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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

#31

Post by mlindner »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #20
_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…

> 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. If they upzone my single family home lot I will make out like a bandit. Developers will be all over this neighborhood, building townhouses galore. The last townhouse to sell in my neighborhood went for 2.1MM+. Upzoning does not magi…

> And truly affordable housing can only be created by mandating that units sell below market value.

That will only happen if the state guarantees to pay those "greedy developers" that they've been lambasting all over the media a bunch of money to build those units. A developer will simply refuse to build any housing at all if they're forced to sell the units at below rate when they can instead make more money building housing in some other market.

> These oversimplified narratives on HN are so tiring.

I agree and you're making another one of them.

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

#32

Post by chizhik-pyzhik »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #20
_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…

> 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. If they upzone my single family home lot I will make out like a bandit. Developers will be all over this neighborhood, building townhouses galore. The last townhouse to sell in my neighborhood went for 2.1MM+. Upzoning does not magi…

> Upzoning does not magically make housing affordable. Housing pricing is more complicated than a simple supply and demand curve, although that tells a story at the macro level. And truly affordable housing can only be created by mandating that units sell below market value.

Can you elaborate? "Affordable" housing only works as a hack within an artificially constrained market, how is building more housing not the ultimate fix?

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

#33

Post by thehappypm »

tjr225 wrote: post #8
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…

Boston was incorporated two hundred years before Los Angeles. Of course it is going to have more beautiful, old houses. Of course it is going to have more walkable neighborhoods. But what I'm more interested in is this: > Nearly every single home is multi-family, and the single families that do exist are usually $2 million and up. SFH are already 1 million and up in LA, really in SD, LA, SF, Seattle, and Vancouver. I…

Most houses in JP are from the ~40s.

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

#34

Post by cletus »

I'm somewhat surprised at this given the intensity of California housing NIMBYism but I'm pleased to see it happen. Allowing fourplexes in some cases is a nice plus.

This won't end the housing crisis. It'll take a long time for this to have a large impact but it's still an important step.

To anyone saying you need high rise apartments like NYC, it's not as simple as that. You can't just plop a 500 unit high rise in the middle of a city like LA and hope for the best. There are a lot of considerations. For example:

1. How will you deal with all those cars;

2. Will there be enough public services in the area?

3. Is that even a good idea given that LA is an earthquake zone. Sure Japan has high rises but it's extremely land-constrained and people live in much smaller units, which partially offsets the higher costs of building in an earthquake zone.

LA has been spending billions on a rail network and continues to do so. I don't know LA but I've heard people say it doesn't take you anywhere useful. There has also been resistance for adding stations in richer areas (eg Santa Monica) because it brings the riffraff in.

But if you are going to build higher-density housing, the obvious place to do it is around train stations. You'll be less car dependent and you'll increase ridership of the light rail.

The same applies to the Bay Area. Higher density housing should be a no-brainer along the SF to SJ Caltrain corridor.

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

#35

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ethanbond wrote: post #15
_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…

That system is called feudalism! Just the lords don’t even have to take care of security anymore - peasants also pay for that.

> system is called feudalism

Peasants didn't vote for their lords. Somehow California's poor and renters have been convinced that building less housing is in their interests. (For example, see [1].)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29419007

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

#36

Post by foobarian »

ethanbond wrote: post #21
foobarian wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Never say never, recently there has been a spate of news about engineered wood beams looking like pretty capable replacements for steel. Example: [1]

[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/is-mass-timber-the-buildin...

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

#37

Post by nimbius »

_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…

housing reform has been a political third-rail for a while now and follows the same aggravating pattern.

- Home owners delight in 100k of equity per year on what amounts to bungalow property held together by stucco, as they have since the late seventies when neoliberal tax reforms at a republican behest elevated them to an untouchable landed gentry.

- Residents in the state bemoan "Reagans army," the indelible population of more than 70,000 homeless that shuffle through their suburban streets rifling through trash, defecating on sidewalks and stealing from unlocked vehicles.

- politicians promise relief and begin amassing considerable tax funds to house the homeless with various community initiatives resources. politicians secure boisterous agreement that this homeless issue must end in $timeline.

- the landed gentry respond in kind, refusing any and all housing relief or homeless shelter construction in their fiefdom as it may in turn pose a threat to their profiteering. lawsuits are filed and reformists hamstrung in court.

- The city directs their considerable housing funds to cleanup funds, periodically evacuating and sanitizing the overwhelming and seemingly endless number of encampments across freeway overpasses and abandoned investment properties. Homelessness is bad, but another outbreak of cholera or bubonic plague is worse.

- young men and women who cannot find affordable housing in the state simply leave after a decade, taking with them talent experience and acumen honed in the city of angels to cities that can better serve them.

its also worth mentioning that California is very friendly when it comes to investment property. there are hundreds of derelict, abandoned malls, clubs, bars, parking structures, and other edifices of commerce including giant grass and trash lots that just seem to exist. Theyre all owned by property management cabals or millionaires who refuse to do anything with the land because surprise, they dont need to. The landed gentry of homeowners will always go to bat, defending their right to chew up property and deliver nothing in return.

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

#38

Post by quadrangle »

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).

Seems to me you need to watch the NotJustBikes overview of the Missing Middle problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o

Super dense cities are efficient in some ways, but they have tons of other problems and they externalize tons of costs. What we're missing in the U.S. is human-scale density, especially in the form of cohousing arrangements.

Tall high-rises are not actually efficient. You know how much energy it takes to have elevators going up and down 40 floors along with all the other stuff? Land is not the single factor to calculate when we want efficiency.

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

#39

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

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).

That sounds like absolute hell.

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

#40

Post by grandmczeb »

tjr225 wrote: post #8
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…

Boston was incorporated two hundred years before Los Angeles. Of course it is going to have more beautiful, old houses. Of course it is going to have more walkable neighborhoods. But what I'm more interested in is this: > Nearly every single home is multi-family, and the single families that do exist are usually $2 million and up. SFH are already 1 million and up in LA, really in SD, LA, SF, Seattle, and Vancouver. I…

In my experience, it’s a misconception that NIMBYS are motivated by property values directly. There are exceptions of course, but usually it’s either some sort of perceived lifestyle impact (traffic, shade, “neighborhood character”, etc) or just general anxiety over change.
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