Hacker News Reader

Comment by makeitdouble | Hacker News Reader

There might be many issues with the gap in construction standards for offices and housings.

A very dumb one: windows are required for houses, where offices can get away with huge open spaces holding a central hub of indoor areas. It's still possible to convert to houses, but that makes for ridiculously small liveable areas compared to the whole floor surface.

Then plumbing, evacuation paths etc. can all be solved by throwing money at the problem, but that significantly raises the profitability line.

View on HN

> It's still possible to convert to houses, but that makes for ridiculously small liveable areas compared to the whole floor surface.

This is only a problem if it's prohibited by zoning. Otherwise it just gets reflected in the price.

Houses in the suburbs often contain a large amount of space with no windows, i.e. a basement the size of the entire first floor, and no one objects because it can be used for storage or a media room that doesn't want windows because of glare. In a multi-tenant building you also have the option to put shared facilities there, or rent the interior section of the floor to small shops while still converting the exterior to housing. But only if you don't have bad laws prohibiting such things.

> Otherwise it just gets reflected in the price

This is one of my nightmares. What if we allowed people to live in basically confinment cells and they have no choice as they're broke af or the gov or their companies assigns them one in a relocation program.

My gut feeling is that the social consequences would be subtle and easily overlooked by officials but widespread and long lasting.

> Houses in the suburbs often contain a large amount of space with no windows

Yes, it's on top of the wide livable areas though.

> What if we allowed people to live in basically confinment cells and they have no choice as they're broke af or the gov or their companies assigns them one in a relocation program.

But they'd still have the same choice they have now. Pay more for something better. Right now their choice is to pay more, potentially sacrificing something even worse, or to be homeless. Presumably the small living space is better than homelessness, right? And if it somehow wasn't, the latter would still be available, which is what happens now.

> My gut feeling is that the social consequences would be subtle and easily overlooked by officials but widespread and long lasting.

It has the potential to do the opposite. It makes low cost housing available (even if it sucks), which provides a backstop against high rents because people won't pay an extra $3000/month just for access to a window. But then the high rents go away and with them the incentive to constrain new construction, and then we can build more apartments that actually have windows.

Then the windowless space gets converted back into storage or something as long as better housing isn't forced into scarcity, but if it is then that space goes back into service suppressing high rents.

> Yes, it's on top of the wide livable areas though.

And so is the part of the office building on the exterior where there is a window.

> But they'd still have the same choice they have now. Pay more for something better.

It doesn't work like that. With cheap cells the low wages will adjust since some people are prepared to live in those, underbidding people that want to be able to see the sun in a race to the bottom.

> With cheap cells the low wages will adjust since some people are prepared to live in those, underbidding people that want to be able to see the sun in a race to the bottom.

That isn't how wages work. They're set by the local supply and demand of labor.

By your logic there would be no point in making housing more affordable at all because employers would just lower wages.

> Right now their choice is to pay more, potentially sacrificing something even worse, or to be homeless

That logic doesn't work when the resident isn't paying the house, or not in full. A locality mandating housing is one example: if they go for the bare and cheapest minimum to fullfil an obligation for a specified number of houses, allowing for basement closets will result in more basement closets, without anyone being less homeless than they were before.

An employer providing rooms for employees is another. And there's so many more cases.

I see it the same way as minimum wages. Putting the bar too high is penalizing for everyone, but lowering it to the ground only breeds a hellscape.

> It has the potential to do the opposite.

But it's only a potential. And the other side is not hypothetical, it's what we had before the regulations, and it was bad enough that people agreed to put rules in place.

> A locality mandating housing is one example: if they go for the bare and cheapest minimum to fullfil an obligation for a specified number of houses, allowing for basement closets will result in more basement closets, without anyone being less homeless than they were before.

The root problem here is that you're trying to mandate housing rather than adopting policies that allow market rate housing to be affordable. When there is demand for housing and no law prohibiting it, people build housing. You shouldn't have to mandate it unless you're already screwing it up to begin with.

But even if you were to mandate some specific construction, you could set minimum requirements for that without prohibiting someone else who is under no obligation to build anything from building something inexpensive without those requirements.

> An employer providing rooms for employees is another.

Which doesn't even happen in urban environments unless it's some kind of tax dodge and then it's being supplied to affluent employees who aren't going to live in a closet.

Can you name a single company that actually does this for low wage employees in e.g. New York City?

> I see it the same way as minimum wages. Putting the bar too high is penalizing for everyone, but lowering it to the ground only breeds a hellscape.

