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

Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

theurbanist.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 165 posts

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#131

Post by panny »

tehlike wrote: post #29
jimbob45 wrote: post #18

Affordable housing is little better than the drinking fountains for colored people from years past. You don't build affordable housing. You build housing and then prices decrease from the increase in supply. If you're feeling extra bold, you build dense housing to massively increase the supply.

This is kind of true, but misses an important point. Builders won't increase the supply if unit price is close to unit cost as their profit would be narrowed. This is to say, if materials, labor etc is expensive, affordable housing may not be affordable either.

>Builders won't increase the supply if unit price is close to unit cost as their profit would be narrowed.

Sounds a lot like the reasoning behind farm subsidies, doesn't it?

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#132

Post by ianburrell »

zip1234 wrote: post #55
jamestimmins wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is patently untrue. Cities like LA and SF should have high rises everywhere, but instead they have 1 story homes from 1955 selling for $2 million.

They don’t even need high rises—change the 1 story 800sq foot bungalow into a 2 story 4 plex and all the units can have more living space than the original and 4x more people can live somewhere—-but that is banned in most places even

Housing needs to move up one level. The single family homes turn into 4 plex, the small apartments turns into 4-6 story, 6 story turn into towers. It doesn't need to be everything but it needs to be allowed.

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#133

Post by karakot »

bobthepanda wrote: post #123
__derek__ wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name a functioning example of design review, though? My experience with them is specific to Seattle, and the program absolutely does not work as your comment hopes.

If anything, buildings in Seattle are uglier than their counterparts elsewhere.

Nah, it's all the same https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/realestate/housing-develo...

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#134

Post by pwinnski »

steponlego wrote: post #128
pwinnski wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure whether your replies here are more stupid, or more nasty. The two attributes are neck-in-neck thus far. Not everyone is as selfish as you are. I'm a happy YIMBY, disappointed that the houses they're building on the corner are $900k+, hoping they build cheaper on the giant lot across the street from them.

I just oppose whatever the astroturfed trends are, usually. It's never backfired on me. I don't mind the pleas, projection, and wheedling, either. I've been doing this a LOT longer than you.

To justify the upper-case "LOT" you'll need to be a centenarian. I'm not young.

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#136

Post by bobthepanda »

karakot wrote: post #133
bobthepanda wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, buildings in Seattle are uglier than their counterparts elsewhere.

Nah, it's all the same https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/realestate/housing-develo...

Eh, https://news.theregistryps.com/in-114mm-transaction-holland-... is fairly garish, and somehow passed design review

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#137

Post by kevin_b_er »

Kharvok wrote: post #45
deanCommie wrote: post #14

Irrespective of any economic or legal incentives or factors here, this comes down fundamentally to a lack of social trust in north america. It doesn't happen the same way anywhere else in the world like it does in US&Canada. People don't care about other people. "I got mine, ** yours." It's a problem without an easy solution.

How can you build social trust when there is no commonality with your neighbor? Without some commonality of principles how can I trust that any social contract would be recognized or understood. How do people flourish in that environment?

And what is this "commonality" supposed to be?

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#138

Post by zamnos »

sokoloff wrote: post #114
zamnos wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more ambitious culture that was any good at engineering megaprojects could just build skyscrapers on top of the Charles and instantly gain a bunch more land area. Might even be easier than building skyscrapers and then tunneling a freeway under them.

There’s plenty of land to be bought and redeveloped. We nowhere near the point where we have to ruin the enjoyment people get from the river and public parks on either side of it.

[flagged]

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#139

Post by steponlego »

notch898a wrote: post #102
steponlego wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only on the top floors. They’re Section 8 below that.

This is a tongue in cheek explanation for destruction of the urban middle class. Lowest class gets free rent, the rich buy the luxury condos, meanwhile middle class bread and butter workers flushed out of the city.

I have a condition that makes me unable to understand Internet sarcasm unless it is preceded by an upside-down exclamation mark.

Re: Lawsuits Block Thousands of Seattle Homes, $39M for Affordable Housing

#140

Post by steponlego »

pwinnski wrote: post #116
steponlego wrote: post #13

Not everybody wants new tenements in their nice neighborhood.

And yet the Escala was built with 269 units anyway. Tear it down, I guess? Or stop the YIMBY nonsense and let's build enough places to live for people who need to live somewhere.

Migration is about to stop completely very soon. We won't need new urban housing.
Post reply on HN