Welcome to the website of the HOUSE OWNERSHIP FOR ALL MOVEMENT

INTRODUCTION

More than 8 out of 10 people value private property which in second importance only to their family (L'Actualité, November 10, 2017). To be consistent with this reality, it is necessary to at least conceptually divide the available space on our planet deducted from the space to be conserved, etc. by the number of households on earth. Here is a project and perspective to unite the world consequently with the preservation of the environment. The simple 'grow-home' houses described in this site all but non-existant in our liveable environment. Our cities are too often built as funnels where we concentrate people according to a mode of transport. Arranging for the automobile was the mistake of the 1960s to today and since profit matters more than people's capital to our governments we are repeating the mistake of planning around a mode of transport, This time a tandem of shared driverless ownerless cars, public-transit and private over-represented luxury vehicles.

IN BRIEF: SMALL LOTS FOR MORE HOUSES inspired by the 'grow home' concept which won the World Habitat Award in 2016.

'Grow home' concept- 14pix36ft (2 story) or 20pix35ft (3 story) homes with full bathroom on the ground floor that offer a perfect 3 ½ for people who no longer want to climb stairs or who are disabled. It does not matter if you are a family, that you are alone or that you are an elderly person, we can strive to live independently as a family or individual in a house of everlasting value. Simple houses which reduce the amount of construction waste and require less complex maintenance. With lots of 700 to 1100sqft excluding public spaces it would be possible to have up to 85 houses per hectare of valuable density without sacrificing the car while making walking and cycling often more practical than driving. Building row houses is nothing new and the current conditions are conducive to efficient use of space. There is still a lot of work to be done to reframe our mentalities and our actions in order to get this part of a new deal done even in America's privileged position.

THE CONTEXT (Quebec is the province of origin of this movement)

Quebec still has the lowest home ownership rate in Canada with 61.3% of its population owning a property while in the rest of Canada this rate is 67.8% on average according to the Housing Bulletin, special edition of the APCHQ in 2016. In 1979, it cost the price of a midsize car to own a house, whereas currently prices are no longer linked to the ability to pay but to the ability to borrow. Governments and banks have found an indirect way to increase GDP and at best eventually rise the cost of wasting space - I say eventually given the acceleration of waste in between.

Unfortunately, libertarian-born laissez-faire allows the rich and bankable to increase their waste and condemn the majority to accept fewer houses and more apartments. Developers, landlords, real-estate downloaders (condo builders), bankers and large groups are and will be the only winners if we do not mobilize for more houses on the smallest lots.

City living becomes the only solution that our governments consider while modern societies are increasingly affected by loneliness and the loss of assets. Without assets there will be fewer and fewer participants in the economy. Almost all development plans focus on projects that seek to curb urban sprawl and the use of the car while, the car is only responsible for 7% of greenhouse gas emissions while the concrete of mega-cities contributes to 8% of emissions (The Guardian, February 2019).

Since 2015, 54% of the world's population live in cities, a proportion that is expected to rise to 66% in 2050 according to the UN. If some people dream of getting out of it and coming to Quebec, the least we can do is allow them to own a house with all the luck we have to live in the abundance of our territory. According to Statistics Canada, the home ownership rate in Canada went from 60.3% in 1971 to 69% in 2011 to reach 67.8% in 2016. In 2016, however, these properties were increasingly condominiums. For a number of years now, co-ownership has represented the vast majority of residential starts. The very notion of owning has been diminished.

6,088 single-family homes were built in Quebec in 2019 out of 43,534 housing starts (Bilan en habitation 2019, APCHQ). This is a far cry from the more than 30,000 single-family homes built in 1987 (L'habitation au Québec, SHQ June 2000). By a simple calculation we could have room for the construction of more than half a million single detached houses in Quebec if the market wasn't running in an apartment-cottage tandem of mediocracy. In the long term, houses built efficiently and intelligently on the territory will continue to meet the direct needs of people as they are in short supply around the world. Create value instead of profit.