I see it the same way as minimum wages. A worthless policy that doesn't even solve the problem it's supposed to solve, often makes it worse, and would have no purpose or effect in the event that we solved it properly.

It's also not really even that debatable that we've set the bar too high for housing. Never mind requirements for windows, we have requirements for parking and, in many areas lawns that consume the majority of the lot which in itself can only have a building of a low maximum height.

> But it's only a potential.

It's not a hypothetical, it's a thing that happens in particular circumstances -- namely the undersupply of housing. If you can fix that then it wouldn't happen but you wouldn't need it to.

> And the other side is not hypothetical, it's what we had before the regulations, and it was bad enough that people agreed to put rules in place.

People put the rules in place to price the "undesirables" out of the area, not to help them out.

If you were trying to help them out you wouldn't prohibit the only housing they can afford, you would adopt policies that result in the creation of lots of new housing that causes the market price of a quality unit with lots of natural light to fall to the price they can afford.

> This is one of my nightmares. What if we allowed people to live in basically confinment cells and they have no choice as they're broke af or the gov or their companies assigns them one in a relocation program.

> My gut feeling is that the social consequences would be subtle and easily overlooked by officials but widespread and long lasting.

The social consequences of getting rid of tenements have been people sleeping in tents by the overpass. 7,000 of them in my town of 730,000. (Up from 5,000 three years ago.)

Maybe we should give tenements a try again? It's not like the overpass option is going to go anywhere.

There was plenty of homelessness in the era of tenements too.

If you have 1000 homeless and 2000 in tenements and then you ban the tenements and kick their former residents into the street, you have not done either of them a favor.

However, we're not talking about a situation where tenements are allowed and now disallowing them (which I agree would cause a shock in the market, but probably disagree about how long term it is).

People who's lives are otherwise OK apart from an inability to afford housing tend to have support networks which provide them a better fallback option than living on the street, be that living with family, couch surfing, etc. Consequently, they tend not to get included in official homeless figures. The people who do get included in official homeless figures are going to have issues providing landlord the reassurances they need to rent to them, such as prior references, proof of employment, etc. etc. This is going to be true no matter how substandard the housing on the market is.

Instead, allowing tenement-tier housing is likely to lead to a reduction in supply of what is now the bottom tier, as landlords of that tier of property reorganise existing properties to cram more people in, reducing standards of living.

> However, we're not talking about a situation where tenements are allowed and now disallowing them

It's not the shock which is the problem. The set of people who could afford the tenements but can't afford larger units are not going to become able to afford them just because some time has passed.

> People who's lives are otherwise OK apart from an inability to afford housing tend to have support networks which provide them a better fallback option than living on the street, be that living with family, couch surfing, etc.

That just means the problem is bigger than the official numbers suggest. And mooching off your friends and family often creates resentment and friction, which leaves those people at risk of falling into the other group as soon as they have a falling out unless you can get them into their own stable housing.

> The people who do get included in official homeless figures are going to have issues providing landlord the reassurances they need to rent to them, such as prior references, proof of employment, etc. etc. This is going to be true no matter how substandard the housing on the market is.

That's not true. Lower cost units require less in the way of references because the landlord has less at risk when the value of the unit is lower, and has more trouble finding someone who wants to live in it.

You can also reduce the prevalence of these requirements by not making it arduous for landlords to evict non-paying tenants, which is the primary reason they care about any of those things now.

> Instead, allowing tenement-tier housing is likely to lead to a reduction in supply of what is now the bottom tier, as landlords of that tier of property reorganize existing properties to cram more people in, reducing standards of living.

This is not a reduction in standard of living for the people who were previously homeless or the people who choose to live in those new units in exchange for lower rent. Having a smaller apartment in exchange for lower rent is not inherently a reduction in standard of living, and generally wouldn't be what someone chooses unless it isn't.

The people who want to pay the existing rents for the type of units they're in now would be free to do so, if not get those units at a lower rent because the tenements have increased the number of available housing units and relieved some of the demand pressure on existing units.

And without them, there could have always been more.

> My gut feeling is that the social consequences would be subtle and easily overlooked by officials but widespread and long lasting.

Easily overlooked? Hell no. That would be part of the plan from the start: punish the undesirables for being poor, remind them of their low status in society every single day.

The requirement that rooms designated for living need adequate access to sunlight came out of the desire to eliminate such discrimination.

> That would be part of the plan from the start: punish the undesirables for being poor, remind them of their low status in society every single day.

