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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

#771

Post by marssaxman »

Spivak wrote: post #720
m_fayer wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our priors are different. We need to not cover all decently accessible land on the planet with either sprawl or agriculture. That's bad for the environment. People need to have affordable access to medium-to-high density housing for reasons of physical and mental and cultural health. Concentrating people in medium-to-high density housing makes it easier to achieve our decarbonization goals. We need to work backwards…

> If the market doesn't cooperate, the problem is the market and how it's set up, not the goals. Market schmarket, the thing not cooperating is people — families. Any plan that operates on the premise that people will be fine and willing to give up detached homes with useful amounts of land is doomed from the start.

Who is asking them to? The US has an enormous supply of such housing, after decades of restrictive zoning codes which make it difficult to build much of anything else. Some fraction of the US population live in single-family detached suburban-style homes not because they value those features but because that was all they could find. People who might prefer city living often can't have it, because the old forms of development which used to cover the spectrum between the single-family detached house and the downtown high-rise have generally been banned.

In order to solve the housing crisis, we must fix the zoning codes to allow a much greater variety of development patterns, allowing gradual small-scale infill. Nobody is going to stop building single-family detached housing so long as there is a demand for it - but relaxing the zoning codes would mean that the existing, unmet demand for other types of housing could also be satisfied.

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

#772

Post by rickydroll »

m_fayer wrote: post #766
rickydroll wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Physical and mental health is better out of the city than in it. For some people. I'm one of those out-of-the-city-is-better people. However, I would never try to force it on anyone as it would make them miserable and ruin the country for people who want to be there. Sadly, it is difficult to keep city lights in the city.

I wrote medium-to-high density, which means anything between city and "walkable town with a core". This doesn't preclude detached homes. It does preclude sprawling car-centric suburbia, which is similar to rural isolation in terms of the effects it has on the most people's mental health.

ah, I understand. I've lived in both city and "walkable town with a core. I now live 2 miles outside of a New England mill city. The value of each place has been for what I can reach, not the place itself.

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

#773

Post by robocat »

bombcar wrote: post #382
robocat wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your list of drivers of property values is missing the single most important factor: • how much can one borrow? Mortgages drive house prices so long as demand outstrips supply: which it always does in desirable places. Demand can always increase in a healthy city - I want to have multiple houses in different parts of the city and I could even AirBnB them out to defray costs or make a profit. I live in Christchurch, w…

> We have more house supply but demand is outpacing that because we also have high immigration (30% of NZ population was born overseas and we still encourage immigration). This is a huge part of it, as is anything that drives housing demand (for example, as more people end up divorced, more housing is needed). And most people go to the bank and ask how much house they can buy (based on what monthly payment they can s…

> there is another floor; the cost to build new housing

Mostly irrelevant in an older city so long as there is a large number of older less-desirable houses in the market. And new houses become old houses in 2-3 decades.

Only the people that can afford a new home need to buy a new one.

Building prices do drag up prices, but I don't believe they set a floor unless most everything available is greenfield.

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

#774

Post by kkfx »

European here, I recently build my home in wood-frame with thick enough elements I suppose they fall in this "mass timber" category, well... It was NOT cheaper than concrete, I choose wood for various reasons but well, cheapness was not one of them at least not in France where this tech is not much widespread.

I have some advantages:

- much more personal future changes are possible, it's far easier posing new wires/pipes and so on since all I need are small tools, I do not made much dust with them and so on;

- thinner perimeters walls (with good insulation), in some cases they are a nice thing;

and some disadvantages:

- exterior exposed wood last far less than concrete and demand more regular upkeep work (though it's relatively easy);

- eventual water spills might be more impacting;

- last but not least, noise insulation from the ground floor and the second one are far LESS good than concrete.

So well, I'm happy of my choice for various reasons, but I do agree with the author, only adding a point: homes need to change as tech change. Having homes we can "recycle" an create again after let's say 50-70 years means having a kind-of industrial home evolution path that allow for well performant and well designed homes in the long terms, a thing we can't much have with concrete. At a certain rates trees re-grow, rocks do as well, but in a sooooooo large timeframe we can't count as "renewable", so potentially a wood based civilization might be nearly circular, a concrete based one can't (at least, seen the actual known tech).

Aside while light buildings suffer more extreme weather, they suffer less some kind of hydro-geological problems like soil stability, earthquakes and so on, all demanding far simpler foundations.

