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

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

#81

Post by treis »

sampo wrote: post #37
huntertwo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two thoughts 1) Isn't a developer also making an investment when they build these high as hell micro-apartment apartment buildings? 2) How do you avoid a race to the bottom in terms of housing quality when you allow said micro-apartments? Do we want a culture where the poor are living in barely livable wage slave pods while the rich are living in abundant villas? I'm all for affordable housing but it seems too nuance…

> Do we want a culture where the poor are living in barely livable wage slave pods At least the poor would have the choice between the barely livable pod in downtown, or a house 2 hours commute away. Currently they can only choose the latter.

You don't really save all that much money by building a barely livable pod vs an actual apartment. The big cost items are kitchens and bathrooms. Those are mostly fixed costs, i.e. it costs the same to plumb a toilet, shower, and sink in a 50 sq foot bathroom as a 100 sq foot one. Only when you get to stupid high real estate cost does a ~300 sq foot pod start making sense over ~600 ft 1 bed or ~1000 sq ft 2 beds.

It's a bit counter intuitive, but the best way to lower the cost of housing for the poor is to build more housing for the upper middle class and up. They will trade up houses which will increase the supply of used houses driving down their price. It's essentially impossible to build something new that will be cost competitive with something that already exists.

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

#82

Post by mr_tristan »

I'm not sure what Oakland is doing is actually a major change. It's like something just triggered the money to flow to finish a bunch of projects in the east bay. But the spigot could just turn off again.

There's something broken in city planning that seems to be the largest hurdle to addressing affordability. Cities seem to want to have a box with a label on a map that doesn't change much. Then, if something changes within that box, there needs to be this big massive process. The "real fix" might be figuring out how cities can work on a smaller scale, not with these massive projects.

Just look at the report for the Oakland plan: https://cao-94612.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/FINAL_DOSP-Publ...

I'm struck by how much it must have cost to even generate that plan. And, there's a ton of goals, but no feedback loop. As the plans are implemented over the next decade or two, how do they know what's going well and what isn't?

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

#83

Post by helen___keller »

nhebb wrote: post #80
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.

I don't know your age, but from my experience this is a generational thing. During the great suburban expansion, houses were parroted as your greatest asset and your biggest investment.

In the modern era, if you don't own a home already you probably couldn't care less about the investment quality of a home. You just want a home to live in and call yours without an 80 minute commute.

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

nhebb wrote: post #80
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.

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by SolaceQuantum »

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?

"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?"

How related is this question to the gentrification of poor neighbourhoods and cities? If we go historically, the newcomers with new money always win out via (often violent) eviction. See: The People's History Podcast regarding Boston's government-supported gentrification of its public housing.

I feel that if we would take the stand to be against sparse neighbourhoods being changed into dense cities due to increased population, we should also protect and support low-income neighbourhoods and public housing from gentrifying construction projects and income-related displacement. But broadly the latter is often viewed as a sad but inevitable phenomenon, and therefore I don't know why that same logic shouldn't apply to increasingly dense cities.

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

#86

Post by itstartsnow »

i have a plan small homes starting at 500sqft suitable for the x military also our elderly most will have small 1 room apartments to help with living costs. for every 2000 houses a collage will be built.max tuition will be $1500per semester and every 4 years tuition will go down 25% until it is free. 1st phase 150,000 homes priced approximtly 50,000 per home nothing fancy built to last all solar power stage 2 300,000 homes stage 3 electric glide monorail train coast to coast 2hr traveling speed of 2000 kmph change it starts now we the people are not asking we are demanding

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

#87

Post by goosehonk »

huntertwo wrote: post #24
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…

Two thoughts 1) Isn't a developer also making an investment when they build these high as hell micro-apartment apartment buildings? 2) How do you avoid a race to the bottom in terms of housing quality when you allow said micro-apartments? Do we want a culture where the poor are living in barely livable wage slave pods while the rich are living in abundant villas? I'm all for affordable housing but it seems too nuance…

Micro apartments are a straw man. The zoning codes all over California prohibit duplexes and triplexes, including over 85% of the area of the supposedly dense city of San Francisco. We don’t need weird innovative forms. We need the old forms.

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

#88

Post by tootie »

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…

There's a pretty solid argument to be made that as property values rise, their usefulness as investments decreases. If you sink $1M into a home, you're likely tying up a huge percentage of your net worth in something that will appreciate pretty slowly compared to equities. Homes are only really valuable investments if you are an otherwise undisciplined investor who can't hold on to liquid assets.

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

#89

Post by ryandrake »

nhebb wrote: post #80
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.

No, OP is painting with an extremely broad brush. There are a lot of reasons to own a home that have nothing to do with its investment potential. I don’t care how much my home is worth because I don’t plan to sell it until I retire.
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