Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws • Hacker News Board

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#171

Post by tempsy » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #31

sampo wrote: post #2

> Lawmakers passed a first-in-the-nation cap on rent increases Unfortunately, rent control will have the opposite effect of what Oregon thinks, and only make housing scarcity worse. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent... https://www.governing.com/gov-institute/voices/col-rent-cont... > in an effort to spur new homebuilding, became the only state to eliminate single-family-only zoning in many…

> Unfortunately, rent control will have the opposite effect of what Oregon thinks, and only make housing scarcity worse. It depends on the kind of rent control. Housing has important asymmetries it's reasonable to address through legislation. One is asymmetry in scale: you have one unit; landlords have many more. This gives them stronger negotiating power. Another is cost of change. It's much more expensive for me in…

If you’re renting to young person or couple, there’s a better chance than not that they will voluntarily move out in a few years. And pro-construction legislation means the cap on rent will likely not mean much if you’re starting at a market rate rent today.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#172

Post by throw0101a » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #37

throw0101a wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, rent control will have the opposite effect of what Oregon thinks, and only make housing scarcity worse. I always found it odd that rent control always seems to be an all-or-nothing policy: either things are tamped down on, or it's a laissez faire system. Does any locality have a "hybrid" approached. Something like: * buildings 0-5 years old, allow up to 3x inflation rent increases * buildings 5-10 ye…

> I always found it odd that rent control always seems to be an all-or-nothing policy: either things are tamped down on, or it's a laissez faire system. It's not. Rent control argument on the internet looks like that because it's always a bunch of strawman arguments about political philosophy. In fact the Oregon laws in question have features exactly like what you're talking about.

What are some other jurisdictions that have this tiered approach?

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#173

Post by deburo » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

spoonie wrote: post #145

jdavis703 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to look at this is, land owners are generally wealthier than renters. According to the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances landowners are 44 times wealthier. It makes sense that the government protects people who are less able to deal with financial instability.

Yup it’s a combination of protecting those who are less powerful and I would argue a way to avoid perverse incentives. If a landlord can arbitrarily raise rent, they have no incentive to perform ongoing (inexpensive maintenance). They can wait until the problems become critical and much more expensive and then pass those costs onto the tenant. With rent control the landlord knows they have to control costs and has mo…

It's a nice theory, but also a very well tested one. Just read an article on bloomberg about the policy being a wash in San Francisco, with some concerns that it may have had some other effects they weren't able to measure.

It's akin to the minimum wage; why are people so bent on capping prices? Why not work on the underlying problems instead, ie what's causing those prices?

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#174

Post by throw0101a » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

ISL wrote: post #22

throw0101a wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, rent control will have the opposite effect of what Oregon thinks, and only make housing scarcity worse. I always found it odd that rent control always seems to be an all-or-nothing policy: either things are tamped down on, or it's a laissez faire system. Does any locality have a "hybrid" approached. Something like: * buildings 0-5 years old, allow up to 3x inflation rent increases * buildings 5-10 ye…

This would encourage tearing down old rental units in order to build new rental units in their place.

Perhaps true, but it takes quite a bit of capital to demolish and rebuild? What would the ROI of doing that actually be?

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#175

Post by vkou » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

Prediction: If Amazon/MS/Apple/Some-company-that-does-not-exist-yet were to go ahead and create 100,000 dev jobs in Portland over the next decade, Oregon will have the exact same housing crisis, regardless of its laws.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#176

Post by JustSomeNobody » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

api wrote: post #85

thrav wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is imagined. The “problem” of safety has made its way out to the burbs now too. The public world is mostly safe, and kids are mostly capable of navigating it on their own and in small groups — the adults in America have chosen not to believe that, and written laws forbidding parents from allowing their children to even attempt it. These choices may have resulted in a few less kidnappings, but they…

A lot of this goes back to 80s and 90s daytime TV and its sensationalization of a small number of kidnapping cases. An example would be the Johnny Gosch case which almost single handedly ended the job of paper boy. (There is a crime podcast called Faded Out that looked deeply into this one, starting by examining the sensational claims but later finding a much more likely explanation.) The top risk to kids outdoors is…

I would say John Walsh as well. On the one hand, he didn't want others to go through what he went through. On the other hand, he scared the poop out of an entire generation of TV watchers.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#177

Post by SlowRobotAhead » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 5:53 PM UTC

tomaha wrote: post #68

Misdicorl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, vehicle traffic would be by far my #1 worry in high density areas.

It's really about planning. Modern Swiss towns mostly consist of high density buildings with parking underground and most of the areas around the buildings are for walking & biking. The really good thing about high density is that it allows for much more efficient public transport which reduces the need for cars.

Just a reminder when talking about the Swiss... they are half the population of New Jersey over twice the area.

Maybe their cities planning ideas might not scale?

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#178

Post by api » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 6:04 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #176

api wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of this goes back to 80s and 90s daytime TV and its sensationalization of a small number of kidnapping cases. An example would be the Johnny Gosch case which almost single handedly ended the job of paper boy. (There is a crime podcast called Faded Out that looked deeply into this one, starting by examining the sensational claims but later finding a much more likely explanation.) The top risk to kids outdoors is…

I would say John Walsh as well. On the one hand, he didn't want others to go through what he went through. On the other hand, he scared the poop out of an entire generation of TV watchers.

Media really distorts risk perception. People are afraid of random child predators, terrorists, and mass shootings when none of these things even compare to car accidents, standard issue child abuse by someone the kid knows, cancer, heart disease, etc. Another example is that people are more afraid of nuclear power than coal when coal is dirtier and drives scary things like ocean acidification and climate change.

One 9/11, random kidnapping, etc. has more "virality" than a constant undercurrent of far larger risks.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#179

Post by huffmsa » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 6:11 PM UTC

isoskeles wrote: post #118

huffmsa wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did weight that. Most of SF is landfill and falling apart. But there's expansion outside of the city still relatively available. So I guess my addendum and corelary is that once you do hit that "last possible moment" the action needs to be decisive and absolute. NYC did a pretty good job of it.

Which parts are falling apart, or what do you define as falling apart? I used to live in SF, and I still work there. It looks mostly put-together to me. There is definitely blight and abandoned builds, especially around Civic Center, but that plus landfill is not "most" of SF. Map of landfill (green): https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d7f66b45593b76f812792e... My comment is mostly targeted at the idea that there…

A lot of the landfill is unstable, and some of it is falling apart. Like the stuff under the millennium tower.

Re: Oregon passed sweeping housing crisis laws

#180

Post by kspaans » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

Misdicorl wrote: post #169

TulliusCicero wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they're more vehicle-vehicle in the US; hardly anyone walks in America. Just look at the stats. Even the walk-iest big city in the US, NYC, only has like 6% walk mode share. However, controlled for number of trips/distance, being a pedestrian in the US is generally quite dangerous compared to elsewhere.

I'd be interested to see a source about comparative pedestrian safety. I'd be literally shocked if small suburban streets weren't safer than almost any other option.

Here is Scarborough, an eastern suburb (with the suburban neighbourhoods you'd expect) in the City of Toronto.

> Incidents in Scarborough have accounted for more than 46 per cent (or 19 of 41) of pedestrian deaths this year, despite the eastern borough containing just 23 per cent of the city’s population and about 26 per cent of its road kilometrage.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/12/07/toronto-appears-...