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Portland passes low-density zoning reform

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Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#41

Post by londons_explore »

ogre_codes wrote: post #15

> "It shouldn’t take six years for any city to agree to give itself permission to build the sort of homes that every city once allowed." This is IMO the big thing here. Cities used to allow this kind of construction. Our auto-friendly culture and the desire of landowners to keep poor people off their block has led to increasingly draconian restrictions on private property use. I understand regulations around keeping…

> I understand regulations around keeping homes safe, drainage, and fire safety,

Even these, IMO, are government overreach. Instead the government should require you have insurance to pay damages to third parties incase a fire/collapse/flood happens caused by your property. Then leave it up to the insurance company to decide what standards will lower your premium.

One insurance company might decide "look at Switzerland - they have very safe houses. Build everything to Swiss regulations, and we'll give you a 90% discount on the insurance price".

Over time, safety and environmental standards, as well as costs to meet them, will get much better much quicker than current layers of government bureaucracy.

The insurance should also cover for things like environmental spills on your land, the cost of pulling the building down and making the site nature again if the insurance is ever not renewed, etc.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#42

Post by shuckles »

stakkur wrote: post #13

I live in the area. Proponents have couched this as a 'progressive' vs. 'nimby' effort, which like the rest of life is not true at all. Housing is complex, not good vs. evil, liberal vs. conservative, urgan vs sprawl. If you doubt this, watch how much this comment is downvoted. One thing we know, based on over a century of data around the world: increasing density of housing has little effect on affordability, in the…

Accommodating more people at the same, high prices is a benefit you seem to ignore. And historic growth shouldn’t be used as an input to an estimate of demand because growth itself depends on supply.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#43

Post by kory »

kindatrue wrote: post #3

This seems disastrous for homeowners and landlords hoping to recreate this Silicon Valley success flywheel https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/1129046954409902081

For landlords, you're correct. Rents will go down as more housing floods the market and the profiteering will cease. Look at Vancouver BC, where rents are significantly lower than land prices.

But I don't entirely agree with this point. Regular folks that are getting rich off property are the single family homeowners. Density tends to increase land value. This law makes single family home land more valuable and easier to sell, since a developer can plop townhomes or a second house in the backyard and profit. So now on top of regular people, you've got builders competing for the same properties, hence prices will rise.

I'd be worried if I owned a townhome or condo, since I wouldn't have any empty land to be built on and that's the kind of home that will be built on the now upzoned land. But there are no swathes of empty land in Portland to fill with more single family homes.

Folks that own property the in the (now up-zoned) expensive neighborhoods are NIMBY because they want to preserve the low density neighborhood they live in that are close to everything, not because they want housing prices to soar more. Older neighborhoods like that just aren't built anymore--developers pick off the shelf of 1-5 nearly identical plans and fill a neighborhood with them. Old west coast city neighborhoods have a cool vibe that doesn't really exist in many places anymore, and can't really be replicated. With this up zone that will be going away over time.

That's OK, because these neighborhoods should have been upzoned a long time ago and the land needs to be accessible to more people. But the conversation is more nuanced than "my housing price will go down!!1"

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#44

Post by ogre_codes »

bradleybuda wrote: post #36
ogre_codes wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I missed that part. Though both multigenerational families and college students could be served well by multi-structure setups as well. Or in many cases, better served.

Or, maybe armchair central planners like you and I and the Portland City Council shouldn’t decide what’s best for people we’ve never met and let them decide instead.

> shouldn’t decide what’s best for people we’ve never met and let them decide instead.

I totally agree!

I didn't mean to imply this bit about house size is good. In general, this measure removes piles of restrictions on land use and that's one of the big reasons I like it. I was just pointing out that there are some work-arounds.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#46

Post by stakkur »

matchbok wrote: post #26
stakkur wrote: post #13

I live in the area. Proponents have couched this as a 'progressive' vs. 'nimby' effort, which like the rest of life is not true at all. Housing is complex, not good vs. evil, liberal vs. conservative, urgan vs sprawl. If you doubt this, watch how much this comment is downvoted. One thing we know, based on over a century of data around the world: increasing density of housing has little effect on affordability, in the…

Not sure what "increasing density" you are talking about. No city has done that. SF rejected it, DC, etc. In fact, I'd bet more places have decreased density than increase it. The increases have only come in the past 5 years (Portland, Minneapolis) There's only one guarantee - limiting density in a growing city with jobs does make housing less affordable. That has been the status quo in every major city in the USA ov…

The intention of the zoning reform linked to here is increasing density in existing low-density areas.

Here's (only) one example of analysis of the densityhousing affordability relationship. Spoiler alert: density always increases housing costs in the long run. https://www.newgeography.com/content/005183-what-price-urban...

There has never been a city in the US that has made housing more affordable by increasing density or legislating affordable housing. The 'why' of that is complex.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#47

Post by jeffbee »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #34
jeffbee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just reality. EVs solve a specific aspect of cars but they still have the main problem: they are unreasonably large. The future of urban mobility is also its past: walking.

I think this is easy to wish but hard to realize, considering the US population is rapidly aging. There is a balance between prioritizing pedestrians and cyclists while still supporting reasonable mobility for those not in their prime as well as daily freight/parcel services.

That's why you can't have a city based on cars. The very old cannot drive! I don't know why this perfectly obvious and globally well-known fact is so little-known to Americans.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#48

Post by plasticchris »

londons_explore wrote: post #41
ogre_codes wrote: post #15

> "It shouldn’t take six years for any city to agree to give itself permission to build the sort of homes that every city once allowed." This is IMO the big thing here. Cities used to allow this kind of construction. Our auto-friendly culture and the desire of landowners to keep poor people off their block has led to increasingly draconian restrictions on private property use. I understand regulations around keeping…

> I understand regulations around keeping homes safe, drainage, and fire safety, Even these, IMO, are government overreach. Instead the government should require you have insurance to pay damages to third parties incase a fire/collapse/flood happens caused by your property. Then leave it up to the insurance company to decide what standards will lower your premium. One insurance company might decide "look at Switzerla…

If you are in a flood plain they do. I assume it's the same for the others. But drainage is really more about dealing with density. In the town/city poor drainage on my lot could flood my neighbors house. In the country there's enough space it's not an issue.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#49

Post by rayiner »

noelwelsh wrote: post #39
klyrs wrote: post #10

I like almost all of this. I have one minor concern, the maximum home size is dropping from 6750 to 2500 square feet. Which is probably fine for a nuclear family, but in my neighborhood, such homes are largely occupied by multigenerational families. In areas closer to colleges and universities, those homes end up being shared by large groups of students. Both of these populations will take a hit under this policy.

2500 square feet is considered a large house in most of the world. I have lived with a group of students, a nuclear family, and with multiple generations in houses smaller than that. It is definitely fine for all the use cases you list.

Most of the world lives in housing poverty compared to American norms.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#50

Post by [deleted] »

bradleybuda wrote: post #36
ogre_codes wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I missed that part. Though both multigenerational families and college students could be served well by multi-structure setups as well. Or in many cases, better served.

Or, maybe armchair central planners like you and I and the Portland City Council shouldn’t decide what’s best for people we’ve never met and let them decide instead.

[deleted]
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