Jumpstarting the Market for Accessory Dwelling Units | Hacker News Reader

Jumpstarting the Market for Accessory Dwelling Units

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Existing stakeholders see more traffic, less parking, more noise and disturbance. Higher density housing generally creates more conflicts among residents.

So existing residents already in place resist more residents arriving in the same area. Which is understandable, since ADUs do not address adding services provided by government to existing properties. They just increase the number of inhabitants in the same area.

Also much of Portland has a much better and less expensive public transportation system than the SF Bay Area does.

All true, yet here in Mountain View where I live, a rent-control ordinance was just passed. This might have been averted by promotion of an ADU housing supply and concomitant reduction of rent increase pressure, by mediation of a more-or-less open market.

Instead, Mountain View will have occult "markets", dealing in favors and claims of personal need.

One should always choose the lesser of two weevils.

Few cities have recovered their 1950 population, and the number of people per square foot of residence only keeps going down. I'm not sure this represents an increase in density.

Is this really correct though? If increasing the supply of housing allows people to live closer to heir jobs or other amenities, wouldn't that decrease traffic?

On my particular side street (right on the edge of Cambridge, MA)? No; on a hyper-local level, it will increase traffic and parking pressure.

Via induced-demand, it might even make things worse within the city center.

People vote based on their hyper-local experience and fears. NIMINBY ("not in my immediate neighbor's backyard") is not entirely irrational here.

"ADU" appears to be bureaucrat-speak for "inhabited garden shed"?

At least the one in the article photo looks rather nice and a reasonable single-person dwelling, but too much of this kind of thing results in London-style near-invisible rental slums. :(

In Portland Oregon many ADUs are converted unattached garages, finished attics, finished basements and more rarely converted garden sheds. Particularly, in the areas where much of the closer to city center housing stock is pre-World War 2 and near good public transit.

ADUs have to meet current building and fire codes. Though there is a loophole where an on-site resident owner may do their own construction without permits.

ADU construction along with rental housing starts is also slowing due to recent city legislation and the threat of rent control which has been illegal in the entire state of Oregon since the 1980s. And the city of Portland via new regulation has already added friction and increased costs in their rental market exacerbating their "rental housing crisis" except for those renters already in existing rentals.

ADUs were popular additions on family occupied and/or owned Portland properties until the recent regulatory changes and rent control threat. Now there is added known risk and uncertainty.

It's inspiring what some people are doing with these reduced footprint properties: http://daringacorotis.com/47th-Street-from-NYTIMES-article

do these units trigger the NIMBY impulses of neighbors? It seems like a great way to increase density in otherwise restrictive development environments, but could also see pushback from neighbors in having a lot more construction in the neighborhood.

There is a great deal of concern in Portland right now for affordable housing, so while some of the more affluent neighborhoods are opposed to density, they've generally been overruled by the rest of the city.

yes, it seems to me people starting businesses in this space are trying to solve the wrong problem. do we really need yet another really cool small home concept that will never be purchased or installed by anyone?

the market needs a service that will undertake the arduous and confusing task of navigating the political process of actually installing and inhabiting a small home in a place anyone would want to live. but i guess photos of that product don't look cool in an architectural digest.

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