I say get rid of the demolition timer entirely.

Make it so that new wards are added as residential areas fill up.

If they have to, SE should temporarily shut down the housing servers. Have all home owners on a list or save their data or whatever. Then when the housing system is fixed, the home owners will still have their houses, and more wards will get added as residential areas fill up. I don't really care if housing servers are shut down for a year, two years, or more to get this fixed. SE needs to do something about the housing problem, and I don't think many people will be opposed to shutting down housing for a while to get this fixed - as long as they get to keep their houses when all is said and done.