Housing Minister blames RED TAPE for adding $100k to new house price. No one rebuts or refutes his charge.
Sep 29th, 2010 by kevinhung
Rich Coleman, the B.C. Housing Minister, threw a stink bomb in Whistler on Monday and nobody left the room. READ VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE Coleman charged that excessive government RED TAPE and TAXES were adding as much as $100,000 to the price of a new home in B.C. Of course Coleman was not outing his own government, he was pointing his fat finger directly at B.C. municipal government, which do very well collecting exorbitant development fees and constantly adding pages to the building code.
The room was packed with mayors and their well-paid entourages, all of whom seemed immune to criticism. No one dropped their lobster bib long enough to stand to rebut or to refute the Minister. Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts was pleased to announce that her city is “considering” laneway houses. No wonder! Vancouver is already making a killing amount of money with the fees they levy for this innovative new micro-house concept which has been imported Toronto. Coleman said that infamous property transfer tax adds “only” about $5000 to the cost of a $500,000 home. This after first pretending to be sympathetic to the average home buyer. “Every dime we put on someone’s shoulders is a piece of a mortgage that they are carrying…” $5000 bucks! That is hell of a lot of dimes.
Maybe Minister Coleman is using a bad grade of motor oil in his SUV. WATCH He can be up to his neck in dimes and never notice burden he creates. He feels our pain? Not!