High-income rentals may increase rental supply, but it won’t address the core issue of the Kingston housing crisis.
Newly built student accommodations in Kingston, notably The Hive, GeoPark, and more, are all said to address housing unaffordability, yet are simultaneously dubbed as luxury rentals. While luxury units may partially alleviate the supply issue, it’s not enough to fix the issue at large.
When the new housing stock is almost exclusively focused on “luxury” apartments, it becomes increasingly unfeasible for many prospective students to attend Queen’s without financial help. Combined with recent OSAP cuts, Queen’s is being increasingly entrenched as an institution only for the privileged elite who can afford it.
Granted, Queen’s has never been known as an affordable university, but there was a time not so long ago that working class students could plausibly afford to finance themselves through school. If it wasn’t already obvious, financial support from parents is essentially a requirement to attend Queen’s now.
No doubt, the student area absolutely needs more short-term housing. Rent inflation has been brutal, and many students simply do not have enough options. Students need quality housing options across the whole spectrum, not solely in high-value projects.
We need more affordable housing in the future, and this trend will only make education less accessible for students.
Adding to this problem is the growing student body at Queen’s. Leaked consultant documents from 2024 show that Queen’s has been provided recommendations to expand its student body to 30,000 full-time in-person students by 2040. If this plan were to be implemented, it would require even more rental units to absorb the increased demand on housing surrounding Queen’s. “Luxury apartments” will absorb some of the demand, but it cannot account for all of it.
It will also concentrate more power in a select small group of property companies, who will be the only groups able to finance these large acquisition projects. In a property market that is already experiencing artificial market conditions, it creates the conditions for predatory pricing. The profit motive is to be expected, but we should not accept price gouging, and we cannot allow for oligopolies.
What’s also concerning is the fact that Queen’s is not doing enough to oppose this trend. Considering how powerful the University is as an institution in Kingston, complacency simply is not acceptable.
Since student tuition is instrumental in Queen’s operating budget, there is an economic case for the University to increase its student count. Queens won’t feel the sting, but its students will.
A similar criticism can be aimed at the Government of Ontario, and towards property developers in Kingston. However, considering that we pay thousands of dollars to Queen’s, we should expect that the University would provide some advocacy for its future students.
There is reason to be concerned at the future direction of the city and its housing market, but we cannot allow ourselves to be taken advantage of more than we already are.
— Journal Editorial Board
Tags
home price, Queen's student housing, rent
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to eic@queensjournal.ca.