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

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

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 403 posts

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

#391

Post by itake »

mateo411 wrote: post #361
itake wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1/ who actually wants to live in a ADU? 2/ adding 1 more unit to a plot is hardly going to make dent in the crisis. We need to look at Asia to see how they offer affordable house: giant high density housing complexes with ground floor grocery stores and shopping malls for convenient access.

There are a lot of people who want their own space, but can't afford their own apartment. It is ridiculously easy to rent out spaces like this in Southern CA. If you post an ad for it on Craigslist on Friday, it will be rented by Sunday. Multiple people will be interested.

They can't afford the apartment, because there are very few apartments to rent. In Vietnam or Hong Kong houses millions of low income people in apartments.

We don't have to settle for less.

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

#392

Post by perl4ever »

mrep wrote: post #385
ghaff wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends how often you use them. Personally, $8-10K/year seems expensive unless you aren't trying to economize. I have an 11 year old ~$40Kish vehicle that I wouldn't typically pay $1K/year for maintenance and less on insurance. But there is certainly some point at which it makes economic sense to just rent, especially if you are paying to park the car. In a city with difficult parking I wouldn't pay to own a car t…

> 11 year old ~$40Kish vehicle that I wouldn't typically pay $1K/year You have a high end bmw or something? New toyotas are cheaper than that with practically no maintenance. I myself spend $840 a year on insurance + 100 oil change/checkup and that is it besides gas.

Maybe they mean the price new was $40K. An 11 year old BMW is worth close to fourteen thousand than forty thousand.

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

#393

Post by cageface »

maccolgan wrote: post #371
cageface wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh really? In living there for over a decade I somehow hadn’t noticed.

You missed my principal question.

Perhaps because I’ve lived in many parts of it?

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

#394

Post by beerandt »

beerandt wrote: post #333
bluGill wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is still a public subsidy as the city is expected to maintain that on street parking.

No- it's part of the consideration in exchange for the developer generating increased tax revenue and dedicating the right of way to the city. If that weren't the case, the developer would likely keep the parking and streets privately held. Which is something that you do see more and more of these days.

Additionally, we've decided as a society that providing public access and right-of-way to private property is a somewhat fundamental function of government.

Providing streets without places to stop or park would be like building interstates without exits.

But the analogy would be if someone built the intestate and exits, and the government subsequently closed your exit.

Does it matter if the street, but not the on-street parking, is made public right-of-way? Would it be equally acceptable for the government to repurpose off-street parking or parking garages?

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

#395

Post by beerandt »

clairity wrote: post #190
beerandt wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parking garages cost over $500k per space to build. Probably more in California. No one is building one with as part of a short term plan with the intent to tear it down in less than 30-40+ years.

that cost overstated by an order of magnitude. last i looked, it’s on the order of $30K/space, and roughly doubles/triples for underground parking (depending on depth). i’m a huge advocate for putting all parking underground and leaving ground level space for humans to enjoy fully. it’s more expensive, but we’re a rich city/state/country and we should have nice things.

Oops, Yea- I fat fingered that from $50k.

But that's still roughly double/triple or more what street parking will cost (where space efficiency approaches 100% since driveways and additional access pavement aren't needed).

Correct on double to triple for underground, but likely more for buildings with compact or less than ideal footprints (inefficient layout and access) and where structural and utility considerations need to be made for the building overhead.

But commercial grade (concrete/lanscaped) surface parking can easily cost $30k+/space, even in non-urban areas. A recent multi-acre university parking lot we did was just shy of $50k/ space (which is why parking garages start making economic sense around that price point), and that was in a 5 digit population college town on the outskirts of campus.

But the point remains that structural parking costs > surface parking costs >> street parking.

And that street parking shouldn't be thought of as subsidized[1], because as soon as it is considered free lunch for other pet purposes, developers won't relinquish control of it, and will potentially set buildings back an additional 8-25' (parallel-angled, per side of the street) to stay outside of minimum right-of-way widths.

[1] In addition to the fact that the dedication and assumption of future maintenance costs is in contractual consideration of the value of the land and improvements dedicated, additional generated tax revenue and economic growth, and is typically required by govt building codes.

