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

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

#141

Post by chongli »

rfrey wrote: post #88
seneca wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact this whole situation is weirdly democratic but un-democratic. 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. This isn't undemocratic at all. I know people hate this generally, but just to make a point: Democracy literally means "rule by the demos". The demos is (definitions from wiktionary becaus…

Yes, but the conflict comes from what "here" means. If you draw the boundary around a neighbourhood, sure - it's democratic. But it's just as rational to consider L.A. itself and suddenly it's undemocratic because decisions aren't being made by the "demos" but by a small subset of them - with implications for the whole city. Similarly one could expand the boundary to the entire state. On the other extreme the residen…

You have to draw the boundary somewhere. Once you do, the people inside that boundary will vote for their self-interests and the people outside the boundary will be at a disadvantage. This happens at the level of cities with zoning laws but it also happens at the level of countries with immigration laws.

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

#142

Post by mixmastamyk »

autarch wrote: post #84

(Stealing this argument from a friend who I discussed something similar with ...) It's hard to see how allowing duplexes will do _anything_ to address housing issues. We have a similar law here in Minneapolis which allows triplexes on any property. But what are the economics of this? Surely there's not a lot of vacant land in LA or Mpls just waiting for a new plex to be built. Instead, all the plots are already occup…

What happens in LA is that an extra apt or two will be built in the backyard, which can be rented for a few thousand a month.

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

#143

Post by cageface »

jiveturkey wrote: post #128
cageface wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After living in Asia for the last several years where cities combine high density housing and good mass transit with door to door access to great shopping centers the US just looks comically dysfunctional to me. Who wants to spend hours every day stuck in traffic and looking for parking and then pay outrageous rents for the privilege?

Well obviously, the people that want low density housing. It's still the American dream to have a house with a yard and fence.

I grew up in such a house and honestly now if you gave me the choice of that vs living in a nice condo in Tokyo, Bangkok or Singapore it wouldn't even be close.

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

#144

Post by [deleted] »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #59
chizhik-pyzhik wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Upzoning does not magically make housing affordable. Housing pricing is more complicated than a simple supply and demand curve, although that tells a story at the macro level. And truly affordable housing can only be created by mandating that units sell below market value. Can you elaborate? "Affordable" housing only works as a hack within an artificially constrained market, how is building more housing not the ult…

Of course it's building more. But the question is what kind of more. Is artificially changing the density of every Single Family Home neighborhood going to create a more that depresses pricing? No. Because the housing will not all be built magically overnight. Units will come onto the market after: 1) The developer buys. 2) Tears down the SFH. 3) Builds a new multiplex. The capex in each of these steps guarantees tha…

[deleted]

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

#145

Post by nluken »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #110
seibelj wrote: post #2

I live in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Nearly every single home is multi-family, and the single families that do exist are usually $2 million and up. Take a stroll down one of our streets https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3130357,-71.1188873,3a,75y,1... It is dense, walkable, and extremely beautiful. There is no reason every neighborhood with duplexes has to look like cookie cutter sprawl tha…

I agree it looks great. But the density is around 8500/sq mile, which happens to be almost the same as Los Angeles. So, this type of development wouldn’t do that much for housing affordability in LA. I feel like people seriously underestimate how dense Californian cities already are.

I suspect that JP's density is actually a bit higher than that today, given that it was 8500/sq mile based on 2010 population. Regardless, it's important to consider that JP is miles outside the city center. It isn't so much a model of super dense housing as it is a good way to up the density of neighborhoods that might otherwise only support 3500/sq mile. JP represents a good middle ground between the car-centric deep suburbs and the extremely dense city center.

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

#146

Post by riku_iki »

Maarten88 wrote: post #76
riku_iki wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be traffic in LA if you build so many new units?

If you build more dense and closer to work and shops, people can travel smaller distances. Public transport, walking and biking will become viable alternatives, resulting in fewer car trips. You could have less traffic when planning it well.

So, it is about rebuilding whole infrastructure from the ground: public transport, walking, biking, office spaces, not just building high condo complexes.

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

#147

Post by francisofascii »

throwawaysea wrote: post #55

Good grief. Not everything is a "crisis". This type of alarmist language games needs to stop. This is less a housing crisis and more an entitlement crisis. There is an entire country between the coasts. There are jobs available over the country. There is open land and housing all over the country. It's more that people feel entitled to a certain location, a certain line of work, a certain income level, a certain prox…

Sure, but the entitlement goes both ways. The current landowners feel entitled to enjoy massive appreciation gains while paying very little property tax, just because they settled there first. But I agree we are lucky in that we have other places to move, but that might not always be true.

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

#148

Post by Dylan16807 »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #39
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).

That sounds like absolute hell.

If the baseline is a duplex, where I'm already depending on how good the sound insulation is, then I say go ahead and make it 20 stories.

What's so hellish about a large building?

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

#149

Post by nluken »

HNTA_1 wrote: post #53
seibelj wrote: post #2

I live in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Nearly every single home is multi-family, and the single families that do exist are usually $2 million and up. Take a stroll down one of our streets https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3130357,-71.1188873,3a,75y,1... It is dense, walkable, and extremely beautiful. There is no reason every neighborhood with duplexes has to look like cookie cutter sprawl tha…

That just looks like many older, low density suburbs (single family homes with some duplexes and ADUs sprinkled in) all across the US (especially older suburbs in the South). >It is dense It's absolutely not dense, probably less dense than newer suburbs with smaller lots. >walkable, and extremely beautiful. I'll give you that, it definitely looks beautiful.

I'd certainly call JP dense- it's got more than twice the population density of Houston, and it's slightly more dense than LA.

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

#150

Post by autarch »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #142
autarch wrote: post #84

(Stealing this argument from a friend who I discussed something similar with ...) It's hard to see how allowing duplexes will do _anything_ to address housing issues. We have a similar law here in Minneapolis which allows triplexes on any property. But what are the economics of this? Surely there's not a lot of vacant land in LA or Mpls just waiting for a new plex to be built. Instead, all the plots are already occup…

What happens in LA is that an extra apt or two will be built in the backyard, which can be rented for a few thousand a month.

Is the ROI on that worth it? Again, I think we're looking at $200k in construction costs for $2,500/month in rental income. Also, one other thing I forgot is that this construction will probably increase your property taxes, further pushing out a positive ROI.
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