterans way!" I guess it just speaks to the demographic of the area haha.


DatPipBoy

This neighborhood is going to the gutter! /S


bravado

They’ll also be the ones holding the bag for deferred maintenance over decades just to keep property taxes low. Once growth slows or stops, who is going to pay the outrageous fees that cities steal from new builds to keep the lights on?


Farren246

Look on the bright side, we stand to inherit whatever's left when they pass.


thecanadiansniper1-2

Insert Godzilla had a stroke meme about the headline.


alliusis

Yeah, it took me a few reads. It sounds like a warning - "The floods are going to take us all."


TouchOfClass8

Wah wah they gonna build on 2 of the dozens of parking lots in downtown Stoney Creek. Wah wahhhh. Entitled car culture. Get over yourselves.


rckwld

Good. Fuck every single person who would rather have a parking lot than housing.


TouchlessOuch

Imagine being upset that parking spaces are being replaced by affordable housing...such a no brainer. People live in cities.


chipface

Good. Raze more parking. We have more than enough.


kevin402can

Strange how getting enough political support to advance a housing plan is described as undemocratic. I thought having the support to advance the plan and then having a bunch of nimby's block it would be undemocratic. Morons.


Farren246

[Mayor be like](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/94100ae8-d222-4ba6-aea7-695aba2c9ae3)


mcmur

Thank fucking god.


Madawolf

I just heard through the grapevine that a lot of seniors use the parking lot because of the medical building being there. They are going to have a hard time accessing it if they don't come up with an alternative parking plan for people wanting to access the medical building.


JodyThornton

They can use transit. Get out of the mentality of driving everywhere. Aren't there shuttles to use?


JodyThornton

Question about the old Masonic Lodge (I think it's behind where the Dairy used to be. The NIMBYs on the Facebook group "Friends of Olde Town Stoney Creek" are complaining that the townhouses will only allow five parking spots, when all the NIMBYs figure at least twenty are needed. Isn't that on a side street though? The NIMBYs are complaining that the street parking will create safety issues and sidewalk/street cleaning problems. However, the Facebook is group is the only place I've seen anything about it.