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Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

darrellowens.substack.com

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Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#6

Post by BirdieNZ »

m3kw9 wrote: post #3

Wouldn’t the residents revolt as it could bring their house prices down

Upzoning increases land prices. It only results in a decrease in per-unit average house prices if it is accompanied with development (more housing units per square metre of land).

Upzoning doesn't guarantee increased development as developers only build when it makes financial sense to do so, and flooding the market with more units would decrease the potential profit they can make.

Existing residents who don't develop their land usually end up with a big windfall of higher land prices, because their large lot sizes could have many more housing units built on it with new upzoning laws.

Now, they still might revolt for other reasons, like not wanting undesirables like people poorer than themselves to move in next door, or not wanting to see as many houses in their morning walk, but from a financial sense, upzoning is a big positive for existing landowners.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#8

Post by BirdieNZ »

causality0 wrote: post #7

Each home only getting twelve percent of an acre qualifies as "exclusionary housing only for rich people"? Just how insane is the cost of living in Berkeley?

485m² of land in one of the highest-income urban areas in the world is for rich people only, yeah.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#9

Post by theluketaylor »

thereisnospork wrote: post #2

A surprisingly progressive proposal coming from Berkeley, but of course they are still playing games with parking minimums maximums, setback requirements, and income segregation. Seems like it would be a step forward at least.

This is a real danger lurking among the zoning reform efforts we are seeing all over the english-speaking world. There are so many levers baked into the zoning code to prevent development that it's easy to produce a policy that appears to unwind the restrictions without actually permitting any real progress.

My city upzoned the entire city from 1 to 3 units per lot across the whole city a few years ago, which is great. Except they left a parking minimum of 1 per unit, setback requirements, lot coverage maximums, and height restrictions that make it nearly impossible to build additional units that are fit for habitation. A policy that looks great at a glance is awful in practice. I looked into adding a rental unit in my backyard with an architect. The limits resulted in something that would have to be under 400 sq ft / 37 sq m and would be awful to live in.

To their credit the city is now looking at moving to 4 units per lot by right and as part of that process is considering fixing some of the gaps they left the last time, but it illustrates the need to look at zoning codes very closely to make sure the intended development is actually allowed (or question if the gaps are being left on purpose).

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