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Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

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Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#401

Post by scoofy »

philwelch wrote: post #352
scoofy wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amusing that many folks here are ready to clap back at this comment about how "but people want single family homes" as if that weren't why we are in a housing crisis. Yes... people want single family homes, it's just not feasible to put 3M people into single family homes in a metro area without absorbing an unsustainable amount of costs. Here we are talking literally the cost of construction, but there is a…

That’s not the reason we have a housing crisis. If you look at cities like Houston, where housing is relatively affordable, the vast majority of people still have single family homes. The reason we have a housing crisis is because regulations make it too hard to build housing.

I grew up in Texas, people are have been building in literal floodplains because there is no more room to build.

https://abc13.com/floodplain-housing-building-houston-flood/...

Houston is just second-to-last in line in Texas to face the affordability crisis (followed by San Antonio) because they have the highest capacity automobile infrastructure, but it's already regularly ranked with the worst traffic in the United States.

While I agree that Houston does a lot of things right, especially just literally allowing density, I do not think they would survive an influx of folks while maintaining affordability any better than Austin has.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#402

Post by sd-response »

__egb__ wrote: post #263
oramit wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incredible thicket of state, county, and municipal rules all layer and combine to make housing incredibly difficult to build. It's the technical debt of the material world. Seriously, look up your local zoning rules. It's not "you can't build a chemical plant next to a preschool" like it's so often portrayed. It's minimum size for the lot, max square footage of the house based on lot size, max/min frontage, heigh…

Many of the zoning rules you list, and far many more that you don’t, exist for valid reasons. Those reasons may not be as obvious as the chemical plant/preschool rule, but that doesn’t mean they’re not just as valid. I live near a cove that comes off of the Chesapeake Bay. We have many of those zoning rules here for environmental reasons. Water movement and erosion are huge concerns here. Rules that affect density, f…

Sure - zoning laws are often a good thing! But you also have zoning laws like this regarding SRO units: https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/01/09/micro-apartments-coul...

Do you think zoning rules like this - that Washington state is currently trying to change - exist for valid reasons? I really don't see a good reason, other than `NIMBY-ISM`.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#403

Post by chgs »

novok wrote: post #301
majormajor wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily get housing affordability crises even without single family homes, as is plainly evident right now in non-North-American cities. It's a bit of a red herring. You end up sitting in traffic for an hour instead of standing on a bus or train for an hour for your commute, and other knock-on differences like that, which can be debated for various other reasons like ecological impact, but you still end up run…

You don't sit on the train for an hour. In properly designed large cities the metro beats the car by a huge time margin unless they made cars so expensive by policy that nobody has a car and there is no traffic at that city as a result. Americans often think the shitty experience they have in their country applies universally. Ex: The bus & light rail is bad and slow, so therefore it will always be bad everywhere. Am…

Is singapore properly designed?

About 10 years ago I had a project and stayed in an apartment in haugong, a residential area about 6 miles from my office. Uber was the only realistic commute - about 15-20 minutes. Public transport was about an hour to do the journey.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#404

Post by currydove »

pojzon wrote: post #379
foxyv wrote: post #177

It takes significantly less materials to build a multi-dwelling apartment/condo/townhouse structure than a single family home. In addition, the required square footage per person drops by huge amounts when people can walk to nearby community centers, restaurants, kitchens, theaters, and bars. We are building massive 3-4k sq. ft. homes for families of four because all of their food, entertainment, and social needs are…

There is no crisis. Its all artifical to keep ppl poor. Infrastructure is centralized, if it was more spread out everyone could afford a nice house with own big garden and vegetables field. Stop making it sound like its the ppl issue they want to live near nature and have own land. Too high density of ppl per square meter has huge disadventages in well being of those ppl and their overall health. There is so much unu…

I don't even know where to begin here. Of course we have the land to spread people out, but it's insanely expensive on everyone (especially those who are spread out) over time to sustain it. [1]

If you don't have time to read - here's a video I could quickly find about the same topic from the same source - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3kkk2JdoI

You have a lot of straw man arguments that but the one that I'll focus on the most is "Our leaders just FORCE us to flock to cities cpz it's cheaper on infrastructure" - prove it.

1. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growt...

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#405

Post by pchristensen »

bombcar wrote: post #370
danking00 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised by the last clause in your last sentence, but you’re absolutely right. https://www2.census.gov/geo/docs/reference/ua/ua_list_all.tx... LA edges out NYC: 7000 to 5300. Presumably in individuals per square mile.

It all depends on where you draw the lines. When people think of LA they think of that whole sprawling metropolis between the mountains (what is technically the LA basis or the LA metro area) - but the City of Los Angeles is a smaller denser portion of that. And when people think New York City they think Manhattan, but New York City includes quite a bit more.

