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Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

kevin.burke.dev

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Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#81

Post by pandaman »

qurren wrote: post #30
dgeiser13 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US the nuclear family is usually two parents and two children. The parents share one bedroom and each child gets one. In Asia I would guess families make room for their older relatives which would mean an extra bedroom is needed. Immigrants to the US typically do that but I think it's uncommon among the rank and file Americans.

I think in the US a home office and a guest room is also usually needed, so 4-5 bedrooms makes total sense. In fact 4-5 bedroom single family houses in the US are extremely common. What I don't understand is why apartments always seem to stop at 2b or 3b.

The article actually explains it: with 2 staircases requirement the cheapest[+] option is to have the internal shared corridor and thus you get just one external wall for an apartment in general (unless it's in a corner where it gets two). If you arrange a bunch of bedrooms along the wall you end up with an internal corridor, wasting space, and making your whole apartment looking like a sleeper train car.

Houses, on the other hand, have 4 external walls at the very least. Not to mention most 4+ bedroom houses are 2+ stories as well.

[+] It might be also required to have staircases at decent distance, as a second staircase going through the same stack of apartments is not of much use as it's likely to be blocked by fire at the same time as the other one.

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#82

Post by Animats »

spankalee wrote: post #28
Animats wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the single escape stairway thing again. Is there a paid lobby behind this?

No, there are people who look at the better and cheaper housing the rest of world has and who want that for us too.

Most of the world lives in concrete multifamily housing.

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#83

Post by queenkjuul »

bluGill wrote: post #16

You should be looking places other than California before asking this question. In my suburb of Iowa we have apartments that are very similar to this one as far as sizes but the rent is much cheaper. There are also a number of three bedroom apartments in those new buildings, for much more reasonable rent. These apartments have the large parking lots required in the U.S. They have the large elevators required in the U…

And it takes 15 minutes in a car to go anywhere.

I disagree on HVAC: i have proper ventilation on both ends of my apartment, if it's under 75 my apartment never gets uncomfortable with windows open on both ends, and i grew up with 69F Des Moines houses.

And in Des Moines, you HAVE to drive, you HAVE to have parking at home, everyone owns a car, there is no alternative way of living.

Where i live now, i have a car, i still live in an apartment, i can walk to the train or the bus or the grocery store or the bar, and i still use my car sometimes, but if i couldn't, i wouldn't really be missing out.

That to me is the problem: places where kids have no room to explore or play, where people's livelihoods are attached to their ability to maintain a car, where people on foot are treated as second class. That's definitely most of my experience in Iowa suburbs

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#84

Post by queenkjuul »

kstrauser wrote: post #57
bluGill wrote: post #16

You should be looking places other than California before asking this question. In my suburb of Iowa we have apartments that are very similar to this one as far as sizes but the rent is much cheaper. There are also a number of three bedroom apartments in those new buildings, for much more reasonable rent. These apartments have the large parking lots required in the U.S. They have the large elevators required in the U…

I moved to California from Nebraska, so I'm well familiar with what you're talking about. And while that's true, it overlooks a few things: * My salary:housing ratio is better in California than in Nebraska. I have to work fewer hours each month to pay for my home here than I use to, for roughly similar niceness. * What is spendy is services, like paying someone to do work on the house. Those workers make more here,…

Nebraska housing is actually a bad deal given the wages. It's cheap by national standards, but my wages doubled moving from CBIA to Chicago. Rent in Chicago is of course much higher, but adjusted for income, my place is way nicer and actually a similar portion of my income

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#85

Post by queenkjuul »

jawns wrote: post #10

Definitely a tech entrepreneur's take. It's a juxtaposition of optimistic futurism (in 5-10 years, most people will just rely on robocars and robotaxis) and anti-regulatory sentiment (critical of the requirement that elevators accommodate stretchers). Some of the more difficult problems are hand-waved away as, "We could solve this if we just put our engineering hats on." That said, I don't want to throw the baby out…

Notify my neighborhood, where the majority of our 65,000 residents are families living in apartments

This exists in America. It's not foreign culture. We just pretend it is to avoid change.

