Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Portland passes low-density zoning reform

sightline.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 438 posts

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#191

Post by FreakyT »

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…

> Traffic, street parking, and public spaces all get more congested

A proper transit network and walkable design ensures that this doesn't become a problem.

> Plus a neighbor building a bigger building impacts my views and the light that falls on my property.

People get so hung up on this, but that's just how it goes -- cities change. Just because you bought a place doesn't mean you're entitled to the exact same view forever.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#192

Post by CountSessine »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #169
treis wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Isn’t this really a complaint about population growth rather than development?

Blaming development for your changing city seems a bit passive aggressive.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#193

Post by truth__indulger »

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,…

[flagged]

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#194

Post by d1zzy »

jeffbee wrote: post #25
jasondclinton wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The removal of the off-street parking mandate will also impact EV adoption. Parking is already difficult to find in many older Portland neighborhoods. Edit: You need a place to plug-in your EV at night.

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.

Smart Electric seems as small as always. Goes about 65 miles (plenty for a suburban living needs, not going to work for travel of course).

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#195

Post by neutronicus »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #166
haroldp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Makes sense for a physical good whose condition deteriorates over time.

People making capital gains on houses (whose values are determined mostly by local government and corporate investment relative to the national average) has always struck me as a sign of government being insufficiently aggressive about a) capturing the value it creates with infrastructure investment and b) wringing subsidy from high-paying corporations externalizing the problem of housing their work-forces.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#196

Post by maerF0x0 »

TeaDrunk wrote: post #163
maerF0x0 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> squander and choke new technologies and scenarios, also doing so on an economic model.

If they do so then said technologies were not real opportunities. If they're opportunities then competitors will generate more value and/or less cost.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#197

Post by throwaway0a5e »

klyrs wrote: post #38
jasondclinton wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The removal of the off-street parking mandate will also impact EV adoption. Parking is already difficult to find in many older Portland neighborhoods. Edit: You need a place to plug-in your EV at night.

I hope this can be addressed at the municipal level through a program to install charge points in residential areas in response to local demand.

Then the people who can afford to adopt early get charging stations and the blue collar neighborhoods don't because they don't have as many EVs and then of course the politicians pile on by passing fuel taxes or registration surcharges because a) they're largely unaffected b) the state loves money and c) "only backwards hicks drive ICEs in 2030 anyway" (or something like that) and it becomes yet another regressive tax.

I think the sentiment is good but I see it going wrong quickly unless you have some way to ensure that every neighborhood gets at least enough charging to adopt EVs in the first place.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#198

Post by metiscus »

truth__indulger wrote: post #189
core-questions wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the desire of landowners to keep poor people off their block Well, can we come up with a more constructive and friendly way of doing this? It's not unreasonable for normal middle-class folks to not want to have to live in a problematic, crime-ridden, situation with high personal-security risks and property crime. That's why we pay for police, after all.

Wow, White Supremacist much? Defending one's home or property or feeling entitled to "Safety" from "Crime" is White Privilege.

This comment seems like Poe's law at work.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#199

Post by nxc18 »

salmon30salmon wrote: post #102

Density isn't really the problem in Portland. There are a LOT of empty apartments in this city. There are also a LOT of "short term rentals" in the city that sit vacant. Here are the concerns that I do not see addressed with this: 1. Will the City of Portland make the required infrastructure improvements to support more density? For example, will the storm sewers, which currently overflow poo into the river, support…

On 3, as much as I hope the trend is true (I'd love more cheap apartments in the urban core) I'm not sure it is. People are moving and changing but I haven't seen any data that conclusively proves any narrative beyond 'people move houses even in a pandemic'.

FWIW I currently live in comparatively non-dense socal and I'm planning on moving to Portland this fall. I plan to move into the Pearl district and work remote. I walk all the time (even when the weather is bad, it doesn't bother me) so I think it will be nice to have more than two coffee shops within walking distance. For context, my current city is just big enough to support a niche ice cream shop and some weird restaurants, but not big enough for there to be enough competitive pressure to force them to actually be good. It is nice when a market can be robust enough to force out poor competitors.

A lot of folks moving from real cities to rural areas may be shocked to find how bad the food, coffee, shopping, and arts scenes can be. There's nothing wrong with Walmart+Target, Starbucks+Dunkin'Donuts, Olive Garden+Outback Steakhouse, but it is IMO worth it to have more options, even at the expense of a large lawn and privacy from neighbors.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#200

Post by maerF0x0 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #153
maerF0x0 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

True, but then companies are only accountable to their shareholders in many cases, and spend money on lobbyists to keep things that way. Economic models can vary widely depending on whether they're based around mutuality or extraction of rents.

> mutuality or extraction of rents.

bigger governments create more rent opportunities.

https://www.libertarianism.org/blog/introduction-rent-seekin...

Post reply on HN