In 1996, the US Federal Reserve chose to obliterate and alter the valuation given to assets (notably real estate) and goods. A subjective rewrite of the entire monetary policy as it had been defined since the turn of the century. The reason for these changes initiated in the 70's, 1983 and the Boskin-Greenspan Commission was to lower the cost of debt no matter the effect on the majority class. Artificially increasing GDP primarily by pumping the price of home-ownership was clearly creating bad potatoes since people's salaries where in real-terms decreasing. It is therefore quite understandable that the bankers demanded protection against bad mortgages via derivatives. (The Core Rate, Puplava, June 2006) As the mainstream media and all the documentaries and movies stop the buck at Wall Street and subprime mortgages for polluting the world with financial trash we can only begin to realise that no matter what we must prioritize the ownership of a house for all, universally for humanity.

Between 1971 and 1991 the Island of Montreal saw its population decrease by 212,197 people in favor of its suburbs offering a host of affordable houses. Since the 2000's there has been no positive net migration balance for Montreal vis-à-vis its suburbs. On the outskirts of Montreal, more often than not, we continue to squander way too much land for isolated houses while it is quite possible to build generous houses in the quantity that people really need on subdivisions of 1100 sq. ft. or less. A Montreal dependent on locking immigrants to maintain itself is now supposed to be the force that can push on the provincial Quebec government to offer its citizens houses in the suburbs? That when we have eaten up the main areas available for too few houses?

A DESIRABLE EXAMPLE OF A HOUSE AND NEIGHBORHOOD

There is a massive need for more homes (Affordable Homes and Viable Communities, SHQ, 2003) and here is one example of what we should be building. With or without a basement or garage, there would be a kitchen, dining room and living room with a full bathroom on the ground floor. This logical innovation allows you to make a 3 ½ if you don't want to climb stairs. On the 2nd floor, 3 bedrooms and a full bathroom and then a 3rd floor serving as a workshop or playroom, etc., with doors opening onto a patio or garden. With a mini backyard on the roof there would be fewer pests and a reduce the yearning for a yard on the ground.

Equally important is the integration into townhouse neighborhoods of each property in a way that is respectful of their independent nature. For example 20 feet of street, 7 feet of front land, 35 feet of house, 8 feet of back land and the 20 foot lane. This results in a depth of 90 feet which over 20 feet of frontage width gives a required space of 1800 square feet per house including street space and back-alley for green pedestrian and cycling space. On 107,639 square feet (1 hectare) this allows for a density of 58 to 85 houses per hectare.

Streets and alleys installed in a grid pattern are nothing new but as rare as they are the point of junction between home ownership for all who need and want and the cost of infrastructure. The improved density compared to the current suburb would be significant whether cars are parked in line with the houses or parallel to the front of the houses. It would be illegal to park in the street to keep them efficient as they block the ground from absorbing water while creating solar heat. These streets of a minimum width would have a border or a 5-foot bench to allow the snow to be packed in winter and to put our bins there. These surfaces would also provide parking for visitors. The best place to park, would become the garage which would allow multiple-uses as always. At the back of the houses would come the 8-foot-deep yard and at the back of the yards it would be a public social space in the form of a lane that would include greenery, a bicycle path and a walking path. Burying wires, mailing and home care would all be easier in this type of neighborhood.

Children would be less in danger playing in an alley than in the street as is currently the case. Socializing with others would be improved and the increasing problem of mental illness would be reduced.

Fluid, civic neighborhoods where there would be more than 3 times as many homes compared to the current net average density. For example, the average net density of the of Quebec City metropolitan area is 27 dwellings per hectare according to the figures of the 2015 Schéma d'Aménagement et de Développement (SAD). The current objective of the SAD being of 32 dwellings (mainly apartments) per hectare for a large portion of the metropolitan area would still provide lower density than if the great majority of residences were individually owned houses in the format of our concept. Raising the value of real estate requires homes that meet the real needs of all workers who deserve not more money but at least to keep their own capital. Neighborhoods which by their very nature promote and structure a local economy rather than an oligarchy.

ARGUMENTS AND IDEAS

-Cash-strapped municipalities want to lower pressure on services while increasing tax revenues that are strictly based on property taxes. The solution is therefore to feed the construction industry some large homes with large lots serving a minimal amount of people with ever increasing debt loads. Municipalities should be financed by a transfer payment from the provincial government even if it means increasing income taxes.

