The town council is extremely conservative in granting permission to add businesses, restaurants, and the like. 

If the Uni then starts to utilize all this capacity it has built with increased student roles then we should be on another steady upswing for a wee while.If the hospital build and the 2GP come together at the same time then we could get some strong trades incomes coming in (although capacity constraints might bugger that a bit but that is NZ and even worldwide) so I personally am going to be looking at older stock that can be redeveloped or added on to with the old building refreshed if they are in good enough nick and a location on their site so that to me is where the council and the market would like to go.

You want city council to approve a variance request, it's all at there choosing. 

I think Seattle's own analysis on these changes said that they expected a few hundred to a thousand additional units per year to be developed as a result of these changes,   so if seattle has about ~150K single family homes,  thats not a dramatic rate of change.Also,   Seattle's anti-landlord renter protection ordinances are going to diminish interest in this,  especially if our more aggressively / unapologetically socialist council members get their way and achieve some sort of rent control.   

Here in Toledo, City Council passed an ordinance in December making it illegal to discriminate against vouchers as a source of income.

I have hailed from British Columbia for the past 20 years but looking to invest in Ontario and Ohio.

About 20 years ago a house I lived in when suddenly declared "in a flood plain" and my mortgage company demanded I get flood insurance, I freaked out, called my insurance agent, who was also on the city council,,it turned out the back 2' of the property were in the flood zone,,nothing close to the house.

Best of luck, feel free to reach out to me anytime for advice or council. 

Apparently they need something to get focus away from dealing with a member of the security council threatening to nuke people.

The City Council there just passed policies allowing legal second suites, albeit with gross floor area restrictions, it was the fastest growing municipality in Ontario from 2006-2011 (~20% growth) according to the 2011 census, and the province just announced last week a LRT connecting downtown to Mississauga and Brampton.