Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by mypalmike » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

ordinaryradical wrote: post #64

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they upzone my single family home lot I will make out like a bandit. Only if they only upzone your neighborhood, because if they upzone all of them then developers can buy any of them at existing prices instead of having to all bid on an artificially scarce subset. And in the first case the money comes at the cost of housing prices for all the other neighborhoods they didn't upzone, who all fight against upzonin…

> Only if they only upzone your neighborhood, because if they upzone all of them then developers can buy any of them at existing prices instead of having to all bid on an artificially scarce subset. And yet some neighborhoods are more desirable than others. Is this not already obvious from the state of the market today? Developers go where the most money can be made—the neighborhoods which are already valuable. > Whe…

You're condescension isn't helping your case.

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

#102

Post by cageface » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

_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…

After living in Asia for the last several years where cities combine high density housing and good mass transit with door to door access to great shopping centers the US just looks comically dysfunctional to me.

Who wants to spend hours every day stuck in traffic and looking for parking and then pay outrageous rents for the privilege?

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

#103

Post by ihaveajob » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #50

_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…

It's even worse than that. Because LA is so spread out, merely living in apartment buildings doesn't solve the problem: the apartment-dwellers still need cars to live in LA. When you need 1-3 parking spots for every apartment, the economic efficiency of apartment buildings drops precipitously. With rose-colored glasses, I can see a path forward; building free-standing parking garages that will eventually be demolishe…

Somewhere someone had proposed a new rule that would require all parking structures to be built on level floors, with the idea of allowing a future conversion when the conditions are right. Slanted floors negate this option from the start.

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

#104

Post by jperras » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

DanCarvajal wrote: post #42

jperras wrote: post #7

Montréaler here; I live in a neighbourhood which is uniquely composed of plexes - 3 to 8 units per "plex", with the typical number being 3, thus the term "triplex". Honestly, it's the ideal density IMHO. I get the convenience factors of urban density, but without (most) of the downsides of a high-rise condominium building.

When I was last in Montreal I was struck by these types of units and deeply jealous.

Most cities and urban areas would be much better off with a preponderance of middle-density housing! But, as has been mentioned elsewhere, protectionism in zoning laws and rampant NIMBYism is a difficult wave to break.

Our love affair with middle-density housing is a bit of a cultural/historical oddity; there really aren't other places in Canada where this is wide-spread norm.

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

#105

Post by AnthonyMouse » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

ordinaryradical wrote: post #64

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they upzone my single family home lot I will make out like a bandit. Only if they only upzone your neighborhood, because if they upzone all of them then developers can buy any of them at existing prices instead of having to all bid on an artificially scarce subset. And in the first case the money comes at the cost of housing prices for all the other neighborhoods they didn't upzone, who all fight against upzonin…

> Only if they only upzone your neighborhood, because if they upzone all of them then developers can buy any of them at existing prices instead of having to all bid on an artificially scarce subset. And yet some neighborhoods are more desirable than others. Is this not already obvious from the state of the market today? Developers go where the most money can be made—the neighborhoods which are already valuable. > Whe…

> And yet some neighborhoods are more desirable than others. Is this not already obvious from the state of the market today? Developers go where the most money can be made—the neighborhoods which are already valuable.

This is just a non-sequitur. Of course some neighborhoods are more valuable than others. But if you have twelve similarly-valuable neighborhoods within reasonable distance of each other, and you only upzone some of them, those will increase in value at the expense of the others.

Also, developers frequently choose the least valuable neighborhoods, because development makes the neighborhood more valuable, so they go where they can buy low and sell high.

> Tax breaks, duh.

So now the middle class gets to pay taxes to subsidize housing they're not eligible to live in, while not being able to afford the housing they are eligible to live in.

> You combine them. You make luxury units possible with a mandate that a percentage of the building be affordable.

Which dramatically increases the cost of the program because the opportunity cost of having more high value housing is so much larger than the cost of building lower cost housing in lower cost areas.

You also end up with the bizarre result and perverse incentive that people not eligible for affordable housing have to live somewhere worse than people who are, so making more money makes your life worse.

This also increases housing costs for the middle class because you under-produce luxury housing so the people who would have bought the luxury housing are now bidding against the middle class for ordinary housing.

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

#106

Post by jperras » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

mrep wrote: post #57

jperras wrote: post #7

Montréaler here; I live in a neighbourhood which is uniquely composed of plexes - 3 to 8 units per "plex", with the typical number being 3, thus the term "triplex". Honestly, it's the ideal density IMHO. I get the convenience factors of urban density, but without (most) of the downsides of a high-rise condominium building.

We call them three-flats here in Chicago.

I had no idea that they were common enough in Chicago to have a colloquial name! That's awesome.

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

#107

Post by JamesBarney » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

kodah wrote: post #91

chestertn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can buy apartments?

The vast majority of apartments I've seen are for rent, not for purchase. So, at the least I'm putting emphasis on the idea that they need to be apartments for sale .

They just don't call them apartments, they call them condos. But they're essentially apartments for sale, and I see them all the time.

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

#108

Post by arrosenberg » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

_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…

We are building a ton of apartment buildings, but most of it is replacing light commercial, industrial or virgin lots. Adding duplex, triplex, and quadplex housing allows further density in established residential neighborhoods where you have no political chance of putting a 6 story apartment building. Additionally, duplex units can be sold, making a greater number of residents into invested homeowners.

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

#109

Post by ihaveajob » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

_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…

The thing I don't get is why many SFH owners don't see the benefit of upzoning their lot: Overnight, their house is much more valuable because if they choose to, they can sell to a developer who can make MORE money by building more homes. And if they choose to keep their house as is, nobody is going to force them.

In the end, it boils down to cars, though. Many people see the free parking space in front of their house as an extension of their property, and more people on their street often means they have to compete for it. Make cars optional, and everything else falls into place.

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

#110

Post by throwaway1777 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

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…

I agree it looks great. But the density is around 8500/sq mile, which happens to be almost the same as Los Angeles. So, this type of development wouldn’t do that much for housing affordability in LA. I feel like people seriously underestimate how dense Californian cities already are.