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A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

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Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#31

Post by darksaints »

mc32 wrote: post #7
xvedejas wrote: post #3

In Japan, zoning is handled federally; and the result is much more affordable cities. "Why Tokyo is the land of rising home construction but not prices" https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3... An overview of zoning practices there: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

Granted, but a decreasing population and a growing number of uninhabited houses sure doesn’t add to housing pressure. So it helps, but it may not account for all of it.

That's not true for Tokyo, which has been growing rapidly for 30 years now. Yet Tokyo's prices have remained flat during that time.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#32

Post by [deleted] »

xvedejas wrote: post #3

In Japan, zoning is handled federally; and the result is much more affordable cities. "Why Tokyo is the land of rising home construction but not prices" https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3... An overview of zoning practices there: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

[deleted]

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#33

Post by burlesona »

xvedejas wrote: post #3

In Japan, zoning is handled federally; and the result is much more affordable cities. "Why Tokyo is the land of rising home construction but not prices" https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3... An overview of zoning practices there: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

Federal zoning would be really difficult to get done constitutionally, but state level zoning wouldn’t be as hard and would have most of the same benefits, ie. reducing the power the nimbys.

However there’s no reason to think that would fix it all, transportation planning, design, and funding is almost entirely a state and federal affair, and the nimbys still torpedo all sorts of things that would be great for the region at the expense of a particular neighborhood or block.

To some extent though, that’s a feature of democracy, not a bug. There are a bunch of reasons we’re in the mess we’re in, and federal programs and subsidies contribute a lot. The threat to take away federal funding for places that don’t accept housing growth may be more effective than a brute force approach in the end, who knows.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#34

Post by joshe »

imgabe wrote: post #8
xvedejas wrote: post #3

In Japan, zoning is handled federally; and the result is much more affordable cities. "Why Tokyo is the land of rising home construction but not prices" https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3... An overview of zoning practices there: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

I feel like this is the case for a lot of the differences between the US and other countries. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as "just make the Federal government do it for everyone". The constitution limits the authority of what the Federal government can do in the US and delegates everything else to state and local governments.

What people are thinking is to do it at the state level (California, Oregon). There are no restrictions on what states can do relative to cities. (In other words, if a city can do it a state can too, cities are entirely creatures of the state, there is no real 'federalism' below the state level.)

This HUD effort would be more minor, something like removing some zoning restrictions in order to get federal dollars. The existing political entities (probably cities) would then have to pass those rules to get the money.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#35

Post by maxerickson »

pwned1 wrote: post #27
ginko wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the State governments the problem here though? From what I(not American) can tell the issue seems to be more that local residents have a surprising(to me) amount of political control over zoning on the municipal level. I guess this is all part of the American approach to the distribution of power and there are certainly good sides to this, but it also means that NIMBYs can have so much control by voting for the m…

Cities are legally an extension of the states, so states could take control over the process, but you're right, as far as I know municipalities (cities, counties, townships) have almost total control over zoning standards (at least here in Michigan).

Which means there are about 1500 separate zoning standards (they are largely the same, but a wind energy project might have to work with 2 or more townships to get permitting).

I wonder about a state law creating a new type of township that is totally subordinate to the county (dissolving all functions of the township). Would it be a good thing? What are the pitfalls, etc.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#36

Post by nedwin »

joshe wrote: post #29
ryandrake wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t just add in “moar housing” in a vacuum and declare mission accomplished. Let’s say SF doubled its housing. Where are all these new residents going to park? So, now it’s housing and parking that needs to be fixed. Assume none of these new residents have cars? Ok now it’s housing and public transit that needs to be fixed. Where are their kids going to go to school? So we need more school capacity, too. How mu…

Actually it solves lots of those problems too, more affordable housing would make it possible for teachers, waiters, bus drivers, waiters, grocery cashiers to live affordably in the city. Uber/Lyft and now scooters have already 10x improved transit in SF. Living without a car and even without buses is totally possible now. The cost of Lyft 10 times a week compares favorably with a car, and scooters/bikes are much che…

"would make it possible for teachers, waiters, bus drivers, waiters, grocery cashiers to live affordably in the city."

