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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

#121

Post by antasvara »

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…

Covering a mortgage payment each month is much more feasible than purchasing a house for most. The real issue is saving for the down payment and having good enough credit to get approved for a loan.

There's a considerable difference between the loan payment with a big down payment and good credit versus bad credit and a low down payment. That difference can essentially turn an unaffordable home purchase into an "affordable" monthly rent.

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

#122

Post by c3534l »

ProAm wrote: post #26
c3534l wrote: post #4

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

It's the same thing worded differently.

Well, I did complain about how these things are worded - I thinking the framing is misleading.

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

#123

Post by unethical_ban »

raldi wrote: post #109
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?

"Buying apartments" is not something that happens for most places in the United States, so no. Condos and townhomes exist, but are not what I call the norm compared to houses and apartments for rent.

I know people can rent single-family homes, but I am also against institutional home-ownership. My point is that living-quarters ownership should be more universal.

>Nobody's trying to "take away homeownership"

When houses come down and apartments go up, they are. When companies holding hundreds of millions of dollars of capital buy houses during a recession and say "millennials don't want to own homes anyway, we're doing them a favor", yes, they are.

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

#124

Post by anonymouskimmer »

jalk wrote: post #40
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #13

If they'd locate the jobs to smaller cities and towns we wouldn't have this argument.

who are "they" in this context?

Whoever it is who decides they want to build business facilities where everyone else is building business facilities.

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

#125

Post by ndriscoll »

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…

You can be invested in your home in more than just a financial sense. If you don't own it, you have no incentive (or even much ability) to improve it. The owner who doesn't live in it is also incentivized to do the bare minimum to keep it rentable. If you you're going to live somewhere long term, it's nice to own your surroundings so that you can improve them for yourself, and to have neighbors that are similarly motivated and incentivized. Society works better when everyone's self-interests are aligned.

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

#126

Post by yterdy »

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.

You have it backwards. We DO grow by establishing new "small towns" (better known as "housing developments" or "mixed-use developments"). Increasing density in a way that resembles older "small town" development would certainly be preferable, but is difficult with the transit policy status quo in much of the country. TODs are an example of attempts to do so anyway, with mixed results. The uncomfortable truth of our housing policy woes is that they're intertwined with transit policy and everything connected to that (American manufacturing and business, energy, political legacies, etc.).

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

#127

Post by ianburrell »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #13

If they'd locate the jobs to smaller cities and towns we wouldn't have this argument.

The prices are high in major cities because lots of people want to live there. Remote work will reduce demand as people don’t need to commute. But lots of people like to live in the city, either because like what city provide or their life there. All the economic activity means there a lot of in-person jobs.

With remote work, lots of people who don’t care about particular city will move to smaller ones. But if increased density increases supply, I bet lots of people will move to desirable cities. People who want the big city or want the jobs, but couldn’t afford it before.

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

#128

Post by runarberg »

ericd wrote: post #12
imglorp wrote: post #7

It needs to be affordable as well as multi unit. There is a massive influx in many burbs of "luxury apartments" with rents $2500+ and I'm not talking downtown NYC. That's more than most mortgages.

Nope, just needs to be more building. New luxury apartments will make the old stock cheaper. The fight over the number of affordable units in every single new development slows things down and exacerbates the affordability problem. Remove as many of the barriers to development as possible, and the problem will be solved.

It is a mistake to ignore the power imbalance between landlords and tenants, especially when the landlord is a business. Sure you can argue that the market is out of equilibrium which causes this inflation in rent, but to say that is the only reason is a blatant oversimplification.

Rich landlords will keep overcharging for rent as long as they are able. And more buildings just gives them more opportunities to exploit more renters. That is unless the renters strike or the government enforces rent control.

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

#129

Post by anonymouskimmer »

ianburrell wrote: post #127
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #13

If they'd locate the jobs to smaller cities and towns we wouldn't have this argument.

The prices are high in major cities because lots of people want to live there. Remote work will reduce demand as people don’t need to commute. But lots of people like to live in the city, either because like what city provide or their life there. All the economic activity means there a lot of in-person jobs. With remote work, lots of people who don’t care about particular city will move to smaller ones. But if increa…

A bit over 60% of jobs cannot be done remotely. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/ability-to-work-fr...

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

#130

Post by jandrewrogers »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #50
tomtheelder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect that’s _your_ dream. I hated growing up in a house with a back yard and a driveway. I’m not sure I would have wanted to grow up in downtown Manhattan, but an apartment in a small city would have been infinitely better.

Well, you are an extreme outlier. There are all kinds of people on this world but this very uncommon. Most people in apartment complexes are trying to get into their own home or hole that they can.

Extreme outlier? I know many people that can afford to live anywhere they want that choose to live in an apartment for its many advantages. It sounds like you are projecting your own biases. The notion that everyone desperately wants to live in a suburban house is manifestly false.

There is a reason the rents on nice urban apartments in good areas would easily cover the mortgage in an average suburb, yet are still in high demand.

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