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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

#311

Post by baby »

throwawaysea wrote: post #309
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.

I think this is a convenient caricature of why people want to keep single family zoning, but it doesn't match my experience. I am one of those people that favors single family zoning, and no one I know that shares the same view favors low-density zoning to drive value. Not one. The reason I hear consistently is that people want to preserve their way of life and quality of life. Introducing new zoning and higher densi…

> The reason I hear consistently is that people want to preserve their way of life and quality of life

With all the homeless people in the city I'm not sure why they would want to preserve that.

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

#312

Post by acdha »

clairity wrote: post #216
acdha wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

there’s only one truly dedicated busway here in LA (orange line in the valley). some other buses (like silver line) have sections of busway, but are mostly traveling on shared streets. there’s been a back-and-forth on dedicated bus lanes and some plans for more busways, but there is a lot of misplaced pushback from drivers on this (that it would increase traffic). i do think that buses are a good lower-cost mass tran…

I was out around the G Line, and not for a long trip but it definitely seemed to be working there. The traffic complaints are always amusing because it really shows how people don't want to accept that the current system just doesn't work. I grew up in Ventura and have family around LA, and there have been so many road projects which made traffic better for maybe as much as 6 months until usage increased to match.

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

#313

Post by treeman79 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #282
dgudkov wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or kids roller skating on the floor above you while you're trying to work or sleep. Roller skates on a normal floor are... deafening to the people on the floor below.

It’s horrible when you have small children being above people.

Kids are noisy, they walk hard and jump a lot. You can lecture /punish all you want. That doesn’t change their nature.

For a time we were apologizing to the grouchy old lady living alone below us in a 3 bedroom. Hitting ceiling with broom at every noise. But at a certain point. Look 3 bedrooms are for people with family. I’m not going to force a 2 year to sit still 24 hours a day.

After one absurd ceiling episode we started family jumping exercises for every broom whack.

Never going back to multi-tenant if I can help it.

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

#314

Post by milkytron »

trgn wrote: post #239
mywittyname wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is _it_. There are so many good examples of dense but verdant urbanism in the US. But they all predate cars. Funny thing is, people still will pay top dollar to either live in these neighborhoods, or visit them on vacation (Savanah, Charleston, New Orleans, Ashville, ...). It's a complete tragedy, the answer is right there. Just do the same thing they did then, but today.

> It's a complete tragedy, the answer is right there. Just do the same thing they did then, but today.

The problem is that building like that has been outlawed with euclidean zoning.

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

#315

Post by treeman79 »

abduhl wrote: post #300
subsubzero wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying not to throw the older/helpless out into the street. Its no fault of theirs that the house they own increased from $40k to $3M(know 2 elderly people in this exact situation) and they would now incur a gigantic tax bill(if prop-13 was repealed). They could sell but would most likely be forced to move out of the area and away from all family/community and would be devastating to a person of advanced age or who w…

Who cares if they're taxed at the max tax rate? One of the main effects of repealing Prop 13 would be to start actually collecting taxes. I don't think that the fact that people who are forced out (because they can't pay their yearly taxes) now have to pay taxes, which they CAN pay because they're now liquid, something we should be concerned about after making the decision to repeal Prop 13? Old people get a lot of p…

California collects plenty of taxes.

It doesn’t need more. It’ll just blow it on more trains that don’t run or such.

100% tax rate would not be enough for many politicians.

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

#316

Post by ryathal »

watwut wrote: post #290
duped wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I mean, if you are able to prevent apartment complex on someone else's property that is not even next you your house, then you have too much control.

Do you also apply this to a new Walmart, Amazon warehouse, fertilizer plant, Casino, steel mill, et. or is residential use the only inalienable use of property?

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

#317

Post by mateo411 »

davidw wrote: post #113

Huh, nice to see Los Angeles, a city of some 4 million people catching up with... uh, Bend, Oregon, which recently passed its city code changes to allow up to fourplexes thanks to HB2001. Bend recently hit 100,000 people! And you wonder why California has a housing crisis.

Yes, you are correct. All of the Californians should sell their over valued houses and move to Oregon. There is no sales tax, and you don't have to pump your own gas. I hear that Bend is nice!

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

#318

Post by Slow_Hand »

opportune wrote: post #80

I find it interesting that the majority of democrats were in favor of the duplexes, republicans were split, and the LA city council (14/15 democrats) were all opposed to the new law. This matches my experiences in SF and other parts of the country. I’ll ignore the irony that republicans are voting against expanded property rights and transparently are voting simply for class interests… I am not sure why democratic el…

As you've suggested the dissonance between democrats largely polling in favor of the measure but city council democrats rejecting could be because the city council members have conflicting personal interests or are being influenced/lobbied by a minority who oppose the law.

So perhaps the distinction of democrat is too broad and unhelpful in this situation and it should be broken down into finer demographics. 26% of Americans identify as democrat and there is bound to be a lot of diversity of opinion within such a large body of people.

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

#319

Post by milkytron »

bagels wrote: post #310

Why can't we have single family plus high density where it makes sense (near transit, major roads and freeways)? This push to ruin suburbs is just ruining things for those that don't want to live somewhere dense.

We sort of can, but it's mostly temporary on a long term scale unless you're talking about areas really far from the core of a metro. When more people move to an area, there is (generally) more economic opportunity. With that comes rising land values and demand to live in that area. As cities grow, expand, and generate wealth for the residents, they envelop the suburbs, and development makes those suburbs more urban.

If you keep those suburbs as single family housing, their value goes up tremendously at the cost of everyone else. It is not beneficial for the community at large to have these single residences in areas that could provide jobs, services, organizations, to many more people. Having more people also increases the tax base for a city compared to a single family.

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

#320

Post by danans »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #242
alistairSH wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The DC area has a better affordability ratio than most major US metro areas: https://infogram.com/q2-2021-affordability-table-1ho16vogzgo...

That's pretty remarkable given its stature as a center of world power and influence.

That data doesn't answer the question about trajectory, though, which is what you asked. I can't find a graph that plots this stuff over time by metro, but it would be interesting to see no doubt.

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