Why developers seem to only build luxury housing (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why developers seem to only build luxury housing (2018)

#131

Post by ethbr0 » Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:47 PM UTC

noahtallen wrote: post #70

ethbr0 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends where you live. That's a broad assertion to cover a wildly divergent spectrum of community types.

It’s an easy assertion to make because even car transit itself is better in places that aren’t car centric. (Because fewer people are on the roads, and roads are much safer.) https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k

Population density in the Netherlands is 414.33 people per square kilometer.

Population density in the US is 34.05 people per square kilometer.

Granted, a huge amount of the US should probably be discounted for a more realistic comparison (e.g. unlivable regions, BLM / park / national forest, and massive amount of farmland), which would bump the number up.

But we're still probably going to need some adjustments going from a country you can drive across in about 4 hours, to one where it would take 40+ hours.

Re: Why developers seem to only build luxury housing (2018)

#132

Post by lupire » Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:50 PM UTC

robonerd wrote: post #89

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nicer architecture: Only sometimes. Sometimes, old is just old and plain. Not to mention that things change over the years: I'm guessing by 'old house' you refer to something built pre-1940 and not the ranch style house built in the 60's: Those houses from the 60's are over 50 years old, though. Better materials? I'm not convinced. Drafty doors and windows, little insulation, lead paint, outdated plumbing parts, and…

He's talking about trees , not lumber. A nice healthy mature oak in the backyard is a thousand times nicer than a scrawny sapling that might give you shade in 20 years if it survives that long. The flipside is that sometimes the mature tree isn't healthy, and remediation of a large and dying tree can be tricky and expensive.

Every a healthy mature tree is expensive to trim and will eventually fall on your house.

Re: Why developers seem to only build luxury housing (2018)

#133

Post by chrisseaton » Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:52 PM UTC

lupire wrote: post #128

chrisseaton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But older houses are better (nicer architecture, better materials, more space, more mature trees) than newer houses.

At some point that can't keep being true. And houses generally have gotten far larger over time.

> At some point that can't keep being true.

I can't really see us ever going back to solid-stone construction and the kind of intricate architecture we used to have in our culture.

> And houses generally have gotten far larger over time.

Rooms used to be 3m tall - they've shrunk over time to 2.4m tall. New-builds have zero storage.

Re: Why developers seem to only build luxury housing (2018)

#134

Post by ethbr0 » Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:52 PM UTC

actionablefiber wrote: post #129

ethbr0 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because then everyone would always build no-parking developments to maximize profit, even in neighborhoods unsuitable for it. E.g. no public transit, no nearby grocery store.

Market dynamics would solve for this pretty quickly. If a neighborhood of no-parking developments had no grocery store, then building one would be a blindingly obvious opportunity. If the neighborhood is actually incorrigibly unsuitable for zero parking, then developers would have to build parking to attract buyers. But if you mandate parking minimums based on a formula then you have absolutely no mechanism for A) di…

Ha! Development is... substantially less organized and intelligent, less agile, and happens over longer timeframes than you're thinking.

Most developers would have no problem building two apartment buildings right next to each other, on every foot of available space, with no parking, selling everything, and then never giving their futures a second thought.

Zoning exists precisely because all building parties involved in are absolutely mercenary, and yet the city has to deal with the mess in the subsequent decades.

The entire parking requirement was created because previously developers had overburden street spaces without care.

Re: Why developers seem to only build luxury housing (2018)

#135

Post by ghaff » Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:58 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #105

eptcyka wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be perfectly reasonable to mandate that for one high value luxury house, a developer has to build a certain number of affordable homes. I guess it'd be the nimbys that would try and prohibit such legislation.

maybe I'm missing the big picture here, but I don't see why it's actually desirable to have a wide range of incomes within a specific neighborhood. poor people can't afford to shop at {expensive grocery store} or dine at {fancy restaurant}. and wealthy people generally don't want to shop or eat at the places their poor neighbors could afford. if you "urban plan" them into the same neighborhood, now you need two (or m…

There's a big project in North Cambridge near the city line. The only easily accessible (i.e. walkable) supermarket is a... Whole Foods. Though that's probably the most common chain in Cambridge as a whole to be honest.

