191–200 of 403 posts
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I think you can buy apartments?
You're thinking of condos. Otherwise, I don't it's possible for a multi-unit apartment building to sell single units.
I feel like it's asking why there aren't there any tropical storms with sustained wins of 100mph. There are, we just call them hurricanes.
"With particular reference to apartment houses, it is pointed out that the development of detached house sections is greatly retarded by the coming of apartment houses, which has sometimes resulted in destroying the entire section for private house purposes; that in such sections very often the apartment house is a mere parasite, constructed in order to take advantage of the open spaces and attractive surroundings created by the residential character of the district. Moreover, the coming of one apartment house is followed by others, interfering by their height and bulk with the free circulation of air and monopolizing the rays of the sun which otherwise would fall upon the smaller homes, and bringing, as their necessary accompaniments, the disturbing noises incident to increased traffic and business, and the occupation, by means of moving and parked automobiles, of larger portions of the streets, thus detracting from their safety and depriving children of the privilege of quiet and open spaces for play, enjoyed by those in more favored localities-until, finally, the residential character of the neighborhood and its desirability as a place of detached residences are utterly destroyed. Under these circumstances, apartment houses, which in a different environment would be not only entirely unobjectionable but highly desirable, come very near to being nuisances."
If you're an American like me, this is your SCOTUS at work!
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When you need 1-3 parking spots for every apartment Part of the problem is parking is heavily subsidized and the real costs not borne by drivers. Free public street-side parking in many urban and semi-urban zones. Parking minimums codified into building codes. Allowances for giant asphalt fields in suburban zones. For a start, in downtown areas (both city and town), remove the parking requirements from building codes…
Developers are typically required to include on street parking in their developments before the right-of-way is deeded over to the public. There's rarely any public subsidies for parking. That's largely a myth. It's paid for in the price of the development by the developer (and is usual a government or zoning requirement).
And that's just on-street parking. There are also per-unit or per-sqft requirements for off-street parking that generally over-allocate space for cars.
Either way, we've created a market failure, in the sense that we over-allocate space (regardless of who pays for maintenance of that space) for parking.
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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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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…
you’re making a reasonable initial point and then veering into an unsupported conclusion. it’s reasonable to say that static analysis (upzoning reducing prices ‘overnight’) can’t capture real-world dynamics (prices will change more gradually at a macro scale, since development isn’t instant or uniform). but the idea that sub-market rate housing only comes through incentivizing/mandating developers is a wholly unsuppo…
I want to say I agree somewhat: regulatory environments, complex zoning and permissioning, leads to development overhead and ultimately higher prices for everyone. (Ironically I seem to be getting pushback from fiscal conservatives in these threads even though I think we mostly agree there.)
Where I disagree is from this point right here:
> you’d get affordable housing without directly incentivizing developers at all.
You'd get it somewhere. Not necessarily in the cities themselves, because the law of supply and demand is still going to outstrip however much you liberate the ability to build. Cities naturally become unaffordable. They concentrate wealth and economic output and then grow in value because there are not unlimited lots that are equally central to this concentration.
This means that affordability, particularly in the case of cities (like LA), which is the thrust of the upzoning argument, is not actually addressed merely by the removal of impediments to building or changing zoning. The economic regime cities build guarantees the displacement of middleclass dwellings over time. Eventually you reach a point at which all the hairdressers and school teachers no longer have a reasonable commute. The city eats itself in its ever-spiraling productivity.
When you have a large, high-traffic, high-output geographic area (like LA), you have to think more creatively about how to usurp market dynamics inside of that area. That requires below market-rate mandates, as far as I can see. The invisible handle of the market will not settle this because the affordable regions are naturally pushed outward over time.
In otherwords, I disagree with the premise of most of these comments: upzoning is not the final word, not even, in the majority, the most important word for affordability inside of cities. California as a whole will benefit from upzoning. The actual city of LA will not see pricing regress because, as you noted, there are actually many more barriers to building in terms of building codes, etc. and because of the realities I mention in my reply.
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The thing I don't get is why many SFH owners don't see the benefit of upzoning their lot: Overnight, their house is much more valuable because if they choose to, they can sell to a developer who can make MORE money by building more homes. And if they choose to keep their house as is, nobody is going to force them. In the end, it boils down to cars, though. Many people see the free parking space in front of their hous…
> Make cars optional, and everything else falls into place. You’re forgetting all the other infrastructure that a person living in a house/apartment/duplex needs. Looking at a zoning map makes it easy to see why housing is so expensive to purchase, but in addition to roads how much additional water, electricity, internet, emergency services, whatever else, infrastructure would be required to service intensification?…
Particularly in the era of remote work, I anticipate LA moving towards a denser downtown and West Side and relying on expanded suburbs in the inland empire and OC to provide the classic single family housing neighborhoods for those who want them.
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The thing I don't get is why many SFH owners don't see the benefit of upzoning their lot: Overnight, their house is much more valuable because if they choose to, they can sell to a developer who can make MORE money by building more homes. And if they choose to keep their house as is, nobody is going to force them. In the end, it boils down to cars, though. Many people see the free parking space in front of their hous…
I can tell you that when we were moving from SF to Seattle this past year, we were getting _crushed_ on any house that was sitting on an upzoned lot. Seattle's done a decent job of upzoning parts of neighborhoods around transit corridors, and we were looking at houses on those lots because I believe in the upside as you do. Well, so do others, and they have _cash_ to buy it - we did not! We're now in a SFH in a mostl…
Mandatory parking minimums make constructing new housing more difficult, raising the cost of housing. The city is making the tradeoff that affordable housing is more important than free parking. As density increases it will hit a point where you need to pay for parking. I live in Belltown and own a parking spot. Ultimately I think this is the right direction to go, the city shouldn't have to pay to store your car.
If you like hot weather, there are many better places to live, like Scottsdale or Naples. If you must live in California, why not Palm Springs?
If you are concerned about taxes and cost of living and you don't need California's weather, virtually any other state has a safe community for you to live in.
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The thing I don't get is why many SFH owners don't see the benefit of upzoning their lot: Overnight, their house is much more valuable because if they choose to, they can sell to a developer who can make MORE money by building more homes. And if they choose to keep their house as is, nobody is going to force them. In the end, it boils down to cars, though. Many people see the free parking space in front of their hous…
> Overnight, their house is much more valuable because if they choose to, they can sell to a developer who can make MORE money by building more homes. This only works due to scarcity. If everybody could do this, the values would stop increasing and could potentially drop.