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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

#241

Post by seanmcdirmid »

999900000999 wrote: post #155

The city has been too far gone for 20 years. You have some of most inept local politicians you can imagine, who are more focused on taking glamor shots in front of half a million dollar per unit homeless shelters. If it's really costing half a million dollars to house a single homeless family, why not just give them $5,000 to move? Even for someone like myself, and I do consider myself to be somewhat upper middle cla…

> If it's really costing half a million dollars to house a single homeless family, why not just give them $5,000 to move?

I'm sure they would if they could, but with all the greyhound buses full of people going to LA from places like Texan prisons, how do you prevent them from coming back? Also, I don't think $5k provides as much influence these days as you think it does, even to someone who is homeless.

> LA and much of California is past saving, get out while you still can.

Yes, LA has too many people with more coming, housing prices are too high, and again growing. Chicago is losing people, so it is much easier to live there.

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

#242

Post by seanmcdirmid »

alistairSH wrote: post #124
danans wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a small step in the right direction but California has really dug themselves into a hole here. California needs whole apartment blocks, not just duplexes, but apartments is something that is likely to never happen because of the above issue where no one will vote against their self interest Incremental upzoning is what will get us there. So changing single family zoning to duplex zoning like what this does,…

Incremental upzoning is what will get us there. This. It's been relatively successful (in terms of units built) in Northern VA. All along the Metro rail through Arlington and Fairfax Counties, we've changed zoning to allow dense multi-use development. Courthouse, Clarendon, and Ballston in Arlington were heavily redeveloped in the 90s and 00s. And Reston and Herndon's Transit Oriented Development Zones have been unde…

With better zoning, has Northern VA become more affordable? Or has it just become more popular?

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

#243

Post by mrep »

davidw wrote: post #204
ghaff wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People complain about parking requirements but, in most US cities (and indeed in a great deal of the world) most households have cars. If I lived in Seattle, even if I didn't need one day to day for work/errands/etc., I'd certainly own one for going out to the mountains and so forth on the weekends.

So let the market work. If people don't have a car, they're doing the environment a favor for all of us and clogging the roads less. It's only fair that they should get a discount: not forcing them to pay for automobile storage they're not using!

Isn't that the case already pretty much everywhere land is scarce? When I lived in Seattle, parking was an extra $300 a month on top of rent but I didn't have to pay that when I didn't have a car.

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

#244

Post by rcpt »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #217
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…

People rich enough to own SFH don't really care about the money. They didn't buy the place to sell. The product they're buying with the SFH form is Exclusivity. With a SFH surrounded by other SFHs you have few neighbours and you're (mostly) guaranteed that they're the same class as you. SFH owners oppose apartments because apartments bring more people and (gasp) poorer people.

If the current situation was hurting their pockets rather than stuffing them they'd change their tune real quick

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

#245

Post by gamblor956 »

_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…

but apartments is something that is likely to never happen because of the above issue where no one will vote against their self interest.

Several dozen massive apartment complexes have been constructed in L.A. in the past 4 years, and more are being constructed as we speak.

It turns out the problem was never actually zoning; it's simply that it's extremely expensive to build in L.A. when taking into account cost of land (limited supply), cost of materials (excess demand), cost of labor (excess demand), and the extra architectural and structural demands resulting from the dozens of fault lines criss-crossing the L.A. basin.

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

#246

Post by dgudkov »

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.

I agree with all the points. If only sound insulation was better in these old plexes. Hearing someone sneezing (and not only) on the upper floor is not much fun.

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

#247

Post by 14 »

_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 wonder what would happen to the market if suddenly the population was quartered or halved? We have omincron now, I’m just waiting for a variant do mutate and become something ugly like Ebola. I’m also thinking of places like Japan where thousands of houses are abandoned. Surely there are things that could crush the market aren’t there?

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

#248

Post by davidw »

mrep wrote: post #243
davidw wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let the market work. If people don't have a car, they're doing the environment a favor for all of us and clogging the roads less. It's only fair that they should get a discount: not forcing them to pay for automobile storage they're not using!

Isn't that the case already pretty much everywhere land is scarce? When I lived in Seattle, parking was an extra $300 a month on top of rent but I didn't have to pay that when I didn't have a car.

The norm in post-WWII North America is to mandate specific quantities of parking per land use type. Some places get really detailed about this.

Here's a map of places that have eliminated parking mandates in some way: https://parkingreform.org/resources/mandates-map/

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

#249

Post by volkl48 »

riku_iki wrote: post #146
Maarten88 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you build more dense and closer to work and shops, people can travel smaller distances. Public transport, walking and biking will become viable alternatives, resulting in fewer car trips. You could have less traffic when planning it well.

So, it is about rebuilding whole infrastructure from the ground: public transport, walking, biking, office spaces, not just building high condo complexes.

I'll point out that:

- LA is already building various large expansions of public transit, as well as walking/biking infrastructure.

- Generally the shops basically come along with the housing. "Activating" the ground floor - putting retail or other public uses into the ground floor of buildings that are residential above is standard practice when building those taller residential buildings along main arteries, on busy corners, and so on.

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

#250

Post by kgermino »

autarch wrote: post #84

(Stealing this argument from a friend who I discussed something similar with ...) It's hard to see how allowing duplexes will do _anything_ to address housing issues. We have a similar law here in Minneapolis which allows triplexes on any property. But what are the economics of this? Surely there's not a lot of vacant land in LA or Mpls just waiting for a new plex to be built. Instead, all the plots are already occup…

Those are some crazy numbers. I could build a garage apartment for a bit over 100k in Milwaukee. I could divide my house into 2 units with a few walls and electrical work. Lots of houses have unused or underused attic/garage/conditioned space that can be converted relatively cheaply. My "fully built out" neighborhood has plenty of tear-downs, houses on double or triple lots, and even a few truly vacant lots.

This is not going to double the density of neighborhoods, but it opens options for residents and makes it much easier to add units. Sometimes that won't be worth it economically - even if you want to - but the numbers will work out in many cases.

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