As opposed to now, when they have to live under an overpass because they can't afford rent?

> The requirement that rooms designated for living need adequate access to sunlight came out of the desire to eliminate such discrimination.

It came out of a desire to force "undesirables" out of the area by preventing them from being able to afford any of the housing there, along with all of the other requirements that amount to "housing the poorest can afford is not allowed here."

The solution to homeless people is to give them affordable, quality housing. Not to just move them from a shitty situation into one that's just marginally better.

Let's suppose that we hypothetically make affordable, quality housing available. Then we still don't need rules prohibiting lower quality housing because nobody will choose it when higher quality housing is affordable, right?

The exception would be people who don't care, e.g. someone who works nights and doesn't want daylight in the place where they sleep while they're trying to sleep, and then all you're doing is depriving them of an opportunity to save money through their own circumstances.

The only reason a poor person in ordinary circumstances would choose lower quality housing is if we fail to provide affordable, quality housing, which is currently happening, and in that case if we also prohibit lower quality housing they end up under the overpass. So there is never any reason to prohibit it. Because you can't improve peoples' lives by removing alternatives, you have to create them -- they can themselves eliminate bad options by choosing better ones, but only if they're allowed to exist.

> The exception would be people who don't care, e.g. someone who works nights and doesn't want daylight in the place where they sleep while they're trying to sleep, and then all you're doing is depriving them of an opportunity to save money through their own circumstances.

Roller shutters, nothing easier than that. These things are standard in Germany.

> The only reason a poor person in ordinary circumstances would choose lower quality housing is if we fail to provide affordable, quality housing, which is currently happening, and in that case if we also prohibit lower quality housing they end up under the overpass. So there is never any reason to prohibit it. Because you can't improve peoples' lives by removing alternatives, you have to create them -- they can themselves eliminate bad options by choosing better ones, but only if they're allowed to exist.

The problem is slumlords. Allowing usage of unfit rooms (i.e. no/small windows, basement rooms) for permanent living once makes it very hard to force landlords to upgrade these rooms or condemn them later on, and in 40 years society will still be dealing with that fallout. Rooms without windows to escape are deadly fire traps, and basement rooms can be just as deadly (or at least destructive) in floods.

Whatever we create now will most likely outlive us, so we better do it right now instead of just kicking the can down the road for the next decades!

> Roller shutters, nothing easier than that. These things are standard in Germany.

The problem is not that they can't figure out how to cover the window, the problem is that you're forcing them to pay extra for the window they're only going to cover up.

> The problem is slumlords.

Slumlords exist because housing supply is constrained. If good housing was affordable, nobody would take a trivial discount to live in a slum.

> Allowing usage of unfit rooms (i.e. no/small windows, basement rooms) for permanent living once makes it very hard to force landlords to upgrade these rooms or condemn them later on

The key is to force them through competition rather than zoning. Nobody wants to live in a crappy apartment but they will if it's the only thing available to them. Make something better affordable and the owner of the crappy apartment would have to improve it to find a tenant.

> Rooms without windows to escape are deadly fire traps, and basement rooms can be just as deadly (or at least destructive) in floods.

Rooms don't have to have windows to have fire exits. "Floods can destroy your stuff" hasn't prevented every suburban homeowner from keeping stuff in their basement, and it's not obvious how that's even relevant to residential tenants keeping their stuff in the interior section of an above-ground floor of a formerly commercial building.

> Whatever we create now will most likely outlive us, so we better do it right now instead of just kicking the can down the road for the next decades!

Buildings last a long time. What you use them for can change in a week. If you turn a commercial building into low-cost apartments during a housing shortage and then you later resolve the housing shortage by building higher quality apartments, you can turn it back into a commercial building, or whatever else is needed at the time.

The problem is when you're prohibited from converting it to the use which is currently in demand, and then rents are high and people are screwed because you took away a bad option and only left a worse one.

> assigns them one in a relocation program.

"Welcome. Welcome, to City 17. You have chosen--or been chosen--to relocate to one of our finest remaining urban centers. I thought so much of City 17, that I elected to establish my administration, here, in the citadel, so thoughtfully provided by our benefactors. I am proud to call City 17 my home. And so, whether you are here to stay, or passing through to parts unknown, welcome, to City 17. It's safer here."

'Course, that particular dystopia was terrible for a whole bunch of reasons where population density was not one of them.

I've seen a number of these types of conversions in CA and NYC. They're usually sizable lofts, some with considerably more window area than others. The smaller units tend to go more deep than wide but they still have access to natural light in some part.

