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Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

benjaminschneider.substack.com

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Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#11

Post by readthenotes1 »

pas wrote: post #5

> approving more units through this program in the last 13 months than all affordable housing approved in previous three years combined — without dedicating any additional subsidy. oh, so it was NIMBYs all along!? pikatchu face

That's not what I read from the article. Instead it seemed to be fairly arbitrary government regulations such as required shrubbery and facade articulation that make the cost of building prohibitively expensive.

Now, you may be saying it's NIMBY for the LA government to require unnecessary (or mildly necessary) stuff to keep the neighborhoods beautiful, but it's I'd guess it's probably more "just because I can means I do" typical petite bureaucratic power flexing.

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#13

Post by o11c »

crooked-v wrote: post #4

There's no big secret here. Dump restrictive zoning requirements, remove subjective approval processes, and make the permitting process a "shall approve" instead of "may approve", and you'll see a lot of new housing get built very quickly. All the slowdowns and immense extra expenses are self-inflicted by city residents who either don't care, don't want cheaper housing, or have been infected by the terminally brainle…

The problem with "shall approve" is that sometimes the best answer really is "no".

A lot of ecological disasters are averted by processes that seem long and drawn out, but which actually are just companies not understanding that "no, we don't want you to burn down the planet around us". Residential is obviously somewhat different, but not entirely.

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#14

Post by striking »

jimbob45 wrote: post #6

What is “affordable housing”? All housing becomes affordable once you build enough of it. Is it just the politically correct way of saying “low-quality housing”?

> There are dozens of building code (not just zoning code) requirements that add cost and complexity to housing projects in cities like LA. Street trees, front setbacks, off-street parking, roof decks, façade articulation — these are nice to haves, yet LA requires these features in many cases.

> Without these goodies, some ED1 buildings will be ugly. Some will be poorly designed. Just about all of them, by definition, will be “out of scale” with their surroundings. (LA housing activist Joe Cohen has a great thread of renderings of ED1 projects.) I personally think all of that is ok. A housing emergency is no time for aesthetic perfection. LA, like San Francisco, is finally acting like it.

If "low quality" just means "ugly" then... Yes? But if "low quality" means "unlivable" then no.

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#15

Post by readthenotes1 »

fragmede wrote: post #10

Or, seeing as how it's kind of important, we could subsidize building more housing.

Or seeing as how it's kinda important, we could stop regulatory capture for housing.

(There is an article here on hackers news not too long ago that said that while most industries had had huge productivity gains in the last 30 years, construction had been flat or decreasing - mostly because of increased regulation)

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#16

Post by twelvechairs »

Good to see this happening.

That said I strongly dislike when there's a conflation of "affordable housing" (lower-case, the general concept of providing for people on lower incomes) with specific schemes you have to qualify for (often "Afffordable Housing" upper-case) - in this case it seems to be deed restrictions on income that are required in exchange for floorspace bonuses and building code relaxations?

There's a big problem for me in the latter building inefficient bureaucratic systems and being able to be gamed (e.g. If I'm rich maybe I can still buy a lower income unit for my children or perhaps my wife or mother and then rent it out. I could lower my income for one year just to qualify etc.)

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#17

Post by cyberax »

I'll save you a click: no.

Here's the thing: housing in dense cities will NEVER be affordable. Never.

What happened recently (and is happening in other cities like Seattle) is companies pivoting from building "luxury" crappy condos to sweet state-subsdizied housing. These kinds of projects are great for them, they don't need to care about the market demand.

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#18

Post by h0l0cube »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #11
pas wrote: post #5

> approving more units through this program in the last 13 months than all affordable housing approved in previous three years combined — without dedicating any additional subsidy. oh, so it was NIMBYs all along!? pikatchu face

That's not what I read from the article. Instead it seemed to be fairly arbitrary government regulations such as required shrubbery and facade articulation that make the cost of building prohibitively expensive. Now, you may be saying it's NIMBY for the LA government to require unnecessary (or mildly necessary) stuff to keep the neighborhoods beautiful, but it's I'd guess it's probably more "just because I can means…

> required shrubbery and facade articulation

Isn't that appeasing to the NIMBYs who don't want their property values to drop?

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#19

Post by crooked-v »

o11c wrote: post #13
crooked-v wrote: post #4

There's no big secret here. Dump restrictive zoning requirements, remove subjective approval processes, and make the permitting process a "shall approve" instead of "may approve", and you'll see a lot of new housing get built very quickly. All the slowdowns and immense extra expenses are self-inflicted by city residents who either don't care, don't want cheaper housing, or have been infected by the terminally brainle…

The problem with "shall approve" is that sometimes the best answer really is "no". A lot of ecological disasters are averted by processes that seem long and drawn out, but which actually are just companies not understanding that "no, we don't want you to burn down the planet around us". Residential is obviously somewhat different, but not entirely.

"Ecological disasters" is covered by putting in objective instead of subjective rules. The point is to make objections like "doesn't fit neighborhood character" / "blocks the view" / "would replace this extremely historic run-down laundromat" hold no weight in the process.

Re: Has LA cracked the code for building affordable housing?

#20

Post by apsurd »

jimbob45 wrote: post #6

What is “affordable housing”? All housing becomes affordable once you build enough of it. Is it just the politically correct way of saying “low-quality housing”?

Your statement is so hard for me to understand because quality, or lack thereof, is a function of modern construction and cost saving practices, and laws around what constitutes a livable dwelling. McMansions!

These practices either save or cost the builder, not the buyer, because the value is all locked up in land. And the extra layers of scarcity we impose around building on said land.

In other words, what are you talking about?

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