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Portland passes low-density zoning reform

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Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#321

Post by Tiktaalik »

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...

It is worth noting that these affordable cities in Japan are wildly sprawling to an extent that I think would be anathema to environmentalists in NA.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#322

Post by justinph »

siruncledrew wrote: post #251
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…

Wouldn't this also be a win for real estate developers and property investors? - Purchase old home or lot. - Tear down old structure. - Build new 4-plex or 6-plex. - Sell/Rent 4-6 units on a plot. Example: "ABC" owns rancher on a single plot. Rents out rancher for $4000/mo. Current revenue is $48000/yr. "ABC" turns rancher into modern 6-plex on the same plot. Rents out each of the 6 units for $2000/mo. New revenue is…

This would be a good problem to have. Developers are generally not interested in the 4-6 unit buildings. In my city, Minneapolis MN, development is large single family homes or multi-unit (40+) apartment buildings. From my understanding, the problem is generally capital: A 4-6 unit building is too costly for a homeowner or small-time real estate developer to take on, but too small for large well capitalized developer to bother with.

Hopefully, this will change in time. But I think that it'll be large developers building in neighborhoods with homeowners. The equity will end up in the hands of large real estate trusts, and not small time operators.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#323

Post by Tiktaalik »

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…

> Private developers do the work, for profit, most often for investment groups. If it doesn't 'pencil out', nobody will build it

This is a huge reason why the notion that our housing affordability problems can be boiled down to "simple" issues of "supply and demand" is false.

Developers don't over build supply. Why would they? There's no economic reason to. Whenever any sort of overbuilding occurs which would oversupply , it is always by some accident (eg. a pandemic), and the taps are turned off immediately.

We see an example of this in nearby Vancouver BC, where foreign buyer taxes and speculation taxes have cooled demand for expensive concrete condo towers which were often marketed in Asia. Suddenly these products are no longer being produced and housing developers have shifted to other things.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#324

Post by triceratops »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #318
francis_t_catte wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. Housing should not be treated as an investment.

This policy will make SFHs in Portland an extremely good investment in the long term as you can now substantially increase the amount of rentable units on the same amount of land. If you have the means buy a cheap SFH lot in Portland while you can. If we really actually want to make housing not an investment then we need to empower our government to fund the development of publicly owned housing for everyone.

I've never understood the arguments in favor of publicly funded housing. Public funding is used for things that are a common good (e.g. roads, public parks, defense, food safety) or that are important but otherwise wouldn't get funded (e.g. basic research). Housing fits neither of those buckets.

If you occupy a publicly funded housing unit, I can't - it's not a public good. And there are always developers and builders willing to stump up cash to build new housing.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#325

Post by seanmcdirmid »

egypturnash wrote: post #278
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

When I left the U District a couple of years ago, it was in part because the entire area was being razed and replaced by those things.

The U District? They've been putting up a bunch of town homes north of 45th (so 3 stories, not 1 + 5s), down near U village maybe?

We considered buying a place out there for like 30 seconds, the U District just felt so depressing. We bought in Ballard which has a lot of townhomes (we bought one), but it doesn't feel depressing.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#326

Post by Tiktaalik »

triceratops wrote: post #324
Tiktaalik wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This policy will make SFHs in Portland an extremely good investment in the long term as you can now substantially increase the amount of rentable units on the same amount of land. If you have the means buy a cheap SFH lot in Portland while you can. If we really actually want to make housing not an investment then we need to empower our government to fund the development of publicly owned housing for everyone.

I've never understood the arguments in favor of publicly funded housing. Public funding is used for things that are a common good (e.g. roads, public parks, defense, food safety) or that are important but otherwise wouldn't get funded (e.g. basic research). Housing fits neither of those buckets. If you occupy a publicly funded housing unit, I can't - it's not a public good. And there are always developers and builder…

There are literally 300 homeless people living in a tent city in a public park in Vancouver right now in part because there is no affordable housing.

Seems to me that there's a market failure here where the market cannot create affordable housing. It's not regulations alone that have made it so that developers can't make affordable housing. The construction costs are simply too high for a for-profit developer to be able to do it.

Housing these homeless people, thus reducing health costs and emergency worker costs is of course a public good. I would like to be able to use that park again.

But aside from all that I don't agree with your narrow thesis of what public dollars should be spent on anyway. If I'm a renter I'd rather have my monthly rent go to back into the public purse to be re-invested in more public works than to some S&P500 listed REIT to pad some wealthy investors' dividends. If housing development is such a good investment then of course the public should get in on it.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#327

Post by [deleted] »

pkulak wrote: post #107
wool_gather wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine not being relegated to the sidewalk Pedestrians don't mix any better with (electric) bikes that are trying to get places than they do with cars. Reasonably broad and well-maintained sidewalks are essential for everyone's comfort and safety.

When I'm walking with my 8-year-old, we both scramble right the hell out of the street if there's a car anywhere in our vision. Neither of us could care less about a bike somewhere. It sure doesn't feel like we're being irrational.

[deleted]

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#328

Post by stock_toaster »

jackyinger wrote: post #7

As a former Portlandian I’m pretty stoked to imagine where this could take the city! A low altitude densification would beat what’s been done to the inner East side... Here’s a fun thought experiment... Imagine if most streets became parks/plazas (aside from a few left for utility reasons) and everyone rode (electric) bikes, or similar relatively light transport options. To me that’s be idyllic. Imagine not being rel…

Like Venice but with park-spaces instead of gondolas. I love it!

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#329

Post by rfrey »

freeone3000 wrote: post #297
ajmurmann wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe once we have the problems, people will accept the solution

We need to make driving suck so much that people would rather take the bus.

It's not "making" driving suck, it's allowing driving to suck as a result of market forces. We could stop forcing restrictions on property owners that prevent the natural, market-driven move to mass transit as density increases.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#330

Post by microtherion »

GurnBlandston wrote: post #292
microtherion wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People with big families don't get to live in Portland? Nothing in the legislation prohibits big houses. All it does is legalize small ones.

The image near the top of the article explicitly states the previous maximum house size was 6750 sq ft, and new maximum house size for a "1-plex" is 2500 sq ft. This is a prohibition on new big houses.

You're right — there are new limitations, which I overlooked at first. But it appears those don't apply to R10 and larger lots, so it's not a complete prohibition: https://www.portland.gov/sites/default/files/2020-08/exhibit...
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