But with or without specific affordable housing areas do gentrify and long-term residents don't necessarily like it even if it results in a "better"/safer/etc. neighborhood.

Re: Why developers seem to only build luxury housing (2018)

#136

Post by ghaff » Sat, May 28, 2022, 7:05 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #126

gernb wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine if people want to live in the suburbs but... They need to start paying the full amount of what it costs to maintain those suburbs. As it is, the dense urban downtown is subsidizing all of it. That's not fair. https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI

That seems like an incomplete accounting though, as it's looking at net revenue per acre. When in reality, the productivity of an acre (and therefore its tax revenue) depends on that acre + all its inputs (people, services, etc). Downtowns (aka central business districts) look wildly productive, but they're fueled by people who live... not there. From this perspective, it's really more of a call for mixed use develop…

The City of London is perhaps the most extreme example. I assume its revenues are astonishing. But hardly anyone lives there. It would be absurd to say that the City is subsidizing the rest of London.

Re: Why developers seem to only build luxury housing (2018)

#137

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, May 28, 2022, 7:19 PM UTC

david38 wrote: post #117

returningfory2 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the book The Affordable City [0], this is illustrated with a really powerful analogy: Every year in the United States, the Toyota motor company sells about 2 million regular Toyota cars and 300,000 expensive luxury Lexus cars. Suppose that we introduced a law that each motor company can only sell 300,000 cars a year. Which cars would Toyota continue to make? [0] https://islandpress.org/books/affordable-city [1] ht…

Precisely why the law should really say that making X affordable cars per year buys you right to sell 1 luxury car. You actually want it more complicated than that, maybe something like for every dollar of affordability you sell (under $X), you earn the right to sell $0.10 worth of luxury.

The solution isn't to put a band-aid on it. But to get out of the way as much as possible.

If you prohibit most profit you prohibit most progress.

Re: Why developers seem to only build luxury housing (2018)

#138

Post by thehappypm » Sat, May 28, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #22

Something I noticed happening around Boston metro starting with the pandemic is there is a lot more new builds than additions and remodels. The remodel we tried to do ended up significantly delayed due to labor and other shortages, and shopping around was very difficult. It made me wonder whether the developers prefer the hassle-free experience of unoccupied or new builds where you don't have constant headaches of fi…

What town? My town has a healthy mix.

Re: Why developers seem to only build luxury housing (2018)

#139

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, May 28, 2022, 7:27 PM UTC

zbrozek wrote: post #53

eptcyka wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be perfectly reasonable to mandate that for one high value luxury house, a developer has to build a certain number of affordable homes. I guess it'd be the nimbys that would try and prohibit such legislation.

Projects that don't pencil don't get built. Constraints are costs and reduce the number of projects that make sense. There is only one way out of our housing crisis and it's removing constraints to construction. The biggest of those constraints right now is zoning law and the planning approval process that it creates.

Also, risk. It might "pencil" with 10% profit, but have risks approaching ~20% of total. Need to be reasonably sure, or what is the point?

Re: Why developers seem to only build luxury housing (2018)

#140

Post by rufus_foreman » Sat, May 28, 2022, 7:34 PM UTC

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #15

CalRobert wrote: post #3

There's a great reddit thread exploring much the same issues at https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_ar... Turns out, requiring little houses for cars be added on to every house for people gets expensive.

This make excellent sense, and the only solution would necessitate public transportation. Unsurprisingly, whether it’s public housing or public transportation, there really is no way around investing in public infrastructure if you want to have a healthy society.

I don't agree. As people get richer, they (at an aggregate level) choose private housing and private transportation over public.

You can have a healthy society with private transportation and private housing, it just needs to be a rich society.