ShutUpOtis
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Ending exclusionary zoning to allow more housing lowers housing costs, just another of many examples: https://www.dwell.com/article/portland-oregon-low-density-zoning-middle-market-housing-629bcc39
softsuit
Isn't unusual that everything costed more prior to the elections?
ShaunDreclin
Fuck having a big yard, I hardly go outside anyway. I just want a roof over my head that isn't shared with 1,000 other people
LAMovieDesign
“Need to allow it” is a pretty fucking scary thing to say.
jejorda2
Why? Are you afraid of existing laws or of changes to the laws?
DanTheReactionMan
The fact it’s necessary for us to force people to make housing at affordable prices and not to line their pockets, probably. It’s sad.
SlarioJaeger
I wish rent in germany would go down to something that even people like me could afford again.
afatrollofmyown
This, the rent I can afford is $300-700/month
SlarioJaeger
I can afford a maximum of 400€ in rent, because that is without heating, electricity, internet etc..
realizedagain
Zoning reform has to be paired with a lot of activism to make it work with communities, and presenting it as a panacea is really stupid./
realizedagain
/The article, however, goes into a lot more detail about how it isn't simply ending exclusionary zoning. Why did you diminish the good/
realizedagain
/arguments presented in the article with a simplistic statement about ending exclusionary zoning?
RyanH42
My city banned new rental apartments in the 70s. We're now one of the most unaffordable cities in Canada.
HavetsHerren
Done with Euclidian zoning?
pachyderm
Every new house In my area seems to be be around $300,000 and that’s the low end. Many of them are $500,000
pachyderm
And they keep building! The school work at was built for 750 kids. We over 1,300 enrolled.
hetnkik999
I used to live in a cheap area. Now, the TINY under 1,000 sqft homes there cost around a million dollars. Shit's bonkers.
hetnkik999
For example: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2877-Gunn-St-San-Diego-CA-92104/16973293_zpid/
SpeerNA
What did you expect bring within walking distance to balboa park?
hetnkik999
So to answer your question: Not for it to be so hard to simply live in this world.
hetnkik999
I used to rent a three bedroom townhouse in the area for $550 a month. Prices have increased astronomically in 20 years.
JKGoose
Unfortunately though there's no yard, back or front. In my city there's more and more apartments going up.
JohnWickdidnothingwrong
If you think $500,000 is appropriate for middle income, you're on fucking drugs.
afatrollofmyown
Yeah, where's the "low-income" housing model, <100k or so?
realizedagain
According to ShutUpOtis, building these higher-end places frees up lower-end places, and a migration of people move up. This is true in a/
realizedagain
/deeply limited sense that he vastly overrepresents, and is insufficient to address the housing needs in lots of various neighborhoods. He/
realizedagain
/is absolutely right more housing needs to be built: trusting developers to do it with a view towards long-term urban planning is cuckoo.
ToSisPoS
But won’t anyone think of the money launderers?
CityYeti
The housing problem is big and complex, there's no one easy answer to how to fix it. But rich people buying up every house just to rent it
mrmeeseekslookatmee
Massive building boom is the basic overview. But like all problems hurting working ppl - the harm is too profitable to allow us to fix it
CityYeti
out and having illegal price fixing put on rent could be a place to start working on for fixing this problem
titaniumsnail
How about allowing small stores to exist in-between all these suburb homes? Wouldn't have to drive everywhere for everything, like in Europe
ShutUpOtis
Yes.
realizedagain
Sounds like something you could mention next time! Note: This probably actually does require zoning to make happen.
forensicfilesbestofseason1
My grandparents lived in a house behind a house. Two bedrooms, 9 kids.
SonderingStrike
Government will never support it. They're paid by the corporation, and any loss to profits is unacceptable.
Three5Nines
$300K-$500K is fucking NOT "Middle Income".
dafwinj
Aren’t there like 20 million empty homes in USA?
whatsisname
An empty vacation home 500 miles away isn't terribly meaningful to a guy sleeping under a bridge in the city.
realizedagain
Since Otis's link below is really unhelpful and fails to address the real point: Many of those vacant homes are in the wrong place beacuse/
realizedagain
/of past failures in capitalism, or represent the slack time caused by churn in the system while landlords seek higher rents. One of the/
realizedagain
/unsolveable problem of capitalist housing is both overbuilding in the wrong places when stuff is cheap, leading to entire ghost/
realizedagain
/neighborhoods, but also that rent increases are tied to building improvements, so you get a bad dual combination: if the owner isn't/
realizedagain
/making much profit he'll let the building fall into disrepair, meaning eventually it's vacant but it'll take a lot more to get it ready/
Elkarlo77
*investment objects.
dafwinj
Aren’t there like 20 million empty investment objects in the US?
drinkthederpentine
Fuck zoning
circlebreaker
Crush the NIMBYs to paste.
ClessAurion
Prices going down? Definitely not anywhere where I live in lol They never stopped going up, not even in 2008...
BewareTheIceSpiders
Prices arent going down... they are just building smaller houses, closer together. 500K for a shack.