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#86

Post by kevinburke »

fragmede wrote: post #80
fhdkweig wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even then, opening two windows require that the wind is blowing and in the right direction. I purchased a box fan just so I can put it in a window to get more ventilation (and it was to blow out allergens, not temperature control). Best $18 I ever spent. This is someone who is just looking for an excuse to not like the apartment.

Are you suggesting that people in Walnut Creek are being dishonest about not liking specific features about housing because they're against housing in general? I'm shocked ! Just utterly shocked, I tell you.

I don't really like being called dishonest, there's a pretty broad literature showing the potential gains of cross ventilation even with a small amount of wind. It's extremely rare to have a day without wind at even 2mph and even if such a day exists, running your hood or bathroom fan are also extremely effective ways to create a pressure differential and draw air into your house. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1755660/FULLTEXT...

"there is a reduction of 90% of hours of a possible use of mechanical ventilation, showing the feasibility to achieve thermal comfort within the house by using passive ventilation"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03062...

" Indoor thermal conditions were found to be within the comfort zone for more than 70% of the time under cross ventilation operation while single-sided ventilation provided adequate thermal conditions for only 1% of the time. Results from this study highlight a significantly better performance of cross ventilation over single-sided ventilation." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03787...

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#87

Post by kevinburke »

TheGRS wrote: post #51

I'm sorry but the assumption that robotaxis will make parking spots obsolete in 5 years is the sort of thinking that probably keeps Elon Musk a rich little boy. About 10 years ago we had conversations about autonomous driving coming by 2020 and how it would likely make auto insurance irrelevant. That hasn't materialized yet, and granted we are much further along now, but it seems like we're still a long way away from…

I'm just saying that people should have the choice to build a building without parking if they think that it makes more sense to use the ground floor for other things. Currently, they do not - they are required to build 9 foot wide parking stalls and 16 foot wide parking aisles.

And you do not need to have an entire building of self driving cars to make a large dent in the building footprint that is currently dedicated to parking.

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#88

Post by kstrauser »

queenkjuul wrote: post #84
kstrauser wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved to California from Nebraska, so I'm well familiar with what you're talking about. And while that's true, it overlooks a few things: * My salary:housing ratio is better in California than in Nebraska. I have to work fewer hours each month to pay for my home here than I use to, for roughly similar niceness. * What is spendy is services, like paying someone to do work on the house. Those workers make more here,…

Nebraska housing is actually a bad deal given the wages. It's cheap by national standards, but my wages doubled moving from CBIA to Chicago. Rent in Chicago is of course much higher, but adjusted for income, my place is way nicer and actually a similar portion of my income

Preach it, neighbor. And nothing whatsoever against NE or IA. Those are nice places to live with a lot to commend for them. Still the low cost of living is kind of misleading unless you’re on a fixed income such that moving elsewhere would raise expenses without raising pay.

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#89

Post by queenkjuul »

kstrauser wrote: post #88
queenkjuul wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nebraska housing is actually a bad deal given the wages. It's cheap by national standards, but my wages doubled moving from CBIA to Chicago. Rent in Chicago is of course much higher, but adjusted for income, my place is way nicer and actually a similar portion of my income

Preach it, neighbor. And nothing whatsoever against NE or IA. Those are nice places to live with a lot to commend for them. Still the low cost of living is kind of misleading unless you’re on a fixed income such that moving elsewhere would raise expenses without raising pay.

Yeah i mean, i get why my friends with kids didn't leave, but at the same time, i would so much rather raise my kids in Chicago. Some of them i think are starting to realize the same, as they come out to visit.

Des Moines and Omaha are pretty good, though. I'm especially partial to Omaha. However I personally still wouldn't live there by choice, either one. But i know people that are happy in both all the same.

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#90

Post by thegrim33 »

mikelitoris wrote: post #4

“Human driven cars are going to be around for about 5 years” is one of the most out of touch quotes I’ve seen this month. Also, all of this is about NIMBYism, which is about house prices being inflated to make up most of households’ wealth, which is not fixable without triggering a massive wealth redistribution. Most western societies are stuck in a very non-ideal Nash equilibrium and it is not going to be solved any…

I still vividly remember being on vacation with some friends, 15 years ago now, and them telling me they were holding off on buying a new car because everyone would be using driverless ride-share taxis soon.
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