06/16/2025
Okay, I've seen this posted/shared enough times that I need to weigh in on the content because... a lot of it is inaccurate.
We'll go paragraph by paragraph here, because, it's a lot.
1) For starters, this *is* a 'multi-million' dollar deal in one sense of the word, but the number of millions is less than 2 (it should come in at 1.9-ish, in total).
2) You are, of course, free to decide on your own whether this deal the City of London has struck with Farhi Holdings Corp. is "good news", but I'd argue quite strongly that it is.
3) This paragraph is just undeniably false. There is a shortage of housing supply all over the affordability spectrum. Do we need more affordable housing? Yes, absolutely. But we need more housing of all kinds. This is clear, tons of work on this topic has been done. We have more people than we do places to live, which has created all sorts of social problems. (See the work Dr. Mike P. Moffatt/The Missing Middle has done on this for more).
4) There IS a disparity between what most people can afford, rent wise, and what rent costs are. One of the solutions there is more units, no?
5) The 70% commercial vacancy is just flat false and wildly different from anything going on in real life. In the downtown core, that vacancy rate is somewhere in the low 30% range. In the city overall, it was at 26% in March. London's commercial properties are not 70% vacant.
Now, that number *is* at a record high in the downtown and there's a lot of reasons for that. Poverty (all three levels of government take blame there, mostly the province) is on that list, as is more and more businesses leaving expensive office spaces as they give their employees work from home options (which is a very good thing, IMO). Add in safety concerns (very real) a lack of full-day parking options (also real) and lots of businesses are either leaving the core and/or shrinking their footprint there. Which is why the announcement at 685 Richmond happened, we'll get back to that.
6) If you want to say FHC has set the move-in bar too high for a lot of their vacant properties, you won't hear a peep of argument from me on that one. There's several buildings that could and should be used rather than rotting away - however, up until this announcement 685 Richmond was on that list and soon it won't be. So, I'd say FHC is doing what the people are suggesting here. Chalk that up as a win.
Also, I'm told by those in the know that the McDonald's portion of the post is not accurate and was mostly related to downtown's social issues, but I have not independently verified this.
7) I agree with the start of this paragraph re: commercial vacancy tax. It shouldn't apply to *all* empty buildings, but if you can't prove a good faith effort to get the space rented, yeah, it should mean you pay the city some cash.
Now, this paragraph also contains one of the bigger inaccuracies in the post. This is not a $14-million dollar deal between the city and Farhi holdings. It's $1.4-million to create 41 units - plus some bonusing for creating housing in a transit area, which I'd say is good policy. Anyway, that 1.4/14 thing is a pretty significant misplaced decimal point.
8 ) These units will be market rate, yes. And if you want to say the city should have pushed for some affordable to be part of the deal, I think that's fair. But, the rest of the claim is rooted in zero evidence. The original poster has no idea who will be renting these units, what the rent will be, and where they'd spend their money. Now, if you think $1.4m is too much government spending (the feds chipped in on this) for a net creation of 41 units, I'd disagree but I could see the logic.
But, the idea that we don't need more units - of any kind - is false.
I'd also add this is econ 101? The reason why rents are so high is because of a lack of available units. Demand drives prices. A lack of supply drives demand. So, increase supply (not just by 41 units, but by many units) and eventually that drops prices.
9) Again, if you aren't pleased with lack of action by Farhi Holdings on several properties, I'm in agreement with you. But, this is action, no?
We had too much office space in London, and we lacked residential space. This helps on both fronts. If you don't like this deal because of *who* the city made it with, fair enough. But I'd say this plan is a positive on several fronts from a planning perspective in the downtown core.
I don't see how a 'bigger stick' has been handed out here? The value of 685 Richmond went up for him, no doubt. But, the value also went up for the city? They will collect property taxes from those units, as opposed to the nothing they had been collecting from empty space on floors 2-4.
Bonus 10) If you think Farhi leaving spaces empty is driving up the cost of living in the core (which some commenters on the posts are saying), shouldn't you be *pleased* that he's turning an empty space into 41 housing units?
- Craig
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