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

#775

Post by bombcar »

robocat wrote: post #773
bombcar wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have more house supply but demand is outpacing that because we also have high immigration (30% of NZ population was born overseas and we still encourage immigration). This is a huge part of it, as is anything that drives housing demand (for example, as more people end up divorced, more housing is needed). And most people go to the bank and ask how much house they can buy (based on what monthly payment they can s…

> there is another floor; the cost to build new housing Mostly irrelevant in an older city so long as there is a large number of older less-desirable houses in the market. And new houses become old houses in 2-3 decades. Only the people that can afford a new home need to buy a new one. Building prices do drag up prices, but I don't believe they set a floor unless most everything available is greenfield.

But if you're densifying you're often knocking down those older homes. And so the only way to keep the older homes is to have newer homes being built somewhere - which fights against density.

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

#776

Post by xyzzyz »

sofixa wrote: post #567
rayiner wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do those things if you get a seat, which you generally cannot during commuting hours in any city where public transit is good enough to be popular. I commuted for awhile between Baltimore and DC on Amtrak and apart from being hellaciously unreliable it was great for working. But my commute from the upper west side to east midtown when I lived in NYC was completely different—being crammed into the 1/2/3 and th…

> You can do those things if you get a seat, which you generally cannot during commuting hours in any city where public transit is good enough to be popular. I see lots of people watching movies/series or reading books (physical or ebooks) while standing up in various Paris transit during rush hour.

You can listen to audiobooks while you drive too.

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

#777

Post by Symmetry »

cpursley wrote: post #510
Symmetry wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

No I haven't but I'm not trying to draw a distinction between the average post-Soviet neighborhood and the average US neighborhood. I'm trying to draw a distinction between Le Corbusier's vision of urbanism (still better than US suburbs!) and Jane Jacbos's, which in the rare cases where the US builds dense it actually hits decently well.

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

#778

Post by sd-response »

__egb__ wrote: post #701
Empact wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t the many zero setback cities invalidate your setback argument? They’re not drowning in stormwater - clearly it can be managed in a number of ways. Why not admit to yourself that you just like exclusionary land use regulations, and are comfortable with the impacts on the cost of living, increased commutes, etc.? It’s not your neighborhood under threat, it’s your status quo.

> Don’t the many zero setback cities invalidate your setback argument? They’re not drowning in stormwater - clearly it can be managed in a number of ways. This means nothing without knowing the specifics of the local geography and ecosystem. > Why not admit to yourself that you just like exclusionary land use regulations, and are comfortable with the impacts on the cost of living, increased commutes, etc.? I’m not de…

Curious, are you allowed to place an RV on your property, hook it up to your sewage system, and sublet it?

What about an ADU in your backyard? What about tearing down your house and build a triplex?

Or has your peninsula achieved the platonic ideal of density as it is now? If so, you must be very lucky to live in such a place.

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

#779

Post by ambichook »

akira2501 wrote: post #561
ambichook wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

voting should just be mandatory tbh, i dont understand why people seem to refuse to participate in democracy maybe it's a cultural thing? i'm australian and it's mandatory here so that may be affecting my views?

> voting should just be mandatory tbh Then you get Brazil. Literal clowns and jokes for candidates. > i dont understand why people seem to refuse to participate in democracy Participating in democracy means actually going to meetings, trying to get on the agenda, watching and reporting on the business of the government. Voting is literally the smallest form of participation available. Further, even if it wasn't, I'm…

if the alternative is the worst worst, then yes i actually participated in something. as summed up by someone else, and i am paraphrasing here, if you have the option to vote for 80% hitler and actual hitler, and you choose neither, if actual hitler gets into power you are complicit through your inaction. sometimes democracy is about selecting the least bad person, because if you dont things can just get much MUCH worse

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

#780

Post by nojvek »

opo wrote: post #743
nojvek wrote: post #726

Playing devil's advocate here. What causes housing shortage - more demand than supply. What causes more demand? - more people. IMO an ever increasing population isn't a good thing if the economy can't absorb them at an equilibrium of demand and supply. Canada a population of 40M bringing in 1M population in an year was a terrible move. Great for house prices but it takes it's toll.

>...Canada a population of 40M bringing in 1M population in an year was a terrible move. Do you have a citation for that number? Most sources say Canada takes in about 1/2 that: >...Currently, annual immigration in Canada amounts to almost 500,000 new immigrants – one of the highest rates per population of any country in the world. As of 2023, there were more than eight million immigrants with permanent residence liv…

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/23/world/canada/canada-recor...
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