So is your argument that we have to have bad regulation because if we don't, we might have bad regulation?

My argument is those buildings should be primarily used for something else.

Have some housing in the "good" parts, but use the rest another way.

> Have some housing in the "good" parts, but use the rest another way.

This is the road to hell. Anyone can always come up with an excuse for why something shouldn't be done and if you accept them all then nothing ever gets built and people can't afford to live.

Construction requirements should be for things that are profoundly dangerous and not obvious, like having circuit breakers on electrical circuits or constructing buildings that are structurally sound or having fire exits.

Anybody can see how many windows or bathrooms a place has and you don't die if you get your natural light from going outside or occasionally have to wait in line for the facilities.

Try searching for pictures/articles about "cage homes" or "coffin cubicles" in Hong Kong. The way the rental prices rise as soon as old-age pensions increase must be one of the most heartless things I've ever heard of.

>> This is only a problem if it's prohibited by zoning. Otherwise it just gets reflected in the price.

Depending on HOW the building was constructed (read: a large majority of office space), you will be unable to deal with the plumbing issues.

Total volume of water to every floor + distribution of the bathrooms (where they need to be moved in an updated floor plan) makes these sorts of change overs prohibitively expensive.

We have seen these sorts of transitions before! Large industrial spaces became "artists lofts". These were large spaces with single bathrooms (repurposed from the original plumbing installs). When these neighborhoods gentrified the very expensive conversions came in and made them into more "acceptable" living spaces. There was profit associated with that cost.

Rezoning wont result in gentrified apartments, or affordable housing any time soon!

> Total volume of water to every floor + distribution of the bathrooms (where they need to be moved in an updated floor plan) makes these sorts of change overs prohibitively expensive.

You say "prohibitively expensive" while ignoring both of the alternatives where it isn't.

The first is dorm-style housing with shared bathrooms, and then you put the bathrooms where they are right now.

The second is upscale housing, and then you invest in the conversion because you're targeting tenants who can pay.

Either of these at scale increases the housing supply and thereby lowers rents for everybody.

> The first is dorm-style housing with shared bathrooms, and then you put the bathrooms where they are right now.

No one wants to live like this.

> The second is upscale housing, and then you invest in the conversion because you're targeting tenants who can pay.

But they have to want to live there. Creating high end housing can be a challenge.

> Either of these at scale increases the housing supply and thereby lowers rents for everybody.

Supply isnt at issue. The demographics of Air BnB and empty investments in the US is appalling. We have more than enough housing for people its just empty or unlivable (see NYC real estate not getting updates due to rent control)

> No one wants to live like this.

People (often recent graduates) pay a lot of money to live like this in NYC. The right price makes up for a lot of other deficiencies.

> No one wants to live like this.

There is generally not a law requiring college students to live in dorms. They can go and rent an apartment off campus. Why do they choose to do it?

> But they have to want to live there. Creating high end housing can be a challenge.

That doesn't require you to prohibit someone from trying.

> Supply isnt at issue.

The measure of whether supply is an issue is the size of rents. If rents are high, supply is low relative to demand.

> The demographics of Air BnB and empty investments in the US is appalling.

There is nothing wrong with Air BnB if you don't have artificial constrains on increasing supply. And the reason speculators hold empty units is the expectation that prices will increase, which is due to the expectation that supply will remain constrained as the population increases, which would be alleviated in short order through the adoption of policies that can reasonably be expected to relieve supply constraints by allowing new construction.

> see NYC real estate not getting updates due to rent control

In other words rent control is a terrible policy that constrains supply, which is one of the rare issues where there is broad consensus among economists.

Bedrooms must have windows. That isnt "very dumb". That is based on centuries of knowledge. It is fire code. It is for comfort. It is for health. Some think it anachronistic only because few alive today have ever lived without it. But forgetting the reasons behind a rule does not make that rule unnecessary. And a rule isnt dumb simply because it decreases profit margins. All rules do.

Fire codes require multiple exists not specifically windows that can be used as exists. Which is why people can live on the 30+ floor of buildings without fire escapes. Many people prefer sleeping in rooms without windows or block up existing windows.

Historically, these regulations were created to exclude the poor from areas. They do line up with most peoples preferences, but many would rather save in rent vs have a window.

A window on the 30th floor certainly isn't an escape route but the requirement does still enforce certain standards that in turn promote fire safety. A window means that every bedroom must be on an exterior wall. That simple rule means one cannot build huge warren-like buildings filled with tiny interior apartments, which would be an evacuation nightmare. The rule also forbids bedrooms deep underground.

