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Portland passes low-density zoning reform

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Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#161

Post by hinkley »

tunesmith wrote: post #139
hinkley wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I correct in thinking that attic space doesn't count as square footage? There are hardly any attics in Seattle, they've all been converted to cramped living space and everybody stores their crap in the garage. You can put a lot of people in 2500 square feet if you design it well instead of just slapping walls together.

I guess the corollary is that 2500 square feet can be eaten up very quickly if you don't have a good floor plan, which is pretty common.

A lot of these construction companies have figured out that most of the labor is in the walls. In a square room, the walls are sqrt(2) of the area. Bigger rooms = lower cost per square foot.

Another hallmark of these houses are complete lack of trim. They're just big boxes.

A more future-proof way to get around these building code limitations is 1) attic space, and 2) higher ceilings. You get a better feeling of space, and you can get more board-feet of storage in the same footprint.

Seattle is also full of illegal remodels, only some of which a lender will balk at (source: bought a quirky home, the owners had to remove features for us to buy it).

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#162

Post by ipnon »

specialist wrote: post #138
rayiner wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That framing as a way to misrepresent the fact auto industry gave people what they wanted. Many newly developed parts of Europe are the same way, because that’s what people want.

That's one version. Caro's The Power Broker details how Bob Moses was the agent of the powerful forces behind the automobile. The only stakeholders not represented, or even consulted, were the average taxpaying citizens. Any dissent was ruthlessly squashed. Urban planners and normal citizens have been critical since the very beginning. The debate really picked up after WWII, with the resumption of peace time economy.…

The history of the automobile in America is longer. Until the 1940s you will struggle to find detrimental side effects of automobile adoption. The automobile did for the town what the railroad did for the city. The negative effects of the automobile on American society, as you rightly point, are an effect of the automobiles runaway success. We passed the point where the automobile was a net positive around the 1950s. This is when planners like Moses begin forcing further adoption, that was rightly opposed at the time.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#163

Post by TeaDrunk »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #141
clairity wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yup, passing that power on to insurance companies is just a different bureaucracy doing similar things, solving nothing more in the process. all parties together and separately need to be involved and invested in maintaining reasonably safe environments, not just an arms-length bureaucracy. our failure is in trying to pawn off all responsibility to remote agencies and institutions, raher than the parts best-suited fo…

> is just a different bureaucracy doing similar things, A key difference in this bureaucracy is their speed of change. Companies can react rapidly to new technology, new scenarios, and they do so on an economic model. Gov'ts move slowly and lag technology or current events, they do so on a popularity/political power model.

> A key difference in this bureaucracy is their speed of change. Companies can react rapidly to new technology, new scenarios, and they do so on an economic model.

Additionally- companies can react intentionally slowly to squander and choke new technologies and scenarios, also doing so on an economic model.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#164

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ISL wrote: post #111
mperham wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for more green in cities but don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Suburban sprawl destroys far more environment. Density stops sprawl. This is net positive for trees and the environment.

From where I sit in Seattle, I'm watching the trees around our home disappear in favor of five-over-one cubes. I've chosen to live here, in part, because it doesn't feel like a city. When the trees disappear, we are likely to contribute to that sprawl.

Where are you experiencing the construction of a bunch of five over ones? Definitely not Ballard, which is mostly townhomes. This seems to be a bigger problem in downtown Bellevue (I didn't know what five over ones meant before then!), maybe West Seattle?

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#165

Post by lbrito »

Slightly off-topic, but to me these kinds of articles always offer an amazing insight into how the average (okay, if they're literally average or not is debatable) American thinks cities and urban planning.

If you read a bit through the comment box, about half of the comments are from people scandalized and terrified that Portland will immediately turn into a huge dumpster rife with crime because of the new legislation. The gist of it is that having 3 or 4 apartments per lot (in a few select lots, mind you) will turn your city into a crack den.

That is a really quaint mindset. I can only imagine what those people commenting on the news would think about Paris, London or basically any major city outside the US where having dozens of apartments per lot is the norm and has been for decades or centuries.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#166

Post by seanmcdirmid »

haroldp wrote: post #73
matchbok wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 striking example that comes to mind is Tokyo. Japan liberalized their zoning after their last housing crisis, and median income families in Tokyo can actually afford to buy homes in the city. https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3...

Housing isn't seen an investment in Japan, homes actually depreciate! The dynamics are way different, so housing is more affordable, but you won't make any money on it.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#167

Post by neutronicus »

crooked-v wrote: post #100
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 would say that the main problem with EVs right now isn't that they're large. You can get an electric Smart or Twizy and those aren't much more than driver's seats on wheels. And don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good: plenty of people who have full-size cars now would switch to something like one of those to save money once it was cheap enough... ...if not for the actual practical problem, which is that for…

The parent comment is saying that all cars, even ones that are small for cars, are unacceptably large. The implication of their conclusion is that they even think the same of bicycles and electric scooters, which, after all, still take space to park.

However I agree with the rest of your comment. My wife and I looked into plug-in hybrids (all the tax credit, none of the range anxiety) but there's no place to charge it so we just got a regular hybrid.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#169

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

treis wrote: post #155
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 have a second building on my property and a separate driveway for each one are government overreach. Increasing density has definite externalities. Traffic, street parking, and public spaces all get more congested. Plus a neighbor building a bigger building impacts my views and the light that falls on my property. We do need some way of balancing those concerns with development. IMHO, we've swayed too far towards…

In the city I live in (somewhere in Europe), there are no such restrictions. Every time someone sells their house they split the terrain in two and rebuild because it's more advantageous price wise. As a result terrains got smaller and smaller, we used to have a beautiful city with old buildings, tons of trees, large gardens, a really calm and safe place to raise a family, now it looks like shit and crime has gotten out of control. Now they're building towers downtown for low income housing. Not a fun experience if you've built your life with your family there.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#170

Post by eej71 »

Kednicma wrote: post #160
jansan wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not from Portland, but the rest of the world did not get a great picture of the city during the last two or three months (yes, the word "shithole" was dropped a few times). I do not remember any images of businesses being threatened by cops, but what do I know sitting at the other end of the world.

Where are you from and which media outlets have you been consuming? From a local perspective, the national attempts to portray the protests are rather futile, since the area under contention is only about two blocks large [0] and it's not on most folks' daily walks. Even only a few blocks away, Portland continues life as normal [3], or as normal as COVID-19 will let us be [4]. To follow up on the grandparent's point,…

Bret Weinstein offers a different perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmnawxwCAHc

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