ClessAurion
Oh! Well, that sucks. But I guess is an "alternative" :/
BewareTheIceSpiders
Except the price per sqft foot will continue to increase... its just a path to ever decreasing quality of life.
ClessAurion
Exactly, its quite awful :/
BewareTheIceSpiders
Read the entire thread of fools thinking this is a victory.
ChimeraOfFury
300-500K is NOT middle income. ffs. So middle income houses still don't exist.
circlebreaker
*no longer exist
SideShotNL
Wait. Wait. Is that image implying that Americans *Only* build detached houses? not even semi-detached? No wonder you are so car-dependant
breadedfishstrip
So called "single family zoning" is a blight and why you don't see a lot of mixeduse or med resi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajSEIdjkU8E
whatsisname
75% of all developable land in the USA is zoned for single family detached housing in the US. Yes, that plus some other development aspects
whatsisname
is 100% a reason for the USAs car-dependent and dangerous living situation.
PirateOne
Good on ‘em. Let people build the houses people want.
DemonDuJour
There's a lot of bad zoning, but there's also a lot based on what infrastructure (roads, sewers, etc.) can bear. No easy fixes for that.
SarcasticComment
agreed. there's also bad/irresponsible building of dense housing that fucks up an area. sadly common sense is rare in zoning.
ragnar34
We do the hard fixes, then.
realizedagain
There are some 'easy' fixes for that, especially in reducing dependence on cars. Updating older buildings often provides huge benefits to/
realizedagain
/sewer systems etc. Yes, infrastructure costs, but it scales--it's just that the rezoning is not enough.
AgainstMethod
None of those are easy, but sure.
whatsisname
BS. Putting more houses on that infrastructure means more property tax available to maintain it. And the majority of maintenance costs are
HighFunctioningAlcoholic
Additional units / population is almost always a net negative in city finances.
whatsisname
Are you saying units / divided by population, or interchanging the two? Both are wrong, but for different reasons. Property tax revenue
whatsisname
is usually the main source of income for city governments.
AgainstMethod
There are definitely cases where roads, sewage, & even power need significant re-builds to accommodate a huge influx of new units.
trasneoir
US states can always get cheap credit for development - and that's fine if the development is actually sustainable.
AgainstMethod
Not always. In Texas, local governments are squeezed by state laws preventing them from levying the taxes they'd need for these investments.
whatsisname
barely related to how much it's used. The real problem is that we have *too much* infrastructure and not enough property tax value to pay
whatsisname
the maintenance bill.
NaughtButOne
'Easy' is a broad term. High density housing is the solution. We can't afford the suburbs. Convincing people to live in high density, tho.
cheddarhat
High density is subject to geology. Los Angeles sprawls for that reason.
Einbrecher
The point they're making is that infrastructure can driving zoning restrictions. Can't just drop apartment complexes wherever there's /
Einbrecher
space if the sewer/water lines/etc. don't have the capacity to support it, and those are not cheap upgrades.
AncientSeraph
The upgrade could pay itself back, though, as opposed to suburbs, where taxes can't sustain their infra.
ReneDeGames
We can afford suburbs, we just have to stop subsidizing them as much.
NaughtButOne
Right, but then there are no suburbs. Once you stop providing waste, power and telecom services, suddenly no one wants to live there.
quzar
In my city it's almost impossible to find affordable apartments. Even the old shitty ones by the loud highway are barely affordable. All >
quzar
>new ones being built are 'luxury' and double that price. They don't care that half the building will be empty because they don't go ahead >
quzar
>until enough units are sold to investors who will charge even more than the base rent but don't care enough to rent it because for them >
quzar
>it's a financial tool to draw equity and fiscal losses from and resell for slightly more the following year.
Brokecattlefarmer
I consider being able to see a neighbors house too high density for me.
whatsisname
Fine, but you should also pay the full price of that exclusion. Right now, suburbs and rural areas are massively subsidized.
Brokecattlefarmer
What price would that be? Cities won't last long without us rural folks raising all the food.
NaughtButOne
Most "rural folks" aren't doing shit. FARMERS are already heavily subsidized. Everyone else is just leeching off municipal infrastructure.
whatsisname
Fewer than 2% of all jobs are actual farming/livestock raising. Most rural folks commute somewhere.
mplshipster
And in Minneapolis we have done this and it hasn't lowered rent or housing prices. Just seems to have given a lot of money to developers.
whatsisname
It hasn't done that either. For the most part it hasn't done anything because setbacks, floor area ratios, and max height rules are still in
whatsisname
effect so the end result is still SFH. Since 2040 went into effect there has been 30ish duplexes, which is hardly "giving money to
whatsisname
developers", plus, most of those were built not by "developers" as in huge corps but by individual owners or small local landlords.
mplshipster
All the 5 over 1s are not individual owners.
mplshipster
Or 4 over 1s. Either way I don't see the local businesses moving into the bottom floors and lower rent hitting the market.
whatsisname
The 5 over 1s aren't the key piece of the 2040 plan, the upzoning of all currently zoned SFH. The 5o1s are a continuation of the status quo.
pineappleprince
Housing prices are also dropping because no one wants to live there anymore. It’s making prices in Washington go up.