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

#396

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

itake wrote: post #390
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point: my son and his music/business partner have just moved to Santa Fe, where housing for young/lower income people is almost impossible to find. Because of the "tradition" of building casitas here for centuries, we effectively have ADUs, and the only thing our son's friend could find that was affordable was essentially a very small ADU/casita. Is it a dream home? No. Is it an acceptable living space while…

I think we are both agreeing that ADUs are the lesser of two evils (ADU vs homelessness), but why settle when we have the resources to do better?

Well, in part because agreement about what is better is hard to come by. More single family housing? Townhouses? Small apartment complexes? Large apartment complexes?

You could say "well, how about all of the above?" but that just elides the tension between sprawl-based development and increasing urban density, which is also not a matter of widespread agreement. Many people don't like sprawl, but they also don't want dramatically increased urban density (or at least, not near them).

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

#397

Post by bagels »

milkytron wrote: post #319
bagels wrote: post #310

Why can't we have single family plus high density where it makes sense (near transit, major roads and freeways)? This push to ruin suburbs is just ruining things for those that don't want to live somewhere dense.

We sort of can, but it's mostly temporary on a long term scale unless you're talking about areas really far from the core of a metro. When more people move to an area, there is (generally) more economic opportunity. With that comes rising land values and demand to live in that area. As cities grow, expand, and generate wealth for the residents, they envelop the suburbs, and development makes those suburbs more urban.…

It still seems like rezoning a few blocks for high density vs the whole city for duplexes would be more effective and less disruptive.

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

#398

Post by clairity »

beerandt wrote: post #395
clairity wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that cost overstated by an order of magnitude. last i looked, it’s on the order of $30K/space, and roughly doubles/triples for underground parking (depending on depth). i’m a huge advocate for putting all parking underground and leaving ground level space for humans to enjoy fully. it’s more expensive, but we’re a rich city/state/country and we should have nice things.

Oops, Yea- I fat fingered that from $50k. But that's still roughly double/triple or more what street parking will cost (where space efficiency approaches 100% since driveways and additional access pavement aren't needed). Correct on double to triple for underground, but likely more for buildings with compact or less than ideal footprints (inefficient layout and access) and where structural and utility considerations…

street parking is a subsidy when viewed through a wider socioeconomic lens because it externalizes a cost onto society in both space and time. in this case, there's a particularly high opportunity cost for that space, most obviously as livable area, but also for alternate modes of transportation (or simply recreational space). similarly, our setbacks and minimum right-of-ways are horrendously large. urban residential streets in LA (where i live) are often 40-50 feet wide curb-to-curb to account for parking on both sides. we're basically wasting not insubstantial bits of interstitial space everywhere in car-oriented cities like mine.

but street parking can easily be unsubsidized/internalized by simply pricing all of it, even for municipalities themselves. perhaps then my dream of putting all parking underground would make as much economic sense as it does social sense.

my area has a lot of long blocks, and i could totally envision cut-and-cover creating an underground alley right down the middle of the block with parking garages under the back yards of the houses. then you'd only need two cutouts for entry/access while also minimizing the amount of 'driveway' for each property. you could even run utility lines through that space as well.

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

#399

Post by mateo411 »

itake wrote: post #391
mateo411 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of people who want their own space, but can't afford their own apartment. It is ridiculously easy to rent out spaces like this in Southern CA. If you post an ad for it on Craigslist on Friday, it will be rented by Sunday. Multiple people will be interested.

They can't afford the apartment, because there are very few apartments to rent. In Vietnam or Hong Kong houses millions of low income people in apartments. We don't have to settle for less.

Is the rent affordable in Hong Kong? I think Hong Kong has some of the highest housing costs in the world.

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

#400

Post by itake »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #396
itake wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we are both agreeing that ADUs are the lesser of two evils (ADU vs homelessness), but why settle when we have the resources to do better?

Well, in part because agreement about what is better is hard to come by. More single family housing? Townhouses? Small apartment complexes? Large apartment complexes? You could say "well, how about all of the above?" but that just elides the tension between sprawl-based development and increasing urban density, which is also not a matter of widespread agreement. Many people don't like sprawl, but they also don't want…

No Single family housing; We can't create more land. No Townhouses; because they are not dense, lack the ability to easily co-mingle commercial and residential zoning (which is important b/c walkable cities means you don't need a car to get to work or the grocery store). No small apartment complexes; not high dense enough.

Large apartment complexes with ground-level commercial space <- winner winner chicken dinner.

Post reply on HN