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To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

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Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#91

Post by djkivi »

osigurdson wrote: post #35

I used to think that if average income cannot afford the average home, the market must necessarily correct. I’m wrong about this obviously but I still cannot understand why. I understand that wealthier people have vacation homes, but the only reason for a wealthy person to purchase an additional non-vacation home is to rent it out to someone less wealthy. Since the less wealthy person couldn’t cover the mortgage to b…

What is the average home? Is it a detached single family house, half a duplex, apartment, trailer in a trailer park?

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#92

Post by narutosasuke »

xyzelement wrote: post #24

I kinda get it and kinda hate it. I am a pretty responsible dude but nothing has made me as invested in my community, surroundings, etc as owning a home. I always loved the US but once we bought the house I really understood it on the next level. Apartments are great for single people and retirees. Families should have a house with a back yard and a drive way. It's our dream.

Communities take all different shapes, renters care about their community too. Personally growing up in a SFH was isolating and took away any sort of autonomy I had.

Want to go to a park? Well that's a 10 minute drive.

How about friends? Better hope I like my 3 neighbors (I didn't). Another 15 minute drive

My family and I live in a large apartment. My son has friends he can walk to see, a park he can walk to and we can relax in, and even a store where he can get treats with his allowance. I'm not his driver and he's more locked into the community than I ever was. All I knew in my community was who had a feud with who over a tree crossing into their yard.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#93

Post by dgunay »

tomtheelder wrote: post #51
BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>”I hated growing up in a house with a back yard and a driveway.” May I ask why?

Mostly because it was boring and isolating. To be clear I didn’t dislike the yard! I disliked what living in an area of traditional SFHs (aka the suburbs) entailed. My cousins growing up lived near the core of a small city and visiting them was like a breath of fresh air. So many fun activities nearby, things you could walk to, way more people to meet. Where I grew up I was basically stuck on just my street unless I…

I had exactly this experience growing up too. My friends were all _at least_ a 2 mile walk from me, on 8 lane 60mph stroads with nothing but gated communities and strip malls along the way. Biking was not great either because of how hilly it could get. Once I got a car life got much better, but it didn't have to be that way.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#94

Post by bluGill »

unethical_ban wrote: post #38
CircleSpokes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking away ownership isn't what this would do though? Honestly I don't even understand how you came to that conclusion.

In the US, condo/apartment ownership is very rare by volume compared to rental apartments. I'm saying that rental apartments should not be the substitution of choice for single-family homes.

There are pros and cons. Renting can be a great choice. If you cash out refinance your house often as many do, then an apartment probably was the better long term choice.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#95

Post by eapressoandcats »

jmathai wrote: post #8

Feels like it will perpetuate the trend of young adults not being able to afford to purchase a home. Duplexes and more apartments mean more renters. No matter your view on home ownership, there’s a lot to be said of the ability to stabilize your budget’s largest line item via fixed rate mortgages. This helps but is just a band aid.

An underrated problem is that many suburbs use zoning to make small houses impossible to build. Urban YIMBYs don’t talk about it because they hate suburbs but forcing everyone to have a huge lot makes home ownership far more exclusionary, which of course was the intent.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#96

Post by ianburrell »

xyzelement wrote: post #57
eapressoandcats wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting is that single family zoning in many places also prevents people from having houses as well. Small starter homes are basically illegal in many suburbs due to high minimum lot sizes and low FAR rating. I think that is frankly an issue that is underrated by most urbanists.

Maybe. But I think there are plenty of levers on that as well. Example: 2 years ago we bought a house on Long Island, near NYC. If we were willing to live 30 minutes further east, the same house would cost half. If we were willing to live in a few nice part of Cleveland, the same house would go down by half again. And if we wanted to live right outside of Cleveland, it'd drop by half again. Point being that things ca…

Would you have bought condo for half the price in nicer location? Would you have bought a smaller house or condo for less money?

The problem now is that we don’t give people the choice when only single family homes are allowed. Some people like apartments. Some people prefer location and would take whatever gets them there. Some people just need the cheapest housing.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#97

Post by dinkumthinkum »

curun1r wrote: post #44
jmathai wrote: post #8

Feels like it will perpetuate the trend of young adults not being able to afford to purchase a home. Duplexes and more apartments mean more renters. No matter your view on home ownership, there’s a lot to be said of the ability to stabilize your budget’s largest line item via fixed rate mortgages. This helps but is just a band aid.

Why is home ownership important? It’s a serious question. It’s currently important within the context of houses as a form of appreciating wealth that can be passed on to future generations, but a big part of the reason we have a housing crisis is due to conflating housing and investment. We need to step back from the notion that houses should be significant stores of wealth and concentrate fully on creating enough ho…

Wow, it’s pretty simple. Owning a home means you don’t pay rent. You pay a mortgage and in such a case you earn equity. When you pay rent, your money is gone every month. You may pay it off and then live without paying the mortgage but just up-keep and property taxes or you may sell the house even before mortgage is paid off and possibly even earn a profit but certainly recoup much of your mortgage payments at the least. Your point about it just being about passing wealth to future generations seems to indicate you are just seeing home ownership through some extreme leftist lens. You may not even choose pass on anything and it is still financially beneficial. Why is earning an income important? That’s a “serious” question too. You say we “conflate” housing and investment, housing is investment, we don’t have to conflate these things, they are intrinsically intertwined because we live in a world in which scarcity exists, despite what the left might tell you. The rest of what you are saying is just very naive.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#98

Post by raldi »

c3534l wrote: post #4

I hate how that's phrased. No one is ending single-family housing. They're legalizing multi-resident housing.

It would be more accurate to say our experiment with apartment prohibition is coming to an end, and many American cities are returning to the rules that were in effect when all their best buildings were built and neighborhoods formed.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#99

Post by bigbillheck »

bdw5204 wrote: post #41
dragonwriter wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate how that's phrased. No one is ending single-family housing. That would be a fair complaint, if the word “housing” had been used in place of “zoning”. Single-family zoning is a legal restriction that allows only single-family housing. Ending it is not the same as ending single-family housing . If you are going to complain about phrasing, you should complain about the actual phrasing.

As far as an uninformed reader is concerned (think either the typical cable news watcher or the typical apolitical person), "ending single-family zoning" reads as "banning new single-family housing". Most voters, let alone most people, are every bit as clueless about public policy details as the people who held up "keep the government out of my Medicare" signs at the protests against Obamacare so you need to be reall…

I think it's fair to expect a little bit more out of the average hacker news poster.

Re: To ease the housing crunch, more places end single-family zoning

#100

Post by ehnto »

curun1r wrote: post #44
jmathai wrote: post #8

Feels like it will perpetuate the trend of young adults not being able to afford to purchase a home. Duplexes and more apartments mean more renters. No matter your view on home ownership, there’s a lot to be said of the ability to stabilize your budget’s largest line item via fixed rate mortgages. This helps but is just a band aid.

Why is home ownership important? It’s a serious question. It’s currently important within the context of houses as a form of appreciating wealth that can be passed on to future generations, but a big part of the reason we have a housing crisis is due to conflating housing and investment. We need to step back from the notion that houses should be significant stores of wealth and concentrate fully on creating enough ho…

I agree with everything except that the importance of ownership would go away. There is a lot you can't do while renting, things that would improve your day to day life in ways you prefer. You can also just be moved on at any point, say the house sells or the landlord changes heart. Of course there are protections but renting is never as stable as ownership. It's a necessarily transient arrangement.
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