- Abolish city taxes and centralize funding for municipalities to the government of Québec. We must reform the income tax to not only be based on work income but also on the level of usage of land and the durable productivity of natural resources. This fiscal system would be closer to georgism since in principle the earth is owned by anyone. Private property would be recognized as essential to maintain the motivation and will in all of us to develop autonomously. Following this philosophy universal basic income isn't the right way to go. Rather, we need to re-focus on investing in universal education, universal healthcare and universal home ownership.

-Have a taxation system that is in part based on the value of people's assets rather than strickly on their revenue.

-Our governments are paving the way for towers and will have to invest more and more in social housing. If the cadastre on the scale of Quebec was mainly composed of lots of 1100sqft or less, urban sprawl would no longer be the tragedy that our institutions need to denounce while fostering the conditions for sprawl to keep locking-up land for a relative few. Governments seem to forget the difference between investing in people's ability to build their own capital and by lack of the right priorities allowing excesses in big homes for a significant minority of increasingly mortgaged households. Condemning the finite space on earth needs to be identified as a global injustice. Trees that will never grow back in the 20 feet between two houses in Sainte-Sophie or Mirabel-en-Haut, etc., are much worse than those that will grow back on land dedicated to forestry in Mauricie or a narrow-lot housing in Laval, for example.

-We need a water tax.

-Let's be creative and seize opportunities. Here is an example: governments and crown corporations as major employers could move their offices out of large city centers like Montreal or Quebec in order to reduce congestion at its source while saving resources used to enable pharaonic projects that feed on worker's savings. Teleworking and the problems of concentration can lead some to exaggerate when no talk or investment is made for smart urban planning that at its core prioritizes the ownership of the individual home for all.

-The expansionary monetary policy has not yet made it possible to value-densify our neighborhoods because it has served the construction of larger houses on the one hand and condos and plexes that weaken individual ownership on the other. Often times in new constructions large parking spaces or grassy areas remain a fixture. Given the level of price increases we are now in a market which makes renting look better which in truth is so wrong. 'You will own nothing and you will be happy' is what Klaus Schwab wants us to believe and is currently succeeding to do so. As Warren Buffett said: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” The permanence of buildings mean that the more we let this dynamic last, the smaller will the middle class be when it should comprise more than 8 out 10 of us.

-We have too many luxury houses that will weigh in the long term on the market for this type of house. Since the beginning of civilization the upper middle class has consistently represented close to 15% of the population. Our aging population does not especially need this type of construction and it is counter-culture to believe in having so many intergenerational housing. Lets face-it a regular home is fine for taking care of our older parents. The laissez-faire attitude of our institutions has enabled a wide-range of residential buildings but absolutely no prioritization for row-houses. 62% of condo syndicates are running their contingency funds at a deficit (Le Devoir, June 2017).

-If we analyze the dimensions including parking spaces, storage spaces and turf areas for 4-storey condominium or plex- type housing blocks, we often find a density similar to that of houses with we promote on lots of 1100ft2 or less integrated with streets and alleys.

-Weak capitalism has chosen to short term our time in a house in order to increase transactions and profit taking while our instinct is to stay where we can live long and well with minimal hassle including snow removal and grass-cutting.

-Systemic racism is a reality that can become a thing of the past if we have houses consistent with the needs of humanity and neighborhoods where we mix naturally.

-Since the end of the bungalow, constructions have often become heavier and more complex with a host of negative effects, particularly on the safety and motivation of workers.

-We should stop subsidizing tens of billions of dollars worth of Transit-Oriented Development and use our resources to foster individual ownership of houses for all. Public transport is in no way profitable or even viable because of its complexity. Home ownership is central to democracy and therefore social-democracy.

-Poor development encourages oligarchic retail and requires public investment in complex transit systems that are not profitable unless government and collective resources are allocated to them. All of this comes at a social cost invisible to self-centered institutions who should be prioritizing healthcare, education and universal home-ownership since they are core factors to a better world, period. Guaranteed minimum income is a way to buy peace with groups which are particularly affected by an expansionary monetary policy which constantly lowers their income relative to asset prices. It is simply allowing the problem to become highly permanent.

-Walking fights insomnia and the car allows people to go choose better jobs, better homes. The fact that the car pollutes is a problem which must be solved in itself just like their safety.

