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Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

latimes.com

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Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#111

Post by mixmastamyk »

throwawaysea wrote: post #67
belligeront wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is huge demand for people to live in dense walkable areas that can't be met because of restrictive zoning. You may not want to live like that, but plenty of people do. We should allow them.

> You may not want to live like that, but plenty of people do. We should allow them. I suspect that number is a lot lower than is claimed. It's only a very loud set of vocal urbanist activitsts who clamor for these changes and create the illusion of that demand. The reality is most people grow out of wanting to live in dense areas and walkability is very overrated. In fact walk scores basically don't matter when peop…

If that were true there’d be no need to outlaw it!

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#112

Post by jperras »

cryptoz wrote: post #69
jperras wrote: post #7

Montréaler here; I live in a neighbourhood which is uniquely composed of plexes - 3 to 8 units per "plex", with the typical number being 3, thus the term "triplex". Honestly, it's the ideal density IMHO. I get the convenience factors of urban density, but without (most) of the downsides of a high-rise condominium building.

I've lived on the 2nd and 3rd floors of triplexes in the plateau and it was one of the best living experiences I've had. Really awesome location, price, size, etc.

Yeah, it's hard to describe to people that haven't lived in them before. Couple that with the fact that everyone typically gets their own private entrance/exit to outddoors due to the exterior staircases, and it's a fantastic combination of privacy, density, convenience, and urbanization IMO.

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#113

Post by davidw »

Huh, nice to see Los Angeles, a city of some 4 million people catching up with... uh, Bend, Oregon, which recently passed its city code changes to allow up to fourplexes thanks to HB2001. Bend recently hit 100,000 people!

And you wonder why California has a housing crisis.

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#114

Post by IIAOPSW »

_fat_santa wrote: post #5

As soon as you look at the zoning of LA, the housing problem there becomes clear as day, even for someone who doesn't visit very often. I don't know what you would call this system but LA's problem is that the folks that have the power to fix housing have zero interest in doing because it would hurt their self interest. Housing is only a "problem" if you haven't bought a house yet, once you purchase a house, all the…

>LA's problem is that the folks that have the power to fix housing have zero interest in doing because it would hurt their self interest. Housing is only a "problem" if you haven't bought a house yet, once you purchase a house, all the issues with housing there all of a sudden become benefits.

I have an expression for this. "Solving the problem is only half the problem." Everyone knows how to fix the housing problem (build some f'ing houses). But solving that problem is only half the problem.

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#115

Post by jonny_eh »

_fat_santa wrote: post #5

As soon as you look at the zoning of LA, the housing problem there becomes clear as day, even for someone who doesn't visit very often. I don't know what you would call this system but LA's problem is that the folks that have the power to fix housing have zero interest in doing because it would hurt their self interest. Housing is only a "problem" if you haven't bought a house yet, once you purchase a house, all the…

> Un-democratic in the sense that it casts out folks that don't live there, but democratic in the sense that the voices of those who own homes are clearly heard.

The debate around legal immigration is very much the same. The people that want to immigrate have no voice.

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#116

Post by tshaddox »

kodah wrote: post #75
_fat_santa wrote: post #5

As soon as you look at the zoning of LA, the housing problem there becomes clear as day, even for someone who doesn't visit very often. I don't know what you would call this system but LA's problem is that the folks that have the power to fix housing have zero interest in doing because it would hurt their self interest. Housing is only a "problem" if you haven't bought a house yet, once you purchase a house, all the…

Speaking as someone who doesn't own a house in California, apartments are not enough and never will be. Housing is an investment, and if I am put in a position to perpetually rent then I am excluded from a very stable and viable long term investment that is not easily replaced. What complicates this more, is if you shove all the affordable houses to the outskirts of the city where most companies are not then you crea…

The solution, of course, is that houses shouldn’t be investments. They should be things that you pay to live in. But that’s exactly what the parent commenter is saying that the current homeowners will never allow.

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#117

Post by kiba »

CPLX wrote: post #13
gautamcgoel wrote: post #9

Obviously I support these kind of movements - the housing crisis is no joke. But every time I see an article about multifamily homes, I think: ok, but we really need is are hundreds of tall high rises with 500+ units, like in New York or Boston, each of which uses land much more efficiently than LA (2x more residents per square mile).

There's truth to that, but Paris and Barcelona are some of the densest cities on the planet. People really underestimate how much you can get just with 5 stories or so if you do it consistently. As anyone who's been to those places knows there's no sacrifice of beauty, sun, or livability really.

Supposed you have 300 people living in a square kilometer on a single floor. If you double the number of floors by 5, you get 1500 people per square kilometer.

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#118

Post by kodah »

JamesBarney wrote: post #107
kodah wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of apartments I've seen are for rent, not for purchase. So, at the least I'm putting emphasis on the idea that they need to be apartments for sale .

They just don't call them apartments, they call them condos. But they're essentially apartments for sale, and I see them all the time.

The post I was replying to used the word "apartment". I wanted to be specific in case there's anyone out there that thinks that more rental properties will fix the issue.

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#119

Post by gumby »

Man, I wish I could say the same about Palo Alto.

We used to go out of our way to support the homeless and families (and had a lower median income than most surrounding cities) but since the selfish jerk proportion went up (IMHO in the dot com boom) the city has turned into “I’ve got mine, jack, so fuck off”

Re: Facing housing crisis, L.A. voters back duplexes in single-family neighborhoods

#120

Post by ARandumGuy »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #9

Obviously I support these kind of movements - the housing crisis is no joke. But every time I see an article about multifamily homes, I think: ok, but we really need is are hundreds of tall high rises with 500+ units, like in New York or Boston, each of which uses land much more efficiently than LA (2x more residents per square mile).

High rises generally aren't a good way at providing density. That's because the footprint of most skyscrapers needs to be a lot much larger then the tower itself. Otherwise, the skyscraper will sink into the ground, something that only gets worse when you have several skyscrapers close together.

NYC is one of the few places that can have a lot of super tall buildings really close to each other. That's because the bedrock is so shallow and the ground can take more weight. Los Angeles, by comparison, has a much deeper bedrock, which makes it difficult to build tall buildings very close together.

If you want to get a lot of housing, medium density is the way to go. Medium density is cheaper to build and maintain, can be built in more locations, and is more pleasant to live in.

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