FelixG
Dunno why you are getting downvoted, its true. Most people want to get a house in Vancouver rather than Portland due to it sucking here.
zealabyrinth
We are desperate to move this year. The city is so badly run there is no way it’s coming back.
realizedagain
That's such a silly thing to say. NYC in the 80s.
zealabyrinth
Silly to flee a city with no cops, no direction, and out of control taxes? We pay $8.5k on a 900sqft condo. Neighbors pay $4k for a mansion
zealabyrinth
Unjust cities should die.
realizedagain
Haha no silly for saying there's no way back, that's bizarre nonsense.
zealabyrinth
Also, PDX isn’t NYC. It’s trajectory is more likely to mirror Clevelandor Cincy. Though both were more important than this shit town.
realizedagain
Oh sorry you're a troll nvm.
Scallion420
Or #ontario they simply bulldoze green belts and let developers fill em with McMansions
darkstarmc
The saddest part is housing construction is up 50% since Trudeau won yet millions of homes are now unsold, and we're told just build more.
ScroopyNoopers0
Fuck Doug Ford
DrMarioSThompson
Can I get an amen from the back? What a bloated idiot
AgainstMethod
This is so hard to watch in my city. Could put a whole new, adorable neighborhood in a transit corridor, but no, 5 giant fucking mansions.
DeepFriedAndSanctified
This is literally the majority of zoning reform. The rest is putting apartments in nicer areas.
zealabyrinth
Fuck no. No McMansions. Keep green spaces, build dense.
Cheomesh
But my plywood palace D:
apophisismydad
Repeat after me: unless I have six kids, 3,500 square feet is too much.
creamsiclecarrie
This!!!!! So much this. My household is but 2 people and we’d like to keep it that way. There’s so much not built for that.
usualnamewasteken
I'd love to have a massive workshop, but a house that big is too much I think.
Cheomesh
But then where would I park all my crap?!
CollieSis
NEVERRRRR
zealabyrinth
And if you have six kids, please stop. Your vagina is not a clown car.
GarmBlack
Speaking of Oregon, Jeff Merkely also just introduced an awesome law to (at least try) to make sure those houses go to people, not hedge
cosonfused
but companies ARE people /s
hatsuseno
No no no, the hedge goes between the houses
vonHoopla
Makes all the dysentery worth it.
belortik
I'm worried about the federal government and Medicare gearing up for people to age and die in their homes instead of congregant living
CyanideBreathMint
Isn’t that what the reverse mortgages guarantee?
belortik
Not really, that's just a way to use the cash stored in the equity of your home but saddles the deed with debt to be resolved by the estate
TheChandrian
The Oregon senators are 2 of the good ones.
SnailsAgainstTungstenSpheres
hogs, because according to Merkely "those spikey rat-fucks don't pay taxes and contribute nothing to the economy."
PineappleLoopsBroether
Sick the swimming crabs on the hedgies
graehall
Reversed footage swimming crab is dope.
KingKelloggTheWaffleHaggler
Death to the hedge funds
METROlD
It disgusts me that Blackrock is buying houses. I was buying a home last year and prices were literally rising and almost pricing me out.
METROlD
It was a one year search. And my the end of the year prices had risen by like 20-30%. I thought if I dont buy something (ANYTHING) now >
METROlD
>>> I soon wont be able to buy anything at all..
GarmBlack
funds (assuming it passes, which ya know, it may not.) Combination of all of our housing system fixes is necessary to combat the problem.
blaghart
Yea all we need to do is ban those with legal protections against the failure of business from purchasing necessities.
Einstein9073
An annual excise tax on any property not occupied by its owner should fix the problem rather quickly
gelos
Yeah, dissolve unethical hedge funds, problem solved.
Einstein9073
All hedge funds are unethical, change my mind?
gelos
Pension funds. National funds. Defence funds. R&D funds. Innovation funds. Its relatively easy to invest responsibly even as a hedge fund.
johnhall43
The article mentions 30yr fixed rate mortgages. Really? The same rate for 30yrs? In the uk max we get’s 2/5yrs then have to remortgage
DonL9
It helps sometimes. Lock in a rate near historical lows and ride it out. If rates go up, not your problem. 1/2
DonL9
2/2 Having to pay closing costs and fees every few years would suck here. Sounds like a plan the banks came up with. 8^(
thebogusman101
30 yr fixed rates are pretty standard here. Refinincing is actually expensive as you need ti pay another set of closing costs.
pritolus
Companies should not be allowed to own homes
EMTsaidwhat
We barely got in before the sellers market and interest rate rise. We got lucky and the owner didn't want to sell to a developer.
AbdulMasaiev
They kind of have to if they built them but haven't sold them yet?
MikeRInternetTraveler
Fair point. Corporations can build them, but not buy them.
Ulthirm
They should be heavily restricted on it, for example some companies will buy homes that are condemned or close to condemned and remake the
Ulthirm
homes for sale. They should be restricted and required to be actively developing the land or have to sell it.