-To succeed we should ask ourselves questions like these: is there a way for the more than 8 out of 10 of us to own a house on time with retirement for everyone while preserving a maximum of nature's resource?

-With houses that correspond to what capitalism is supposed to do, construction would be volume-based and simpler. This would allow the apprentice-carpenter to quickly learn the A to Z of how to build houses which is lacking in this world despite our vast potential in this field. This would help create real jobs in a world where jobs are lost due to artificial intelligence and take the pressure off small construction companies.

-In a plex building some are condemned to having to climb stairs. When they are built in land-rich gated-countries they are designed in ways that on top of it don’t optimize density. Our 'grow home' 'Townhouse-Oriented Development gets more density than a development of 6-plex buildings that can use more than 8000 sq ft of land given the imprint of their large interior access corridors, their parking spaces and their exterior storage sheds.

-We need incentive programs for the conversion of single-storey houses into semi-detached houses that could double the number of houses for each bungalow built in quantity in the centrally located suburbs that expanded from the 50's to the 80s.

-Promoting more egalitarian development in the form of quasi-attached houses would reduce the gap between social classes. A gap which generates a hyper-competition that make lesser-paying jobs ever less attractive. As a result ever-greater shortages of workers in many sectors have a real-cost to productivity.

-Facilitate the redividing of lots in order to densify with houses.

-In a networked world, more apps should focus on ways of enabling houses for all.

-Centralize urban planning powers.

-Neither TOD nor POD (Pedestrian Oriented Development) are durable solutions. PADs (Pedestrian-Automobile Development) are needed that provide separate networks for motor vehicles and people.

-Create a benchmark index and make it as popular as the S&P Index for example that will correlate such things as energy efficiency and more importantly home ownership. The attention paid to home ownership will eventually unlock the care given to preserving environmental resources.

-Publish conversion plans for existing homes such as bungalows, Quebec or Canadian homes, cottages, plexes, etc., into row or semi-detached homes.

-Make it more difficult to build multi-unit buildings since they create congestion that is not only car-related.

-We must end excuses, taboos and myths and open our eyes to the importance of owning a house. How is it that public data on the density per hectare and data that should be of upmost importance remain invisible to the public eye? Ignorance allows the status quo to persist in an age where mobilizing people is difficult.

-The birth rate stabilizes with the arrival of a middle class which defines itself as the class capable of preserving its capital.

-Find uses for the lost space between two houses.

-Promote simple habitable roofs that require less woody material.

-Create a constantly updated index of the available territory.

-The almost attached houses make it possible to save on the use of wood given the party wall (s) that compose them. With non-loadbearing interior steel walls, for example, and simpler roofs, even less wood would be used.

-Building towers increase work accidents related to falls and other dangers and are often denounced by the fire departments.

-The more houses we have in optimal parameters, the more it will be possible to restore a sound monetary policy and reverse the abandonment of Keynesianism. This abandonment caused the real estate crisis of 2008 and greatly contributed to household debt, which in Canada is the worst among OECD countries. It is true that raising the price of an asset can reduce the waste of space but it is to the detriment of the economy which does not change by an artificial adjustment of pricing but by responding to real needs.

-Put an end to the flooding of forests around hydroelectric dams and the destruction caused when creating corridors for high-voltage lines or oil pipelines, etc.

-It seems as if the land-value of a house compared to a condo is voided in terms of data, analysis and most of all the pricing of condos. A fair and honest market is much more stable.

-It is in the commercial and industrial sectors that building in height should be sky's the limit not for the residential sector as it is throughout the world.

-Our policies keep on using solutions that that aren't the ones directly answering its respective problem but rather use an alternative solution that is also a way to solve another problem. This can lead to bigger set of problems. For example, the city of Montreal lets its developpers push profits with low-value housing since the people who realize they cannot find value in Montreal will move to regions that are aging fast and are in dire need of population renewal. In time we all lose from such thinking.

-Increase electricity tariffs in Quebec.

-Airports in places with high residential or agricultural potential should be moved.

-Create a construction chamber to help an industry that is in need of industrial relations.

QUOTES

"The perfect dictatorship will have the appearance of democracy. A prison without walls where prisoners will never dream of escaping. A system of slavery where through consumption and entertainment slaves will love their slavery." - Aldous Huxley

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