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Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

city-journal.org

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Re: Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

#71

Post by WhompingWindows »

arcticbull wrote: post #18
raldi wrote: post #8

See also: Friday's “Don’t Blame Tech Bros for the Housing Crisis” column: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/opinion/sunday/housing-cr...

If they spent that $4.5B on lobbying for upzoining and densification the problem would likely sort itself out. Probably for a fraction of the cost.

If we divided that 4.5B by the number of tech workers, where would we be at? If there are 100,000 tech workers in the Bay Area, that'd be around $45,000 per person of lobbying for affordable housing. If those tech workers saved $500 per month, they would earn back what their companies spent on them in 90 months, or 7.5 years.

Assumption, I don't know how many tech workers there truly are.

Re: Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

#72

Post by throwawaysea »

rb808 wrote: post #65
nugget wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t many people love cities specifically because of density and the diversity of opportunities that usually follows?

Yes many people love big dense cities like NY, which is why they live there. The problem is when people love low density cities and make it a great place to live. Then new people want to change it into denser cities with everyone living in apartments. Who should win out?

This is exactly the problem. Lots of people love low or medium density cities because they make great places to live. And then other people who want the same thing start moving there, not asking what made it great in the first place. When lots of people do that, the prices go up and then the newcomers demand that they be accommodated at whatever price they want.

Also the hate against rent control here is myopic. Rent control is meant to protect those incumbents who were a part of the community prior to rapid growth / increase in prices. It allows low supply (protection of quality of life) to work without displacing incumbents when faced with rapid growth. Now we can argue about how effective specific implementations if rent control are, but a lot of folks misconstrue the underlying goals.

Re: Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

#73

Post by theobeers »

balfirevic wrote: post #41

I saw this tweet recently, by patio11: https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1199366332468224000 "Tokyo has positive population growth of about 100,000 people a year, and rents and home prices are roughly stable for last decade. How? Outconstructing NYC. And LA. And SF. And Boston. And Houston. Combined. Every year."

Without disputing the main point, I wonder if he meant net new construction. He was asked about this in the replies and didn’t give a real answer.

Houses in Japan have tended to be torn down and rebuilt every twenty to thirty years. It’s an unusual situation, owing to various factors, including code updates for earthquake resistance.

An article on this topic: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl...

Re: Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

#74

Post by throwawaysea »

bluGill wrote: post #40
arcticbull wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but lets focus on one problem at a time. With more people in the city, you have a bigger tax base, meaning more tax revenue, meaning you can spend more to improve infrastructure like public transit. The population of SF has only increased by 111K (14%) in the last 20 years. Imagine what we could do with twice as many people contributing tax revenue?

It isn't just tax base. If you have a lot of people taking transit you can recover the costs of the system just from riders paying their fare, and the riders are saving money over the cost for insuring a car for a year. Less dense areas cannot do this, both because people need to go farther (less dense means you have to go farther to get there), and because there are less riders. Dense areas need less taxes in genera…

I am not so sure that dense areas need fewer taxes. Some of the most heavily taxes areas are dense cities.

Re: Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

#75

Post by throwawaysea »

dominotw wrote: post #35
arcticbull wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being able to afford a house decreases quality of life infinitely more than some increased density.

Wouldn't the world simply increase population where this is still the case even if we build more housing though?

Yea I don’t understand how urban activists can claim “induced demand” when discussing road supply but joy housing supply. There’s no obligation for any town or city to keep growing and accommodate continued population increases. That doesn’t serve the incumbent population, which is why those populations have chosen to enact zoning laws in the first place.

Re: Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

#76

Post by achenatx »

specialist wrote: post #45
arcticbull wrote: post #5

The whole topic of conversation around housing affordability is backwards. Specifically, housing affordability is 100%, entirely, a problem of artificial constraints on supply by city councils. (1) Americans consider housing to be an investment. An investment is only an investment if you expect a positive return over time. We generally want that investment to match or exceed inflation. (2) That's antithetical to the…

Agreeing with you: I have friends who work on housing (and related) policies. The stereotype of "Liberal Seattle" simply isn't true. One of our biggest intraparty food fights is the upzoners vs the nimbys. The tortured logic and hypocrisy of the nimbys is maddening. Yes, homelessness and affordability are acute problems, govt should do something, but increasing supply couldn't possibly work. I can't prove it, but I k…

I live in a 75% democrat area (in austin) built in the 60s/70s and the NIMBYs are boomers and are bad.

The city council wants to reduce the lot size,parking, and setbacks required for duplexes and triplexes all over the city. They want to increase density for about 100 units along a transit corridor from single family to 4 units, up to 6 with affordable housing.

The nimbys are going crazy, talking about lawsuits, protests etc. Many posts talk about flooded schools, huge traffic increases, and gigantic duplexes on every lot. The reality is people can already build duplexes and they dont at a huge frequency. People have even posted articles written by NIMBYs in other cities how housing pricing doesnt follow supply and demand.

It is all about "neighborhood character". Im a hardcore conservative and believe upzoning is the best way to solve the affordability problem.

Re: Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

#77

Post by delfinom »

Lacking from the article are the statistics for how affordable those homes are and actual occupancy. Developers overwhelmingly love upselling to "luxury homes" that are kept as investment deeds in someones closet. NYC for example is building new apartments like bloody crazy, none of them are affordable to anyone other than investors.

Re: Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

#78

Post by throwawaysea »

Lazare wrote: post #17
edoo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't afford a house there maybe you should consider moving somewhere more affordable.

If you don't like the density, maybe consider moving somewhere with lower density?

Often times the density hawks are the newcomers, asking to be accommodated. This is true in the bay are and Seattle, for example. So I don’t think it’s fair to ask the incumbents who make up a community to leave.

Re: Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

#79

Post by achenatx »

edoo wrote: post #2

They forget the human cost. Increasing density decreases quality of life. The people are the product of the cities in the commercial sense. The well being of the people is lost in the drive for infinite growth.

there is no drive for "infinite growth". However so far the population keeps increasing at about .7% per year. Housing has to keep up to keep prices stable. If not, where do you suggest the people live?

Re: Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

#80

Post by nhebb »

arcticbull wrote: post #5

The whole topic of conversation around housing affordability is backwards. Specifically, housing affordability is 100%, entirely, a problem of artificial constraints on supply by city councils. (1) Americans consider housing to be an investment. An investment is only an investment if you expect a positive return over time. We generally want that investment to match or exceed inflation. (2) That's antithetical to the…

> (1) Americans consider housing to be an investment.

Apparently I'm the lone dissenter on this, but I think for many people this is a side benefit that they may hope for, but the primary objective is simply to own a home that they can live in and raise a family.

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