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

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

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 200 posts

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

#101

Post by raldi »

epistasis wrote: post #34
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.

People don't understand that the single family zoning is actually an apartment ban. So even if it's technically correct, it scares a lot of people unnecessarily. Otherwise intelligent people have their brains broken when it comes to discussions about housing. We need to pick words carefully to not confuse.

And then NIMBYs call efforts to allow taller buildings “one size fits all”, whereas it’s the exact opposite: the status quo in these neighborhoods is one size (SFHs only) fits all.

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

#102

Post by HWR_14 »

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…

> Since the less wealthy person couldn’t cover the mortgage to begin with

In the US, this isn't true. It's not uncommon for property to rent for higher than the cost of mortgage, taxes and insurance. That is, be profitable from day one (assuming 20% down).

People complain about being able to afford a mortgage but not being given one. Or not being approved for a monthly payment of Y and instead paying Y+X a month in rent.

In China, the situation you described exists. Have no idea about in Europe.

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

#103

Post by hibikir »

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.

Let me tell you about Spain. It appears to be a relatively low density country, but if you look at where people live, an extremely high percentage of the population lives in an apartment. Your average Spaniard lives in a square km that is about as dense as NY's upper east side. Therefore, based on your argument, you'd expect a lot of renters, right?

As it happens, While about a third of Americans rent, only about a fifth of Spaniards do: 78% of households live in an apartment they own. That's because regulation is set up in ways that make renting a pretty bad deal. I live in some midwestern suburb, and half of my street rents, as companies have outbid individual sellers when the people that originally bought their houses died or downsized. They are owned by Delaware companies, and good luck figuring out who is really behind them.

So while it might be a good idea to minimize renters, the tie between rentals and apartments in urban living is just regulatory. Suburbs are in no way immune to being purchased by investors: It's just that investors try to aim for properties that are expected to grow up in value the fastest, and it just happens that those tend to be in urban centers and in suburbs that are very close to said centers.

So really, limiting building dense housing is, if anything, going to make the problem worse, as it limits housing supply. If you want to prevent renting, make it a worse deal, tax wise, for companies to own and manage rental property. Again, the very dense Spanish cities do a better job at this than the US does.

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

#104

Post by phphphphp »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #63
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…

> I’m wrong about this obviously but I still cannot understand why. I have this theory (I wish I could think of a way to easily prove it right with some kind of cherry-picked statistics/data but I'm not confident I'd be able to) that we've finally reached a point (I'm sure it isn't the first time in history but I don't know a lot of history) in "late-stage capitalism" that the top 20% don't mind paying/can pay/will p…

Essentially, the power of money grows exponentially. A well-off tech person earning a few hundred thousand dollars per year has the financial power equivalent to dozens of minimum wage people. I agree that we’re now at the point where there is so much money at the top that the power imbalance is too influential to be ignored. A few decades ago, the number of wealthy people was so small and their reach so short that it was unlikely the average person would experience any of their influence… nowadays, every block has someone wealthy enough to be buying up property with borrowed money to turn it into an airbnb. The influence of money today has permeated every aspect of our lives. And we, as well off tech people, are partly to blame.

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

#105

Post by ianburrell »

epistasis wrote: post #80
lazypenguin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it’s replacing one problem with another. Simply changing zoning from single to multi-family doesn’t actually change core root problems in my opinion. A suburb full of single family homes or a suburb of multi-family homes are just different kinds of suburban hells. I think we need to be thinking about designing entire communities more intelligently with things like local markets, shops, parks, rest areas, school…

While I agree that we need mixed use zoning, if you look at where the upzoning is happening, it's typically in places that allow mixed use. Ending single family zoning is also required to allow corner stores, not just allow apartments.

The upzoning will mostly affect walkable neighborhoods because those are the ones where there is most demand and where density will fit better. Those would be the pre-war streetcar suburbs and similar post-war suburbs.

The funny thing is that there are “missing middle” apartments in my neighborhood and similar ones. The duplexes and up were just banned for decades.

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

#106

Post by raldi »

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.

I’ve never met a person who grew up in a city and told me they wished they’d been raised in the suburbs instead. Who needs a backyard when you have dozens of wonderful parks within a short travel distance? Who needs a driveway at all?

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

#107

Post by HWR_14 »

tonfreed wrote: post #72
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…

Anecdotally, when my wife and I were looking at homes it'd be inevitable we'd hear someone else at the open houses talking about their 7th or 8th investment property. My wife is the chatty sort, so she'd ask them about how they could afford it and they'd always be leveraged up to the eyeballs. The cheap credit hog has been a complete disaster, and when the rates inevitably rise to where they should be we're going to…

If they locked in the rates for 30 years, then they can be leveraged and probably be fine. Anyone know if investment properties are eligible for the same 30-year fixed that primary homes are?

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

#108

Post by renewiltord »

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.

Interesting. From when I was 10 to adulthood, I grew up in a super-block style situation in a massive metropolis. Large apartment blocks with a big courtyard area in the middle (a few soccer fields in size). The things I miss from my childhood which it is apparent I won't be able to do here in the Bay Area in America are:

- unsupervised play

- mixed age un-chaperoned interaction

- have my children be raised by a village

I find most people's American suburban life is sort of an isolated existence. People have 3 or 4 people they know on the block. For us, there were numerous homes we could stop by as kids, and we were susceptible to policing from all adults in the vicinity. It was a real community experience - not isolated encounters here and there.

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

#109

Post by raldi »

unethical_ban wrote: post #10

It is critical that any housing solution incorporate equity, in my opinion. Taking away home ownership so we can all pay apartment owners for our entire lives is wrong.

You know people can rent single-family houses and buy apartments, right?

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

#110

Post by HWR_14 »

ticviking wrote: post #15
rayiner wrote: post #2

> We don't have the space to incorporate a city, or urbanized living, within this small village of a community that we have," says Julie Lee, president of a neighborhood civic association and founding member of Arlingtonians for Upzoning Transparency, a group fighting the plan. Comments to these zoning fights are full of gems like this. Arlington is about the size of Buffalo NY and 50% denser. It hasn’t been anything…

An interesting question to ask is why do we always seem to grow by increasing density rather than establishing new small towns? Leon Krier's Drawing For Architecture contrasts over-expansion both with excessive density and excessive sprawl and by duplication. It seems to me that if it were legal to do so there are plenty of tiny towns that could grow to the size of a small city like Arlington or Buffalo.

> why do we always seem to grow by increasing density rather than establishing new small towns?

By "establishing small towns" I assume you mean suburbs.

It seems to be the opposite. Cities with tons of flat land around them (e.g. Houston) tend to expand their footprint and maintain density. It's mostly areas that cannot (e.g. SF, LA, NYC) that increase density. Once you hit natural limiting boarders, you have to build up.

Post reply on HN