24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa is technically the official residence of the Prime Minister of Canada. However, the last time it was used for this purpose was in 2015 by Stephen Harper. When Justin Trudeau took office, he opted to live at Rideau Cottage because of the house's current state of disrepair. In 2021, the National Capital Commission listed the property as being in "critical condition," and the following year it was officially closed for "health and safety reasons," including a rat infestation. Since then, the 35-room, 12,000-square-foot house has had its interiors stripped down and has sat there in an uninhabitable state.
The political reasons for doing so are obvious. Going back to the 1950s when it was first used as a residence, no Prime Minister has wanted to spend taxpayer money on what effectively amounts to a house reno for themselves. And so the status quo has persisted. But then last Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that the house will finally be renovated by way of (1) a design competition and (2) private donations. Importantly, only individuals will be able to donate (no corporations), all donations will be made public, and no single donation can exceed 10% of the total project cost.
Not surprisingly, opposition leader Pierre Poilievre responded by arguing that renovating 24 Sussex should absolutely not be a government priority while Canadians face a housing and overall affordability crisis. My view is that it makes a lot of sense to have an official prime ministerial residence that is actually habitable by human beings. I also think that Build Canada raises an interesting point about this: What does it say about Canada that we have not been able to achieve this for one of our national symbols?
Excerpt from Build Canada:
In countries with confident, reasonably secure national identities, the maintenance of official institutions isn’t a political risk, it’s an expectation. Nobody asks the French president to apologize for maintaining the Élysée. Nobody expects the British prime minister to crowdfund Chequers. These are national institutions, and their upkeep is understood as a basic obligation of government. Citizens in those countries would be more alarmed by neglect than by expenditure. Even in the United States, the concern over what Donald Trump is doing to the White House and the National Mall stems from the fact that these things are seen as belonging to all Americans as a meaningful part of their national symbolism. The fact that Canadian politicians spent decades calculating that voters would punish them for fixing 24 Sussex reveals something very disturbing about how this country sees its own symbols and institutions.
Raising money from private donors is the obvious hack to try and make this politically palatable. But all of this remains a fascinating design and political problem. What should 24 Sussex be? The Élysée Palace is 118,000 square feet of lavish opulence on 3.7 acres, and the White House is 55,000 square feet on 18 acres, excluding the wings and Trump's gold Home Depot decorations. Should 24 Sussex be something equally impressive and internationally significant? Then maybe it would appear in movies and get blown up by alien invaders from Mars. We have 5.3 acres to work with here.
Alternatively, the government could be frugal stewards of Canadian taxpayer money and either leave the house vacant (or maybe the Ottawa rats still live there?) or opt for a simple interior renovation using only materials and finishes readily available from the local Home Hardware store. We could hire a guy with a dog and a van from the neighbourhood and make it as cheap as possible to ensure that no Canadian gets too bothered. Yeah, I suppose we could do that, but let's not forget that architecture is always a reflection of the zeitgeist of the time and what a society values the most.
What do Canadians value the most?
Cover photo by Robbie Palmer on Unsplash
As we know, many cities have not seen their transit ridership levels rebound to pre-pandemic levels (2019). This is true in the San Francisco Bay Area, where ridership levels are hovering around 70%. But it is not true in Paris, where things have more or less returned to where they were, albeit with a different demand profile throughout the week.
As far as I can tell, the determining factor seems to be whether a city has a network designed for 9-5 commuting or whether the entire city is generally oriented around transit. If a city is in the latter camp, demand has naturally proven to be more resilient.
It is tempting to want to use 2019 as the benchmark for comparison, but Jarrett Walker makes a good point in this recent post: "When are we going to stop describing our ridership as a percentage of pre-COVID?" His point is that our cities have permanently changed, and so it's time to set goals and benchmarks based on today's reality.
Many transit networks, particularly in North America, were designed to concentrate peak demand into a singular central business district. That is not happening in the same way anymore, and we are seeing an increase in new riders at different times. For example, Walker also points out that a number of transit agencies have seen weekend ridership exceed 2019 levels.
I have argued before that cities like Toronto are starting to plan for a post-car future. This is the only way we know how to solve traffic congestion, but it requires new land use patterns and a grid transit network, as opposed to a CBD funnel. In assessing their performance, cities will need to decide if this is their goal, or if they're content to focus on the past.
It's never a good political look to be seen as helping out, or worse, bailing out developers. Developers are about as popular as cyclists who ride through red lights.
Last week, the feds and the BC government botched this housing announcement when they offered minimal details and said that they would step in to buy vacant condos and turn them into affordable housing. According to CMHC, there are around 4,376 completed condominiums sitting vacant in Metro Vancouver.
The reaction to the announcement was immediate: This is the government overtaxing the housing industry into a crisis, and then turning around and giving it a bailout.
Since then, BC Premier David Eby has acknowledged that maybe they should have worked out more of the details before going public. He also clarified that this is about buying "distressed condos" below replacement cost. No developer will, in theory at least, profit from this program.
My knee-jerk reaction is that the private sector should be left to sort itself out unless you believe the answer is "yes" to one or both of the following questions: (1) Is government intervention necessary to prevent systemic risk and contagion in the market, and/or (2) Should our governments be in the business of owning affordable housing?
I'll leave it to you all to form your own opinions.
Cover photo by Albert Stoynov on Unsplash