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

construction-physics.com

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

#501

Post by bigmanjon »

xyzelement wrote: post #98
rybosworld wrote: post #57

Every single major population center that has distorted (high) housing costs relative to income, also has very strong protections for the existing home owners (NIMBY). "There are no coincidences..." The solution is terrifyingly simple: don't allow existing residents to block new housing developments. If they don't like it, they can move. This will probably never happen in the U.S., because the government no longer fu…

You seem to be coming from the perspective that people who don't live in a place should have more say over the nature of that place than those who do live there. To put it in your terms, why does it make more sense to tell existing residents "your place has to change and you can move if you don't like it" vs channel the new residents to other places where more housing is available and is available cheaper.

Thats the core of cities, they change! Imagine if 150 years ago, all the farmers and ranchers could block their neighbors from selling/buildings because it "ruins the rural character and will bring bad humors". Most of these communities would have never been built.

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

#502

Post by advael »

bombcar wrote: post #478
nateglims wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vacancy rates are misleading and includes things like being unoccupied briefly between owners or houses that are unlivable in areas with no buyers. The number of homes where people want them is quite low, there is simply a shortage. Houses as an asset is a major contributor for sure. It's long been a rival to stocks or exceeded it as an investment and makes a powerful political base. But it also includes a lot of peo…

And increasing housing is the surest way to "fight back" against these supposed "house hoarders" - because once these assets stop performing so incredibly well, they'll get dumped.

I'll buy that, but still doubt that materials costs is anything close to a driving factor in shortages compared to, say, zoning/new construction policy

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

#503

Post by bombcar »

Aloisius wrote: post #203
willcipriano wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From just last week: > The Center for Immigration Studies found last year from January 2023 to December 2023, at least 320,000 illegal immigrants were allowed to fly into the U.S. from their home country through a controversial program of the Biden administration using the Customs and Border Patrol app, the CBP One app that was created to let migrants apply for parole into the US. > The Parole program allows for two-…

Sigh. The humanitarian parole program was created to allow 30,000 Cuban/Haitian/Nicaraguan/Venezuelan nationals in per month on a two year work visa as long as they have a US sponsor that will financially support them and pass background checks. In return, Mexico is allowing the US to expel 30,000 illegal migrants per month from those countries to Mexico rather than their home countries.

It doesn't matter if they're only here for two years; they still need housing during that time.

That's 30,000 unhoused individuals per month being added, and unless the expelled offsets it, they still need housing.

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

#504

Post by J_Shelby_J »

zdragnar wrote: post #169
rybosworld wrote: post #57

Every single major population center that has distorted (high) housing costs relative to income, also has very strong protections for the existing home owners (NIMBY). "There are no coincidences..." The solution is terrifyingly simple: don't allow existing residents to block new housing developments. If they don't like it, they can move. This will probably never happen in the U.S., because the government no longer fu…

> If they don't like it, they can move. Why doesn't the same logic apply to people who don't like the high prices of housing in some areas? There's plenty of affordable housing in the country, but it doesn't all exist in the places people want to live.

Why should people get to build walls around the gardens of edens and kick out the ladders of those on the other side?

Property rights are a shared fiction we adopted because they're (largely) in the best interest of society. When they instead act as subsidies and hand outs to some fortunate few, we need to rethink how things are done.

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

#505

Post by iamacyborg »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #451
lapetitejort wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather sit in a train for 69 minutes than sit in a car for 45 minutes. In a car if my attention slips for a second I can kill myself and others. In a train if I fall asleep I may have to take another train.

Cool! You do you. I’d personally rather spend an hour in the car comfortably vs 20 minutes on public transportation where I’ve got a stranger sitting next to me, no privacy, and potentially no seat during rush hour commute times.

Having to stand for 20 minutes is not such a bad deal if you’re in decent health. Hell it’s probably good for you if you spend most of your day sat at a desk.

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

#506

Post by philwelch »

scoofy wrote: post #476
philwelch wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Right... agreed, but what? Are you not following the argument? Austin is on the exact same trajectory as the West Coast. It's just about 10-15 years behind.

No, it isn’t, because Austin allows building to keep up with demand. The policy failures of West Coast states aren’t a law of nature; they’re policy failures.

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

#507

Post by bluGill »

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…

Metro systems even in the best examples don't give easy anywhere to anywhere access. There are places you cannot access because there is no direct route and unlike a car there are no 'shortcuts' around going where the train goes.

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

#508

Post by J_Shelby_J »

lolinder wrote: post #444
tnel77 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major issue with housing is that it is a primary driver of wealth for many Americans. Obviously, this comes at the expense of our fellow Americans who do not own a home. I was able to buy shortly out of college (1% down loan) so rising home prices don’t impact me as much since my home has also gone up in value. I was able to sell the first house and roll that equity into the next house. As long as it’s the main sto…

This is a common refrain from the YIMBY crowd, but I'm skeptical that the driving force of NIMBYism is wealth. My own experience is that I couldn't care less about my property value: I view my mortgage as mostly a locked-in monthly payment, a guard against rent increases and against being forced to move if the landlord decides to do something different. However, I would actively campaign against a large multi-family…

You can live in what ever reality you want, but NIMBY behavior is inherently rent-seeking.

That being said, I don't hold it against people from paying themselves rent and taking a profit when they sell. But if you have kids, you do have to come to terms with the fact that you're creating a situation where they likely won't be able to afford to live in the neighborhood where they grew up or near you at all.

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

#509

Post by foxyv »

bombcar wrote: post #367
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…

Outside of literal college dorms, where can you find apartments without kitchens?

Not saying without kitchens so much as smaller kitchens. When you look at new home construction in the past 10 years, they have MASSIVE kitchens. A lot of them are bigger than my first apartment.

https://www.homes.com/property/kestrel-at-waterston-north-gr...

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

#510

Post by cpursley »

Symmetry wrote: post #67
cpursley wrote: post #12

To solve the housing crisis you have to build up like the Soviets and Chinese have. They housed a lot of people, quickly. It’s really not difficult; just takes some brave people to change the zoning laws and rethink some of the building codes combined with financing it.

The Chinese/Soviet style of a tower in a park builds tall, but it doesn't actually tend to give more density than more US style dense areas with 3-5 stories mostly filling a block. With the Chinese approach you get better views, but with the US approach you get more walkable neighborhoods and I'll take the later.

> with the US approach you get more walkable neighborhoods

Have you actually ever spent time in a post-Soviet country? Their cities are an order of magnitude more walkable than literally anywhere in the US. And that's ignoring their much better mix of uses (ground floor retail, etc) and access to public spaces (by foot).

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