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Portland passes low-density zoning reform

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Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#151

Post by centimeter »

ogre_codes wrote: post #15

> "It shouldn’t take six years for any city to agree to give itself permission to build the sort of homes that every city once allowed." This is IMO the big thing here. Cities used to allow this kind of construction. Our auto-friendly culture and the desire of landowners to keep poor people off their block has led to increasingly draconian restrictions on private property use. I understand regulations around keeping…

The FHA prevented landowners from using peaceful, private strategies to keep poor people off their block (which a 100% rational desire), so obviously they are going to use coercive government-based strategies instead.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#152

Post by ipnon »

rayiner wrote: post #58
madhadron wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine if most streets became parks/plazas Before the massive efforts of the auto industry, this is basically what they were. Streets of small European towns still feel this way and the cars feel very much like the interlopers. So, a return to normalcy.

That framing as a way to misrepresent the fact auto industry gave people what they wanted. Many newly developed parts of Europe are the same way, because that’s what people want.

The automobile was the original "clean" transportation. The alternative at the time of its adoption was the horse drawn carriage or buggy. American cities were literally knee deep in manure. Exercise: Graph the adoption of the automobile to the prevalence of cholera in the United States.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#153

Post by anigbrowl »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #141
clairity wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yup, passing that power on to insurance companies is just a different bureaucracy doing similar things, solving nothing more in the process. all parties together and separately need to be involved and invested in maintaining reasonably safe environments, not just an arms-length bureaucracy. our failure is in trying to pawn off all responsibility to remote agencies and institutions, raher than the parts best-suited fo…

> is just a different bureaucracy doing similar things, A key difference in this bureaucracy is their speed of change. Companies can react rapidly to new technology, new scenarios, and they do so on an economic model. Gov'ts move slowly and lag technology or current events, they do so on a popularity/political power model.

True, but then companies are only accountable to their shareholders in many cases, and spend money on lobbyists to keep things that way. Economic models can vary widely depending on whether they're based around mutuality or extraction of rents.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#154

Post by SaintGhurka »

crooked-v wrote: post #106
tandr wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These rules (lockable access between units) work well for student-occupied dwellings, but not so much for multi-generation families, that have a completely different dynamics of what "shared" and "private" areas are, and how they are used.

I don't really understand what the drastic difference there is supposed to be. If you want to use all the units as a shared living space, just leave the common-area connecting doors propped open. This is functionality that many duplex and triplex units already have.

Wouldn't joining 2 duplexes needlessly duplicate common areas? I would think a large multigenerational family might want a large family room rather than 2 small ones. Likewise the kitchens. They'd have 2 kitchens, one extraneous and both of them insufficient for the task.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#155

Post by treis »

ogre_codes wrote: post #15

> "It shouldn’t take six years for any city to agree to give itself permission to build the sort of homes that every city once allowed." This is IMO the big thing here. Cities used to allow this kind of construction. Our auto-friendly culture and the desire of landowners to keep poor people off their block has led to increasingly draconian restrictions on private property use. I understand regulations around keeping…

>I have a second building on my property and a separate driveway for each one are government overreach.

Increasing density has definite externalities. Traffic, street parking, and public spaces all get more congested. Plus a neighbor building a bigger building impacts my views and the light that falls on my property. We do need some way of balancing those concerns with development. IMHO, we've swayed too far towards one extreme. We should relax those restrictions while being cognizant that we don't swing too far back to the other extreme.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#156

Post by core-questions »

ogre_codes wrote: post #15

> "It shouldn’t take six years for any city to agree to give itself permission to build the sort of homes that every city once allowed." This is IMO the big thing here. Cities used to allow this kind of construction. Our auto-friendly culture and the desire of landowners to keep poor people off their block has led to increasingly draconian restrictions on private property use. I understand regulations around keeping…

> the desire of landowners to keep poor people off their block

Well, can we come up with a more constructive and friendly way of doing this? It's not unreasonable for normal middle-class folks to not want to have to live in a problematic, crime-ridden, situation with high personal-security risks and property crime. That's why we pay for police, after all.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#157

Post by throwaway0a5e »

eikenberry wrote: post #129
jackyinger wrote: post #7

As a former Portlandian I’m pretty stoked to imagine where this could take the city! A low altitude densification would beat what’s been done to the inner East side... Here’s a fun thought experiment... Imagine if most streets became parks/plazas (aside from a few left for utility reasons) and everyone rode (electric) bikes, or similar relatively light transport options. To me that’s be idyllic. Imagine not being rel…

What you describe requires the elimination of residential zoning completely to allow for small businesses to mix in with the homes. You can't eliminate cars until you eliminate the need for driving to stores and you can't eliminate that without mixed zoning.

And you can't eliminate zoning as long as entitled busybodies are both complaining about other people's power tool usage and voting.

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#158

Post by [deleted] »

cptskippy wrote: post #115
gurkendoktor wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To spare fellow non-Americans the jump to Google: 2500 sqft = 232 sqm 1000 sqft = 92 sqm I am living in the latter with my wife plus one small child, and it's clear to us that we want more space for children later. 2500 sqft seems pretty large, but not crazy large either, especially with ~3 kids (=just two generations).

In my opinion, 2500sqft/232sqm is more than enough for a family of 6.

[deleted]

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#159

Post by Judgmentality »

rconti wrote: post #122
jschwartzi wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can live in a 1200 square foot home as long as you have access to outdoor spaces and a third place down the block. I live in an 1100 square foot post-war home with my fiance and it's plenty of space for what we want to do with our lives. Other homes in the neighborhood are much larger but don't have a back yard or trees on the lot. So we're basically in this beautiful thoughtfully-built 40's era home surrounded b…

We live in an 1140sqft house, just 2 of us. With just 1 (small) bathroom it is less than ideal, particularly when we have guests, but it works -- just. It is basically a box of a house with 3 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a place to eat. There is no "extra" space aside from the rooms -- no wide hallways, no sitting areas, no extra horizontal surfaces to put junk. Of course, we have more space than we "need"…

That sounds like a pretty cushy setup to me. What exactly is it you're lacking?

Re: Portland passes low-density zoning reform

#160

Post by Kednicma »

jansan wrote: post #144
monadic2 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I"d think they were fleeing a city that refused to protect them from their own cops.

I am not from Portland, but the rest of the world did not get a great picture of the city during the last two or three months (yes, the word "shithole" was dropped a few times). I do not remember any images of businesses being threatened by cops, but what do I know sitting at the other end of the world.

Where are you from and which media outlets have you been consuming? From a local perspective, the national attempts to portray the protests are rather futile, since the area under contention is only about two blocks large [0] and it's not on most folks' daily walks. Even only a few blocks away, Portland continues life as normal [3], or as normal as COVID-19 will let us be [4].

To follow up on the grandparent's point, the local and imported police are not really doing their job when it comes to breaking up street fights [1] and are trying to pin blame on recently-elected politicians [2]. We're not a shithole just because the fascists have come to town to have fights, and definitely not just because some of those fascists are employed by the federal government.

So, yeah, where are you from and what have you heard? It sounds like you don't know much of anything of our local situation, from "the other end of the world", although Oregon's antipode is in the middle of the Indian Ocean and you probably aren't quite so remote.

[0] https://imgur.com/gallery/zJ6dNxf

[1] https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/08/portland-police-...

[2] https://www.wweek.com/news/state/2020/08/13/oregon-state-pol...

[3] https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/22/1962969/-The-most...

[4] https://www.oregonlive.com/living/2020/04/a-drive-thru-strip...

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