Plus a broader tax base vs relying on Prop 13 property taxes.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#37

Post by ende »

burlesona wrote: post #33
xvedejas wrote: post #3

In Japan, zoning is handled federally; and the result is much more affordable cities. "Why Tokyo is the land of rising home construction but not prices" https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3... An overview of zoning practices there: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

Federal zoning would be really difficult to get done constitutionally, but state level zoning wouldn’t be as hard and would have most of the same benefits, ie. reducing the power the nimbys. However there’s no reason to think that would fix it all, transportation planning, design, and funding is almost entirely a state and federal affair, and the nimbys still torpedo all sorts of things that would be great for the re…

Right. There’s no need to take this “all the way to the top” (ie Federal). States can easily supplant the zoning powers of their local governments.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#38

Post by ryandrake »

joshe wrote: post #29
ryandrake wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t just add in “moar housing” in a vacuum and declare mission accomplished. Let’s say SF doubled its housing. Where are all these new residents going to park? So, now it’s housing and parking that needs to be fixed. Assume none of these new residents have cars? Ok now it’s housing and public transit that needs to be fixed. Where are their kids going to go to school? So we need more school capacity, too. How mu…

Actually it solves lots of those problems too, more affordable housing would make it possible for teachers, waiters, bus drivers, waiters, grocery cashiers to live affordably in the city. Uber/Lyft and now scooters have already 10x improved transit in SF. Living without a car and even without buses is totally possible now. The cost of Lyft 10 times a week compares favorably with a car, and scooters/bikes are much che…

That’s no solution. So teachers and waiters can live in the city now—great. What new schools and restaurants will they work in? Where are all the new grocery stores going to be built to cater to all the new residents? How will the traffic grid handle more Lyfts and Ubers? Are you going to build wider roads in SF? You can’t just build taller buildings and dump 50% more people in a city.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#39

Post by darksaints »

ryandrake wrote: post #14
matchbok wrote: post #9

Seems like it could work. Nonsense local policies to encourage "affordable" housing like inclusionary zoning have been huge failures. In big cities, we just need way more housing. Yet NIMBYs fight it at every step, esp in SF.

You can’t just add in “moar housing” in a vacuum and declare mission accomplished. Let’s say SF doubled its housing. Where are all these new residents going to park? So, now it’s housing and parking that needs to be fixed. Assume none of these new residents have cars? Ok now it’s housing and public transit that needs to be fixed. Where are their kids going to go to school? So we need more school capacity, too. How mu…

Nearly every city in the world has built infrastructure in lockstep with growth for their entire existence. Thats simply how its done. When you have existing demand for more infrastructure, you build it.

Maybe you could claim that it is better to provide infrastructure before people, but it is actually the master planned cities that have yet to succeed, not the other way around. It's just too damn expensive to provide infrastructure for people that don't exist yet, and that deters people from moving there.

Re: A proposal to roll back exclusionary zoning would make housing more affordable

#40

Post by skybrian »

ryandrake wrote: post #14
matchbok wrote: post #9

Seems like it could work. Nonsense local policies to encourage "affordable" housing like inclusionary zoning have been huge failures. In big cities, we just need way more housing. Yet NIMBYs fight it at every step, esp in SF.

You can’t just add in “moar housing” in a vacuum and declare mission accomplished. Let’s say SF doubled its housing. Where are all these new residents going to park? So, now it’s housing and parking that needs to be fixed. Assume none of these new residents have cars? Ok now it’s housing and public transit that needs to be fixed. Where are their kids going to go to school? So we need more school capacity, too. How mu…

For SF, SOMA residental towers ("Yuppie fishtanks") seems like the way to go:

https://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2018/07/yimbyism-explain...

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