The City of Los Angeles is still over 4 million people, more than most states.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#406

Post by pojzon »

foxyv wrote: post #225
stronglikedan wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone likes to share a wall. I'm glad there are options, since I'm one of them. I can walk from my single family home to nearby community centers, restaurants, kitchens, theaters, and bars in 15 minutes. Not everyone likes to be that close to that stuff, and that's okay. I'm glad we have options, since I'm not one of them. There's plenty of space to build new homes of all types. It's an entitlement crisis.

> There's plenty of space to build new homes of all types. Unfortunately this is not the case in North America. Very little land is zoned to allow such communities. Those areas that are have become so insanely expensive only the extremely wealthy can afford to live in them.

So the issue is cost which is raised by limited space matching infrastructure criteria.

So if we had 100x more of the land that matches that criteria:

- ppl could pay a lot less to build houses there

- ppl would pay more ?

Ps. Its just an infrastructure issue our moron leaders failed to account for. Any 3rd grade RTS player understands that.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#407

Post by lo_zamoyski »

scoofy wrote: post #273
foxyv wrote: post #177

It takes significantly less materials to build a multi-dwelling apartment/condo/townhouse structure than a single family home. In addition, the required square footage per person drops by huge amounts when people can walk to nearby community centers, restaurants, kitchens, theaters, and bars. We are building massive 3-4k sq. ft. homes for families of four because all of their food, entertainment, and social needs are…

I find it amusing that many folks here are ready to clap back at this comment about how "but people want single family homes" as if that weren't why we are in a housing crisis. Yes... people want single family homes, it's just not feasible to put 3M people into single family homes in a metro area without absorbing an unsustainable amount of costs. Here we are talking literally the cost of construction, but there is a…

While suburbs certainly are financial sinkholes, there are other factors. Housing in cities like NYC is expensive in part because there is a housing crisis in NYC, because nothing is being built. And what is being built is preposterously expensive and beyond the teach of a typical New York family (not to mention cramped; you can barely fit a queen-sized bed into many of these bedrooms). Another issue is that developers have been snatching up real estate to cater to single yuppies who will accept living in a rathole-sized bedroom. An average bedroom is split in half to accommodate twice the occupants so that rent can be raised. This can make real estate hostile to anyone but such renters. And never mind pied-à-terre apartments, a controversial practice for which we can come up with pros and cons.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#408

Post by foxyv »

ejb999 wrote: post #345
eikenberry wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious one is residential only zoning. How are you supposed to be able to walk to local businesses if there are no local businesses as zoning prohibits them?

zoning laws are usually locally voted on and approved - if the locals in any given area want to allow business, they can - but lots of people don't want to live close to businesses - so they vote accordingly. People that want to live near businesses and don't, should move to places that have it - there are lots of places in the country like that. People that want to live in an entirely residential area, but don't, sh…

Local elections have notoriously low voter turnout and candidates are often supported by developers and real estate brokers. Often local city council members are outright bribed by people who have an interest in only approving their own projects. In addition, sometimes city counselors will prevent zoning changes to increase the value of their own property. City officials are often the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to corruption.

A really prominent case in Moreno Valley, CA exposes how this often works:

https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/losangeles/news...

And LA: https://www.dailynews.com/2024/01/26/13-years-in-federal-pri...

And Dallas: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/dallas-city-council-mem...

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#409

Post by philwelch »

dubcanada wrote: post #32

If there is one industry that is the most resistant to change, it's the construction industry. There are still people who have been roofing for 50 years and refuse to change a single thing they do and learned 50 years ago. Saying a bunch of glulam will solve the issue is just incorrect. Wood is fantastic material. But using half a forest to build a 2000sqft house is certainly not the direction we should be going, we…

Timber is a crop. Wanting to build houses with less wood is like wanting to make clothes with less cotton or wool; there’s no fundamental reason to economize on a renewable resource.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#410

Post by philwelch »

scoofy wrote: post #401
philwelch wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not the reason we have a housing crisis. If you look at cities like Houston, where housing is relatively affordable, the vast majority of people still have single family homes. The reason we have a housing crisis is because regulations make it too hard to build housing.

I grew up in Texas, people are have been building in literal floodplains because there is no more room to build. https://abc13.com/floodplain-housing-building-houston-flood/... Houston is just second-to-last in line in Texas to face the affordability crisis (followed by San Antonio) because they have the highest capacity automobile infrastructure, but it's already regularly ranked with the worst traffic in the United…

Austin is still doing a hell of a lot better than the West Coast is!
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