Editor:
So, I think a have a rant-invoking discussion for our current housing situation.
I know there will probably be a lot of people out there who will strongly oppose my views here, but I’m saying it anyway.
How many empty “luxury” homes do we have in Canmore? How many places have been built for those vacationers who never actually spend that much time and money here anyways? How many unsold townhomes and condos sit unused in this town? Why don’t we all take a walk around town and tell me this hasn’t become a huge issue?
We have the population of Canmore already split and getting worse over the issues of building. The rest are being forced out as their rented homes/condos/apartments are sold underneath them and they are unable to afford to stay with an increasing inflation rate within town and ever-increasing rents; it’s crazy.
We have empty houses/condos/apartments everywhere ... Yet, the homeless continue to emerge and disappear. The young continue to give up in frustration and leave. The foreign workers are becoming fewer among other problems in the system. The lowest paid workers continue to be paid menial wages while working more because there are fewer co-workers to help do the job and sometimes less time to do the same job. There are businesses that just can’t seem to make it, no matter what they do.
No wonder attitudes are generally poor, tips are mostly meh and service is kinda sucky. This town council and people in charge need to start making some major changes and decisions regarding these huge problems in our town.
For the large percentage of us that still choose to stay among the growing struggle that is living in Canmore, we are from elsewhere.
We chose to live here. We do value the greenspaces, forests, etc. We do love being able to live so closely among the wild. We do love being outside and being active, enjoying the activities that most have to travel and drive to access. We still look at the views around us and cherish every day we are able to continue to awake to them.
We don’t want to lose any more parks, or the likes, to more construction.
But, if we can’t change the ridiculous pricing of houses, if we can’t increase the wages of underappreciated employees, if we can’t convince the greedy holdouts of the best vacant lands within the downtown areas to just let go and the same investors to actually build more suitably affordable housing for the actual “low wage workers” of town, not their “low-wage bosses,” many won’t be able to live even somewhat comfortably.
But, this town is more interested in seeing the small old-style single family dwellings get torn down, to build giant $750,000 duplexes and fourplexes only to once again not sell all of them, and once again they sit empty.
And there’s a vicious circle of increasing property taxes of the rest of town while they are at it. Because if they can’t have people living in the giant unafforable places year round, or at all, then they just tax the remaining population more and more and more ...
Hmm, seems to be a problem here ...
Austin Norman,
Canmore
