While the political parties and the mayors are curling their buns for or against urban sprawl, in the metropolis of Quebec, access to property and housing is deteriorating at high speed.

According to the Portrait of housing published by the Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM), on the island, the median selling price of single-family homes has climbed 71% since 2017 to reach $722,500. At this rate, we will soon be close to a million per house.

The median price of condominiums also exploded by 47% to reach $431,500. When interest rates rise, it smells like the perfect storm. Either the impossibility of a growing number of people of all ages to access property or to be able to rent a quality apartment at an affordable price.

Isn't good housing an essential need? Or even a guarantor of better physical and mental health? The problem is pan-Quebec, but the greater Montreal area, let us remember, covers half of the Quebec population.

A housing summit

However, this diversified and human-scale metropolis that we cherish so much is on the fast track to metamorphosing into the second Toronto. And isn't that the real question? Which metropolis do we want?

Do we want a city caught up in the frenzy of real estate and rental speculation? Or a city where you could live in a house, condo or apartment without having to be part of the so-called very upper middle class?

Because no matter how many cycle paths and flowerpots there are, if it is impossible for more and more of us, young or old, to live there without declaring bankruptcy or languishing in an unsanitary apartment, what good is it? ?

Even for possible solutions, it is getting late. The upcoming general elections are also not helping to nurture a climate of proactive collaboration between the mayors, the Legault government and the opposition parties.

In such a context, hasn't the time come for a major pan-Quebec and transpartisan summit on access to housing, including the federal government? It's urgent. We must act and do it well.