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Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

latimes.com

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Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#21

Post by ethanbond »

foobarian wrote: post #14
seibelj wrote: post #2

I live in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Nearly every single home is multi-family, and the single families that do exist are usually $2 million and up. Take a stroll down one of our streets https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3130357,-71.1188873,3a,75y,1... It is dense, walkable, and extremely beautiful. There is no reason every neighborhood with duplexes has to look like cookie cutter sprawl tha…

Ah yes, Boston. No need to worry about what would happen to those 2, 3, and 4 story wood houses if they got a good shakeup at 5+ on the Richter scale.

That’s why they build so small and spread out in Tokyo, and never with wood!

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#22

Post by ffggvv »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #9

Obviously I support these kind of movements - the housing crisis is no joke. But every time I see an article about multifamily homes, I think: ok, but we really need is are hundreds of tall high rises with 500+ units, like in New York or Boston, each of which uses land much more efficiently than LA (2x more residents per square mile).

yes because new york is so cheap

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#23

Post by mlindner »

_fat_santa wrote: post #5

As soon as you look at the zoning of LA, the housing problem there becomes clear as day, even for someone who doesn't visit very often. I don't know what you would call this system but LA's problem is that the folks that have the power to fix housing have zero interest in doing because it would hurt their self interest. Housing is only a "problem" if you haven't bought a house yet, once you purchase a house, all the…

Almost like Democracy is not a panacea for all problems...

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#24

Post by et-al »

CPLX wrote: post #13
gautamcgoel wrote: post #9

Obviously I support these kind of movements - the housing crisis is no joke. But every time I see an article about multifamily homes, I think: ok, but we really need is are hundreds of tall high rises with 500+ units, like in New York or Boston, each of which uses land much more efficiently than LA (2x more residents per square mile).

There's truth to that, but Paris and Barcelona are some of the densest cities on the planet. People really underestimate how much you can get just with 5 stories or so if you do it consistently. As anyone who's been to those places knows there's no sacrifice of beauty, sun, or livability really.

> People really underestimate how much you [density] can get just with 5 stories or so if you do it consistently.

This is the rub, right? We can only redevelop a block or two at a time, so the only choice is for 10+ story towers. Especially because land is so expensive in these cities.

I'm curious if new residential buildings (non-luxury if that even exists) in Paris or Barcelona are only 5-6 stories high.

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#25

Post by ladyattis »

mywittyname wrote: post #17
baby wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m convinced that this is the reason behind SF housing problems as well. There’s just too much value for landlords.

Not just landlords, but everyday home owners too. People who got a $X00k mortgage on a house by-and-large are not going to actively support policies which may reduce the asset backing that loan. There would absolutely be long-term benefits to lowering housing costs in parts of the country, but some people are going to have to feel the short-term pain to make that happen.

It all comes down to the belief that someone has a guaranteed rate of return on a purchase they deem an investment whether it's a house or a corporate bond there's a baked-in sense of entitlement that sometimes flourishes as absurd laws and regulations.

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#26

Post by seibelj »

Slow_Hand wrote: post #4
seibelj wrote: post #2

I live in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Nearly every single home is multi-family, and the single families that do exist are usually $2 million and up. Take a stroll down one of our streets https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3130357,-71.1188873,3a,75y,1... It is dense, walkable, and extremely beautiful. There is no reason every neighborhood with duplexes has to look like cookie cutter sprawl tha…

Seconded. I lived in JP for several years and it was easily my favorite of the Boston neighborhoods to live in. Absolutely gorgeous. I lived in a 6 bed unit on the top level of a 3-story duplex that had 4 people living on the ground floor. It was a massive house that allowed for ten non-related people to live together on a street filled with similar houses, lined with massive oak trees and a five minute walk from a l…

It's for more mature and professional people than Allston, but there is a growing group of Northeastern students starting to populate things. I obviously can't prove this, but I believe because everything is so beautiful, people instinctively treat the location better. Whereas Allston is a party area and everything is grimy, so no one cares and joins into the debauchery and littering.

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#27

Post by dredmorbius »

FWIW, this turned up through Shane Phillips's Twitter feed, highly recommended.

https://nitter.kavin.rocks/ShaneDPhillips

His book Affordable City was published last year:

https://islandpress.org/books/affordable-city

He hosts the "Creating More Affordable Cities" podcast https://elgl.org/podcast-creating-more-affordable-cities-wit...

He's with the UCLA Lewis Center's housing programme: https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/programs/housing/

Excellent information and insights on housing policy, both for LA and more generally.

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#28

Post by colechristensen »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #9

Obviously I support these kind of movements - the housing crisis is no joke. But every time I see an article about multifamily homes, I think: ok, but we really need is are hundreds of tall high rises with 500+ units, like in New York or Boston, each of which uses land much more efficiently than LA (2x more residents per square mile).

There isn’t a housing crisis, there is a jobs location crisis. Apartments are terrible, there is plenty of space out there for people to have their own and not be crammed in like sardines.

Cities though have the problem of allowing much more space for jobs than they have for housing. You don’t want high density housing in your city? Fine, cap your employer zoning.

It’s a big country out there and people need to decentralize and stop trying to turn nice places into hong kong density.

Nobody needs to use land “efficiently” by packing more people into it.

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#29

Post by hexatin »

ffggvv wrote: post #22
gautamcgoel wrote: post #9

Obviously I support these kind of movements - the housing crisis is no joke. But every time I see an article about multifamily homes, I think: ok, but we really need is are hundreds of tall high rises with 500+ units, like in New York or Boston, each of which uses land much more efficiently than LA (2x more residents per square mile).

yes because new york is so cheap

On the other hand, though, how much more expensive might it be if only single-family homes were available?

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#30

Post by mywittyname »

CPLX wrote: post #13
gautamcgoel wrote: post #9

Obviously I support these kind of movements - the housing crisis is no joke. But every time I see an article about multifamily homes, I think: ok, but we really need is are hundreds of tall high rises with 500+ units, like in New York or Boston, each of which uses land much more efficiently than LA (2x more residents per square mile).

There's truth to that, but Paris and Barcelona are some of the densest cities on the planet. People really underestimate how much you can get just with 5 stories or so if you do it consistently. As anyone who's been to those places knows there's no sacrifice of beauty, sun, or livability really.

And getting rid of cars!

Pre-1920s neighborhoods in the USA are dense, yet spacious. So much of the density problems in America are due to our over-reliance on cars.

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