Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1534

Yesterday I wrote a post on why Norway loves Tesla Motors . The lesson was that if you want people to adopt sustainability, just make it cheaper. But here’s something to ponder: Are electric vehicles the right answer to the wrong question? ( Jeff Speck  in Walkable City)

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think electric vehicles are great. They’re certainly better than gas vehicles from a sustainability standpoint. But is the ideal city of the future one where everyone is driving around in electric vehicles? Or is it one where the majority of people walk, bike and take transit? It’ll likely be a mixture of both scenarios, but I think it’s important for cities to know where they want to go.

Switching from gas to electric solves some problems, but it doesn’t solve all of them. Traffic congestion and lost productivity, for example, don’t go away. So I would say that electric vehicles are part of the right answer—but there’s still lots of other work to be done.

Norway imposes big levies on the sale of fuel burning vehicles. They can  amount to more than 100% of the sale price —effectively doubling the price of a vehicle. It’s a supertax.

Exempt from these taxes, however, are electric vehicles. This has not surprisingly made Elon Musk’s  Tesla Motors  an incredibly popular choice. In fact, Norway has become Tesla’s best overseas market with the highest per capita sales.

And it’s because it makes economic sense, at least for some. Here’s how a Norwegian would save by buying the Tesla Model S : 

"EV drivers enjoy breaks on levies the government imposes on vehicle purchases to the tune of about $135,000 for the Model S, which has a local starting base price of about $112,000. In other words, if the Model S had a gas engine, like comparable luxury cars, it would cost nearly $250,000 to own one in Norway."

But this approach has been criticized as a subsidy for the wealthy. People are buying a Tesla S instead of a Porsche. However, you could argue that the intent of the supertax is being fulfilled: more people are buying electric vehicles. Which is why the per capita fleet of plug-in electric vehicles as a whole in Norway is the largest in the world.

So the lesson here is that if you want people to adopt sustainability, just make it cheaper.

Credit to Evgeny of 500px for giving me the idea for this post.

One of the objections I often hear from people regarding condominiums is that they don’t like the idea of paying maintenance fees. So I’ve been meaning to do a post for some time now that breaks down and explains exactly where that money goes.

Here is a simplified example. It ignores some of the miscellaneous income that buildings usually receive (from guest suites, the party room, public parking and so on). And of course, these numbers will vary based on the age of the building, specific amenities, and any deficiencies it may have. Nonetheless, it should give you an idea.

So assuming you pay $400 per month as a common element fee, a percentage of that will—or at least should—get immediately stripped away as a reserve fund contribution. Again this will depend on the age the building and the periodic reserve fund study that’s typically required to be done.

After that you have the operating expenses. The biggest items you’ll notice are contracts and utilities. Contracts are things like janitorial services, snow removal, property management fees, security/concierge services and so on. They’re contracted items. Utilities are self explanatory. 

Once all the operating expenses have been paid, any remaining money then goes to retained earnings and sits in the condo corporation to handle any other expenses that may arise.

Looking at the total operating expenses ($263), you should notice that it’s only about 66% of the total common element fee ($400). A big chunk of your common element fee is actually going towards saving for the future. Assuming the building is being properly managed, I’m okay with this.

If you have any feedback on my numbers, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below or on twitter .