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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

#51

Post by timr »

darksaints wrote: post #31
mc32 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can't just cherry pick a single factor: Tokyo sprawls, but it's not especially dense. It has smaller buildings, much smaller apartments, and higher costs per square foot. Japan has better transit than the west, which makes long-distance commutes feasible. Moreover, there's a culture (and a tax system) that treats housing as a depreciating asset. On top of all of that, the Japanese tend to live together in communal units, with children living with parents long past the point where it would be considered okay in the west. And housing is still expensive relative to the local economy (which has been depressed for 30 years, by the way).

All of these factors (and more) result in the housing economy you see in Japan. HN people love to fixate on zoning, but it's not even close to the whole story. If we suddenly asked westerners to live the way Japanese people do, there would be open revolt and riots in the streets.

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

#52

Post by 0xffff2 »

dangrover wrote: post #24
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…

The whole point of a city is people aren't dependent on cars/parking. Otherwise, it's not a city.

So Los Angeles isn't a city? What do you call it then?

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

#53

Post by bluGill »

ryandrake wrote: post #38
joshe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why can't we build taller schools, restaurants, and stores at the same time? Or better yet a tower that is a store on the bottom floor, then offices for a couple floors, then apartments? (or any other arrangement of the above that makes sense for the local situation)?

The reason you think more transit will be needed is because you are assuming that separate business and residential districts are required. However there is no particular reason it must be that way. If you can get people within walking distance of work and a few stores they won't needs as much transit. Transit becomes what you need for rare trips.

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

#54

Post by saosebastiao »

timr wrote: post #51
darksaints wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can't just cherry pick a single factor: Tokyo sprawls, but it's not especially dense. It has smaller buildings, much smaller apartments, and higher costs per square foot. Japan has better transit than the west, which makes long-distance commutes feasible. Moreover, there's a culture (and a tax system) that treats housing as a depreciating asset. On top of all of that, the Japanese tend to live together in communa…

Fixation on anything other than housing supply is fixating on irrelevant noise. That includes density...there are plenty of dense cities that nonetheless restrict new supply and are thus unaffordable. Other affordable first world cities have accomplished the same thing as Tokyo via other means, including social housing (Vienna, Singapore), sprawl (Houston, Louisville), and density (Chicago, Montreal).

There is one thing they all have in common: they all allow housing supply to meet demand. Anything else is a distraction.

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

#55

Post by kazinator »

rayiner wrote: post #46
ahoy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the classic "only monocultures can work toward the social good, if we'd stop accepting 'outsiders' we could do the same" trope. It's tired and xenophobic. The presence of foreigners isn't why laws that benefit already-wealthy real estate developers persist.

Exclusionary zoning developed in response to Supreme Court cases striking down state laws making it illegal for african americans to buy property in majority white neighborhoods: https://tcf.org/content/commentary/exclusionary-zoning-conti... People are racist and xenophobic, we know that. It’s not xenophobic to point out that, within a democratic framework, peoples’ racism and xenophobia, coupled with a hetrogenous…

That's right; so why would Japan have developed exclusionary zoning, when the question doesn't even arise that the vast majority your neighbors will be other than Japanese wherever you go, with the help of national policies that help keep it that way.

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

#56

Post by joshe »

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #45

As with most things, engineering a blunt policy solution will lead to unintended consequences. If this proposal goes into effect, by clobbering local zoning codes, anything with sufficient money behind it is going to get built. This typically means projects that optimize for the developer's ability to extract rent from residents: 3 or 4-story apartments with small unit sizes, basic finishes made to aesthetically look…

The right way to do this is to make sure that a small amount of money will be sufficient.

You want to redevelop a one story Sunset place into three stories? Meet the building codes and you are good to go. This would open up development to small contractors and small design/build architects. You wouldn't hire a city fixer + a lawyer + a pr person, you'd just hire an architect and a contractor. Each unit could be built much more cheaply.

Right now you could take a $1 million Sunset house and convert it into three $800,000 flats in a wood frame house. Developers would be DELIGHTED to do that.

The current system adds 5 years and a million dollars to each redevelopment. Developers don't want to build stuff for rich people, they want return on investment. They are as happy making 10% on affordable housing as making 10% on luxury housing.

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

#57

Post by paulsutter »

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

Japan and China also have one national building code. A very different issue, yes, but should aimpkify the challenge of construction technology (in the US building codes are localized)

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

#58

Post by Symmetry »

ramblerouser wrote: post #47
Symmetry wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a long time there was a roughly equal balance in the US between the amount of money paid out as wages and the profits that go to capital. Recently that balance has gotten skewed with 60% going to capital. But basically all of that skew is due to rising rents and housing prices.

A big part of it is wage stagnation too. The average American hasnt had a meaningful raise since 1973, that's half a century. Not good. Growth of the labor supply and repeal of trade protections for industries that employ low-skill workers have caused it.

This metric is comparing returns to capital to total returns to labor, not the median returns to labor. Median wages haven't been doing too well recently due to rising inequality but gains by the best paid professionals would be enough to make up for that on this metric except for rising housing costs.

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

#59

Post by timr »

saosebastiao wrote: post #54
timr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just cherry pick a single factor: Tokyo sprawls, but it's not especially dense. It has smaller buildings, much smaller apartments, and higher costs per square foot. Japan has better transit than the west, which makes long-distance commutes feasible. Moreover, there's a culture (and a tax system) that treats housing as a depreciating asset. On top of all of that, the Japanese tend to live together in communa…

Fixation on anything other than housing supply is fixating on irrelevant noise. That includes density...there are plenty of dense cities that nonetheless restrict new supply and are thus unaffordable. Other affordable first world cities have accomplished the same thing as Tokyo via other means, including social housing (Vienna, Singapore), sprawl (Houston, Louisville), and density (Chicago, Montreal). There is one th…

"Fixation on anything other than housing supply is fixating on irrelevant noise. That includes density."

That's like "fixating" on the money supply. Sure, having more of it lowers prices. The point is: how do you get there? What are the side-effects of your proposal? These are not simple questions.

Fixating on zoning, at the exclusion of all other considerations, is a facile answer.

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

#60

Post by bilbo0s »

0xffff2 wrote: post #49
bilbo0s wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just start building everything, high density housing, dedicated bus lanes, multi-level parking garages I'd advise against this. We did that in Madison, and before we even got very far doing this, Mother Nature started to hint to us that it might not be a good idea. Maybe there are places where you can just build Willy-Nilly. (I doubt it, but what do I know?) I suspect, however, most places are like Madison, just no…

> Mother Nature started to hint to us that it might not be a good idea. Could you explain what you mean by this?

When we started building down what all the experts told us was an "under utilized" corridor, a bit of flooding appeared. Initially, when the rain would come down, you'd have to navigate through maybe 6 inches of water. Max. Annoying, but not necessarily cause for alarm. As we built more, and more down that corridor, it's gotten worse. Fast forward to today, and when the rain comes down hard you're navigating through maybe a foot or a foot and a half on a bad day in that area. It's also taking much longer to drain. (Nothing speaks to the folly of thoughtless building like high end, fancy restaurants, in gleaming new fancy buildings with sand bags out front that you have to jump over.)

So yeah, no new plans for any new massive footprint, high density buildings along that area in the near future. I suspect until they get this whole thing worked out. Point is that just digging out massive parking garages, paving over areas, building high density housing, it all sounds good on the surface. And it might be good for other cities? Who knows?

But we now have a better understanding that you need a more well thought out plan if you're a city built on a system of five lakes with a dam and locks system delicately balancing their water levels as it is.

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