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The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

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Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#81

Post by ocschwar »

closeparen wrote: post #78
krausejj wrote: post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

Upzoning creates multifamily housing. To many, that is not really housing, it's something for other people. The younger, the poorer (in suburban areas), the richer (in gentrifying urban neighborhoods), the transient, the childfree. Upzoning will encourage the demolition of single-family detached homes, which in their mind is the only kind that real families care about. Even if you can get someone to acknowledge that…

WHo exactly is being forced into a tower? I have a detached house with a small yard, a short walk from a block lined with condo buildings and one rental building.

Nobody's being forced into my neighborhood. The working class homeowners have been pushed out of the houses by yuppies like me long ago. Now they're being pushed out of that one rental building, which has been remodeled, and where they've stopped taking Section 8. And they're pushed out by people who for whatever reason are quite happily packing themselves into these buildings.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#82

Post by ajmurmann »

closeparen wrote: post #78
krausejj wrote: post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

Upzoning creates multifamily housing. To many, that is not really housing, it's something for other people. The younger, the poorer (in suburban areas), the richer (in gentrifying urban neighborhoods), the transient, the childfree. Upzoning will encourage the demolition of single-family detached homes, which in their mind is the only kind that real families care about. Even if you can get someone to acknowledge that…

I think this is in the very least partially a result of a broken market. Due to regulations and zoning you can barely call development a market. It takes lots of effort and ideally connections to build something. Meanwhile it's largely a seller's market. If we dramatically reduced zoning restrictions we could get much closer to the market doing its work and maybe have some real competition.

For example where I live so malls get built by the same developer. Even if someone wanted I'm sure it would be nigh impossible to get permits etc. to build a competing mall next door and try to drive them out of business like in a real market. I'd love to see real, break neck, free market competition for all projects and no schmoozing with the major.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#83

Post by [deleted] »

sokoloff wrote: post #80
manfredo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because housing availability seriously impacts economic and social mobility. It's hard to work one's way out of poverty as it is. It's even harder when the cities with the Lion's share of the jobs hardly build any housing and cause rents to skyrocket as a result. > I don't know why people in San Diego or NorCal should have a vote about what happens with respect to zoning in Palo Alto or Mountain View. Why not let peo…

Your last sentence struck an interesting chord of agreement-and-disagreement with me. I also oppose rent control and ill-considered tax controls like Prop13, because I think the downsides for communities far exceed the upsides in both cases. That means I would consistently vote against them in my own community, but I still support the rights of people in other communities to make choices different than my own. If the…

[deleted]

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#84

Post by rsync »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #47
rsync wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"absolutely. this is both liberal and libertarian" ... but not necessarily democratic. I am open minded about the housing policy debate in CA (and in Marin, where I live) but I am dismayed at the rejection of democratic outcomes when those outcomes are found to be inconvenient.

CA is also a democracy, so it's just one democratic outcome overriding a different democratic outcome.

"CA is also a democracy, so it's just one democratic outcome overriding a different democratic outcome."

So, then, is the United States.

Would someone like to bet me that there is nearly 1:1 mapping between (people who think CA should undermine local control over housing) and (people who think CA should exert local control over marijuana policy) ?

Of course that's true. Now defend the principle, and benefits, of local control in some spheres where it's convenient but not in other spheres where it is not.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#85

Post by ralusek »

aaronbwebber wrote: post #53
rsync wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"absolutely. this is both liberal and libertarian" ... but not necessarily democratic. I am open minded about the housing policy debate in CA (and in Marin, where I live) but I am dismayed at the rejection of democratic outcomes when those outcomes are found to be inconvenient.

Why do you value democracy? My answer would be because democracy realizes liberal* ideas in a political process. But if liberal processes lead to illiberal outcomes, what do you do? I don't think you can argue that the past ~40 years of housing policy in California have produced liberal outcomes - there's been an immense concentration of wealth, particularly in property, displacement of underprivileged communities, e…

If you want to be extra clear, what is "left of center" is not actually liberal at all, and I wish we wouldn't call them that. Liberal values tend to be centered around individual liberties and universal values. Leftist values tend to be centered around communal equality and values of group identity. I would argue that they are political opposites rather than making the case that the far left is just an extreme version of liberalism, because it isn't at all.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#86

Post by axau »

krausejj wrote: post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

SB-827 is great, but I’m assuming its chance of passing is about zero. Am I wrong? What else can be done?

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#87

Post by AnthonyMouse »

zanny wrote: post #31
gnarcoregrizz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I didn't consider the fact that land zoned for higher density would fetch more money. From that perspective, if your goal is to increase the monetary value of your investment, it seems like a win

Everyone wins except for one class of people when you actually allow building density to respond to demand. The only group of people who don't want that to happen are those who own houses in urban sprawl that would lose value if the artificial limits on density were lifted that allowed people to actually live in the city affordably like a lot of them want to do. More density does not mean more crime or more "deplorab…

The difficulty is in getting people to understand this.

For example, the entire point of doing this is to get housing costs down, and people hear that and think it will cause their property values to go down.

But those are actually two different things.

Housing costs are per square foot. They go down when there is a bunch of new housing because of supply and demand.

Property values include the value of the land. If you zone for high density, it causes the land to be worth significantly more because people will pay you a million dollars for it so they can bulldoze your house and build a tower there.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#88

Post by nerfhammer »

sokoloff wrote: post #80
manfredo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because housing availability seriously impacts economic and social mobility. It's hard to work one's way out of poverty as it is. It's even harder when the cities with the Lion's share of the jobs hardly build any housing and cause rents to skyrocket as a result. > I don't know why people in San Diego or NorCal should have a vote about what happens with respect to zoning in Palo Alto or Mountain View. Why not let peo…

Your last sentence struck an interesting chord of agreement-and-disagreement with me. I also oppose rent control and ill-considered tax controls like Prop13, because I think the downsides for communities far exceed the upsides in both cases. That means I would consistently vote against them in my own community, but I still support the rights of people in other communities to make choices different than my own. If the…

It's because these housing shortages are paid for by everyone who doesn't live in the jurisdiction and cannot vote for them, so there's a perverse incentive for incumbents to treat shortages as free money that comes from nowhere.

It's not unlike upper atmosphere pollution, as if every local community were able to have their own policy on it. The cost of pollution is paid for by no one in particular but principally other people far away. Each community's individual impact is tiny and easy to deny, but they all tend to choose the same thing which has a greater collective impact. Aren't their rights to choose more important than any cost to society, without question?

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#89

Post by DrScump »

alistairSH wrote: post #40
sampo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could definitely foresee more homeowners blocking development of new routes/stations. Say, you own a piece of land with a house near public transit. Since the local township can no longer forbid building an apartment building on your land, you can probably sell your land to a developer for $$$$, so you make much more money than selling just a single house. And because you didn't want to live near public transit,…

Many people don’t value money more than their current house. They bought a nice house in a nice area and don’t want to move. Depending on area and financial situation, they also might not like their increased real estate tax assessments. It beehives them to partake in NIMBYism.

  It beehives them
I think you mean "behooves them".

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#90

Post by SomewhatLikely »

DrScump wrote: post #89
alistairSH wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people don’t value money more than their current house. They bought a nice house in a nice area and don’t want to move. Depending on area and financial situation, they also might not like their increased real estate tax assessments. It beehives them to partake in NIMBYism.

It beehives them I think you mean " behooves them".

That can't be right, bees don't have hooves.
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