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

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

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 403 posts

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

#181

Post by ghaff »

xxpor wrote: post #173
SmellTheGlove wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you that when we were moving from SF to Seattle this past year, we were getting _crushed_ on any house that was sitting on an upzoned lot. Seattle's done a decent job of upzoning parts of neighborhoods around transit corridors, and we were looking at houses on those lots because I believe in the upside as you do. Well, so do others, and they have _cash_ to buy it - we did not! We're now in a SFH in a mostl…

The way to solve the parking problem is to price street parking, not to require new buildings to build parking while the existing houses get off scott free. It's the exact same supply and demand argument: limited supply so how do you reduce demand to the supply that exists? Increase prices.

I expect residential parking is pretty price-insensitive. Maybe more households would forgo owning a marginal second car. But if a households needs a car, they need a car. And if that means paying $100+/month that's just something they're going to have to eat.

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

#182

Post by TulliusCicero »

yt-sdb wrote: post #176
_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…

Put differently, "affordable housing" and "housing as investment" are at odds. People don't acknowledge this tension enough, I suspect because many people want to switch to the housing-as-investment team.

It’s exactly this.

Imagine if we restricted how many cars could be made a year, with the predictable result of new and used car prices steadily increasing every year. And then when anyone suggested what maybe we should let car makers make more cars, you got a bunch of people complaining about the property values of the cars they already owned, or that this would ruin car culture.

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

#183

Post by reactspa »

Two interesting takes on SB-9 (the Senate bill mentioned in the article):

https://www.livablecalifornia.org/sb-9-allows-8-units-on-all...

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/sb-9-it-s-not-a-duplex-bil...

Accordingly, if a lot is over 2,400 sqft, one could split the lot into 2 (minimum 1,200 sqft is needed per part), and build a duplex, an ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit) and a JADU (Junior Accessory Dwelling Unit) in each part, ending up with 8 units in total.

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

#184

Post by acdha »

jiveturkey wrote: post #128
cageface wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Well obviously, the people that want low density housing. It's still the American dream to have a house with a yard and fence.

There's certainly a lot of iconography around that but I think that statement is dramatically overselling the strength and universality of that image. Millions of people have chosen suburbs since that was so heavily subsidized in the post-WWII era and limited supply meant there weren't good alternatives in many cases, but I would be careful assuming that this a deep preference rather than picking the default option.

In particular, I think you'd see very different responses when people were asked to choose realistic options: it's easy to say you like the idyllic image realtors promote with luxurious houses, perfect landscaping, happy kids at great schools, etc. but quite another to say you want to spend a couple hours a day stuck in an expensive car because there's almost nothing to do within walking distance, take on additional expenses (landscaping, lower density requires higher taxes for infrastructure, etc.), and otherwise live the actual suburban lifestyle for most people rather than the postcard version.

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

#185

Post by distances »

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.

High-rise is not the only other way to reach density. I think major European cities like Paris, Barcelona, Berlin have a very livable and lively format of continuous blocks of 5-8 story buildings.

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

#186

Post by what_is_orcas »

nimbius wrote: post #37
_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 popula…

This is so frustrating.

I live in a relatively low-income neighborhood in a west-coast city and I hear on social media all the time about how the local government doesn't prioritize us because of our relatively low average household income, but at the same time a lot of those folks are resistant to zoning for more apartment buildings in our neighborhood because of all the nimby classics (crime, diversity, etc.). Maybe I'm wrong (and if someone wants to enlighten me, I'm all ears, because this is definitely not my area of expertise) but it seems to me that an influx of residents into the area might give our neighborhood more pull in local elections as we'd form a voting-block with some aligned interests (services & infrastructure in our neighborhood) even if we differ in other interests.

It just seems like we're already in a losing position (w/r/t local politics), why not at least try to make ourselves more formidable.

To be honest, I think it would improve a lot of other things. In the past I've mentioned that my neighborhood acts more as a pass-through between the outlying suburbs & the metropolitan city-center, but I think more residents in the area would attract local businesses (can you believe there's not a sit-down cafe in my area other than maybe a starbucks? They're all drive-through kiosks!) because there'd be more of a local population. Once the businesses open up, fewer folks would have to commute to another neighborhood for work (we'll probably, unfortunately, never be rid of that) and we become less of a pass-through neighborhood. But, again, not my expertise. It's also a long-term plan, which seems to be off-putting in today's financial atmosphere.

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

#187

Post by acdha »

politician wrote: post #98
klyrs wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Dream: Build light rail and cluster high density mixed-use housing and commercial around the stops. Reality: LA runs out of water as climate change intensifies in the Rockies.

You'd save an order of magnitude more water by cutting back agricultural and landscaping usage. If those apartment buildings are professionally designed, they're likely to be more efficient than random houses with ±30 years age on fixtures.

What seems to be working well in LA is building up buses. When I was out last June I noticed buses with dedicated right-of-way (physically separated) and that seemed to be running well during peak times, which is quite eye-opening when you count and realize that the bus which just went by was carrying more people than all of the vehicles in the 4 lanes of stopped traffic.

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

#188

Post by rndmize »

duped wrote: post #138
ihaveajob wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hous…

Some people aren't solely motivated by the rise in their property. Evidence already suggests doing nothing increases it plenty. On the other hand, some folks just don't like living in higher density neighborhoods. I can empathize with someone that bought a single family home decades ago, probably can't afford to buy a new one today even after selling it, and doesn't want to see their quiet neighborhood turn into a bu…

This is pretty much it imo. There was some discussion on new housing and higher density in the town where my parents live a few years back, and apparently the standard "against" argument that got it shot down was "there's not enough parking and already too much traffic, we don't want more of either".

I think a lot of this comes down to generational dynamics. Boomers were until recently the largest generation and have only been passed by millennials two years ago. They have the wealth and will to be politically heard and aren't particularly concerned with the difficulties of younger generations unless they see it second-hand through their children.

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

#189

Post by micromacrofoot »

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.

They're a different type of construction... but we have triple-deckers in Boston.

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

#190

Post by clairity »

beerandt wrote: post #163
klyrs wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Parking garages cost over $500k per space to build. Probably more in California. No one is building one with as part of a short term plan with the intent to tear it down in less than 30-40+ years.

that cost overstated by an order of magnitude. last i looked, it’s on the order of $30K/space, and roughly doubles/triples for underground parking (depending on depth).

i’m a huge advocate for putting all parking underground and leaving ground level space for humans to enjoy fully. it’s more expensive, but we’re a rich city/state/country and we should have nice things.

Post reply on HN