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

Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

darrellowens.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 289 posts

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

#141

Post by jjav »

chottocharaii wrote: post #112
josuepeq wrote: post #109

I like the idea! I also like Dingbats. And parking. Removing parking minimums is a noble idea, but one thing I have noticed is that the new “parking free” apartment buildings in San Francisco, such as the Tenderloin and SOMA, are having a hard time getting all of their units filled, even with prices slashed. This is a problem that buildings with parking seem to not have. Even with good transit, the city is much easie…

Okay so if that’s the case the developers/owners will work out the most economic model; whether it’s best to satisfy demand with bays or without bays This is self-correcting. Minimums only ensure an inappropriate amount of parking will be built

> This is self-correcting.

It can't be if the regulation prohibits building parking for each home, as in this case.

Building housing units without parking just externalizes the problem and makes the whole neighborhood worse. People still need a car, so if they can't have parking they will have to find it on the streets somewhere, which is worse for everyone involved.

I've lived in a neighborhood where apartment buildings didn't have enough parking for residents, it was not pretty. Constant fights over parking, vandalized cars, people circling four hours looking for a spot. Nothing good came out of that.

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

#142

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

iav wrote: post #138
amluto wrote: post #74

> If a builder chooses to add parking and they’re located 0.5 miles within a transit corridor, they are limited to one space for every two homes. This seems weird. I’m all in favor of getting rid of legislated parking minimums, but it seems to me that, if a developer thinks that adding parking is more economical, they should be allowed to do so.

If a developer is replacing a 2 story, 20 unit building with 20 parking spots with a new 5 story, 50 unit building, they shouldn’t be able to have more than 25 parking spots, as that is already a net increase from the status quo and will thereby increase traffic and congestion (the street isn’t getting wider…). The logical fallacy here is that it assumes those 25 units without a spot won’t just street park.

Sounds like a problem for a land tax. If cars make more money than homes and businesses, go for it.

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

#143

Post by BirdieNZ »

cyberax wrote: post #110
theluketaylor wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning alone can only affect prices when there is an arbitrage opportunity to build something in location A that isn't possible in nearby location B. When entire cities upzone across the board like Minneapolis there is no arbitrage opportunity, so prices are not going up specifically because the zoning was changed. Prices are increasing because there is a chronic shortage of places to lives near economic opportunity…

> Prices are increasing because there is a chronic shortage of places to lives near economic opportunity and high demand to live somewhere you can make a living. Yes. And the solution is not to drive people into dense slums, but to make sure that jobs are available outside of city cores. It will require concerted action, probably something like cap-and-trade for dense office space.

Agglomeration effects mean that any city that tries to split up offices away from the city cores would end up "losing" compared to cities which allow offices and industries to cluster together freely.

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

#144

Post by crotchfire »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #136
rhaps0dy wrote: post #65

Down in the article is what Berkeley residents should do to get this passed: > No council meeting has been scheduled yet but Berkeley residents should email the city council at council@cityofberkeley.info with the title “Support Missing Middle Housing.” Request that the city council should pass the Planning Commission’s proposal “as is.” Feel free to discuss your own housing woes as reasons for why it should be passe…

Yeah, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Not until a majority of Berkeley residents are politically active renters.

And remember, international students can't vote. That includes a lot of the grad students.

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

#145

Post by crotchfire »

no_wizard wrote: post #40
theluketaylor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 grea…

I know I said this in another thread but all zoning reform should really be coupled with a Land Value Tax That would encourage development and encourage making additional reforms to accommodate any unseen / unaddressed issues with the reform

I'm afraid you are about to be swarmed by the HN downvoting hordes, for having the impudence to say something actually intelligent here.

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

#146

Post by jjav »

BirdieNZ wrote: post #6
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 develo…

> 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.

This is a very uncharitable take. People choose a place to live based on criteria they like. If you want to live in a super dense city you might gravitate to Manhattan. If you want to live in a quiet suburb you end up in such a place.

If suddenly that reality is torn down and substituted for something you didn't want, it's going to hurt. If you wanted a quiet suburb and you found it, you won't be happy if suddenly all your neighbor houses are torn down and replaced with apartment buildings. It has nothing to do with "not wanting undesirables". It is because the conditions they wanted and bought into are no longer there.

> from a financial sense, upzoning is a big positive for existing landowners

Except for house flippers, people don't care about the financial sense. A house is a home, in a place they like. Telling someone that the neighborhood they cared about it no longer a reality but it's ok because they made money, will not satisfy anyone. It's not about money.

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

#147

Post by jjav »

kasey_junk wrote: post #23
cyberax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It only results in a decrease in per-unit average house prices It never does. Upzoning does NOT reduce per-unit prices, but it certainly increases everyone's misery.

Do you have a single data point to back up your assertion? Because the places I’ve seen that have embraced upzoning seem to be counter your assertion https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/...

> > Upzoning does NOT reduce per-unit prices

> Do you have a single data point to back up your assertion?

Is there any case of increased density causing a reduction in housing costs?

Manhattan is the most dense area in the US. It is also the most expensive.

If density reduced cost, one might think Manhattan should be the cheapest?

Can you mention a city that massively increased density and the consequence was reduced cost? I'm very curious to know which ones?

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

#148

Post by jjav »

kuchenbecker wrote: post #45
ozzydave wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately prop 13 broke that dynamic, among other ill effects.

My neighbors bought their house in 1975, pay $3k in property taxes. I pay 9k in property taxes. If I bought today I'd pay 17k. I will not get a larger house because my property taxes would triple if I wanted another bedroom. A marginally larger house is not worth the marginal cost to move. And with my 2.8% refinanced mortgage and 60% equity, and current rates today, there's no chance I'd sell. It's a dream of mine to…

> My neighbors bought their house in 1975, pay $3k in property taxes. I pay 9k in property taxes. If I bought today I'd pay 17k.

What neighborhood?

The largest gap I've been able to find is ~2.5x, the one you mention is more than 5x.

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

#149

Post by apsurd »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #142
iav wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a developer is replacing a 2 story, 20 unit building with 20 parking spots with a new 5 story, 50 unit building, they shouldn’t be able to have more than 25 parking spots, as that is already a net increase from the status quo and will thereby increase traffic and congestion (the street isn’t getting wider…). The logical fallacy here is that it assumes those 25 units without a spot won’t just street park.

Sounds like a problem for a land tax. If cars make more money than homes and businesses, go for it.

you really think so? i get the free market angle, but what about the local optimum risk? People want parking because they need parking. and they need parking because they need cars because everything's unwalkable because there's too much parking...

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

#150

Post by madsbuch »

ajmurmann wrote: post #99
ravetcofx wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will prevent developers from keeping old poor habits around of bad land use

If there is concern about underutilizing land, pass a land value tax and the market will figure out what's the best way to improve the value of the property itself beyond the windfall from the unimproved land going up in value due to surrounding economic activity. When it comes to housing the US seems to suffer some kind of disability that makes it impossible to not be tempted to steer towards a planned economy.

While that is true in the abstract, it will take long to adjust.

modern city planners have realized that car centric cities does not scale. ie. if you want to city that scales to Tokyo levels it needs mostly to rely on transit schemes.

The US has an (alas, quite new) history of overindexing on cars. moves like this will drive the development faster than the market alone.

however, parallel to this, tax for roads in cities should be increased and passed on to car owners. (in Denmark we pay 150% tax on cars. and that is on top of the 25% VAT we already pay) - right now car owners are being handed prime land almost for free in the US.

Post reply on HN