Yes, this does make apartments more expensive but so does every rule that sets a minimum construction standard.

This isn't a rule everywhere. I have the largest and most windows I've ever had in an apartment and my bedroom is in the interior. I actually find it nice, no need for black out curtains, I can easily nap during the day.

My apartment is fitted with multiple sprinklers, which I assume gets it up to code.

Nor are fire escapes and sprinklers mandatory everywhere. Each local has its own standards but nobody should ever argue for a race to the bottom, that because some area doesn't do X that another area should follow that example just to lower costs.

As long as you maintain safety, more options aren’t a race to the bottom. People take cruise vacations on indoor cabins without windows demonstrating it isn’t a problem for a significant percentage of the population.

If a bedroom on the 33rd floor has sealed windows, what’s the rescue benefit or health benefit? (asking as a person who has lived in such a bedroom and sometimes slept in the closet to avoid noise and light)

Sorry, I didn't mean "dumb" as meaningless but as plain and basic. I enjoy my windows very much and don't wish to anyone to spend their indoor time without windows days and nights.

On the sister comment about windows on the 33th floor, those will still have a ton of benefit from an health perspective as a source of natural light (full spectrum), open view (can focus to infinity instead of a few meters away) and overall mental relief if there's no fear of height.

There's actually the same debate on access to sun, where construction code usually prohibit a taller building from 100% occulting the sun from surrounding houses.

Those could be compensated by some artificial mechanism, but would not be guaranted to work. Windows FTW.

Lots of long term rentals have no window in Asia. Sure they're small and cheap-- but no need for bedrooms to "must" have windows.

And I've lived in them and they're fine. Forever no. For a few weeks or months on a budget sure.

"Must" have windows is simply a preference people have.

Charlie Munger enters the room (with no windows)..

^ Underappreciated reply

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29105435

Or fixing the problem of bad regulation - you can always uplift living standards when money is cheap, right now there's a chance to operate more efficiently, rather than create more debt.

One idea would be to convert spaces to something competing with airbnb, with the added value of being near offices.

Do you mean like capsule hotels in Tokyo?

How about just regular apartments in Tokyo/Seoul/HK? Much much smaller than USA apartments.... Also much much cheaper, at least than NYC/SF/LA.

I think having the option of really small low quality accommodation in big cities is good, but let’s not pretend Tokyo/Seoul/HK aren’t just as expensive per sqft as NYC/SF/LA.

They aren’t as expensive per square foot. Sure, Tokyo apartments tend to be smaller, but they aren’t that much smaller. It’s more an efficient use of space than anything.

Hong Kong also isn’t comparable to Tokyo, and is much more expensive.

I can’t comment on Seoul.

They aren't more expensive. But besides real-estate, they are practical. You don't need a car; and an affordable 24H 7/11 is always downstairs. Also you can stay at the cheapest neighborhood and don't get stabbed; can't guarantee the same in NYC/LA/SF.

Checking online, the average price of an apartment in Santa Monica is $55 per square meter. SF is about $53. NYC is $65. Tokyo is about $27, Seoul is $23

So no, Tokyo and Seoul are not "just as expensive". HK is at $52 though so that was a bad choice on my part.

It would be really interesting if capsule-style apartments were available in NYC/SF/etc. I would absolutely pay $300-$400 a month for a permanent (not nightly, like they are in Japan) capsule in Lower Manhattan.

Can you show me where you can get a capsule hotel for $10-13 per night? I have not seen this rate, you’d probably be looking as $25 per night minimum probably more. Most actually nice capsule hotels are a tourist attraction and are nearly as expensive as normal hotels.

I didn’t say it existed, I said it would be nice. I’m comparing it to current overinflated Manhattan housing prices, where a studio is approximately $2000-$3500 depending on the location. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that a minimal, efficient capsule residence could get down to $400 a month.

And monthly prices are always lower than hotel-style nightly rates, so that isn’t really relevant either.

Not a capsule hotel but your very own room (also Osaka not Tokyo) $9/night: https://www.booking.com/Share-IONY8u

Wow, those rooms are passable for that cheap, although clearly on the grimy side. I don't know how this place keeps from turning into a brothel.

Sort of - I’m thinking like a college dorm, it’s probably easier to install shared showers and kitchen (they might even already be there) - rather than individually per unit, along with some other useful shared spaces like libraries.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com