The hottest trend in U.S. cities? Changing zoning rules to allow more housing | Hacker News Reader

The hottest trend in U.S. cities? Changing zoning rules to allow more housing

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74 pointsnamanyayg173 comments

I am not a fan of adding ADUs. It’s not because it’s “ugly”, or “scared of change”.

I think it doesn’t go far enough. A home upzoned to support 1 -> 2+ families in the sticks still means extra amount of traffic originating from the burbs. It partially fixes one problem (increasing housing supply should result in stabilized rent and home affordability). But problems such as reducing carbon footprint through reduced use of cars, dependency on expensive highways, ban development of new SFH to preserve environment, and supporting alternative modes of transportation (bike, walking, bus, train) are left untouched.

With the impending single zoned commercial building crash, I was hoping we could get a massive push at all levels (federal, state, local) to provide incentives for converting these to mixed zone properties.

for what it’s worth, it’s a small step in the right direction.

>ban development of new SFH to preserve environment

When you say this, do you mean across the US, or localized? I'm honestly shocked that some people are in the opinion that SFH should be banned nationally.

It’s a view that is divorced from any sort of political reality.

It may be divorced from political reality, but it aligns perfectly with environmental reality. Sprawl is absolutely terrible for the environment, for a large number of reasons.

Go to google maps and zoom out, urban sprawl is not the problem. You are talking about ending a way of life that untold millions aspire too, I wonder what kind of affect that would have.

Note that they were saying ban development of. Not do away with. And not necessarily for the rest of time. There are obviously loads of properties that fit the bill and would go undeveloped for many years.

That said, I do think banning them (even just by developers) is unnecessary if you provide zoning incentives instead. If you give developers the option to split up land because it will give them a higher return, they're typically quite quick to do that, at least in Australia. That wouldn't prevent owners or speculators from building their dream standalone house.

You need density if you want to encourage light rail or even bike infrastructure (such as dedicated bike paths or lanes). The two go hand in hand. Of course more mixed use would also help, gradually turning the suburbs into something more reminiscent of traditional villages or towns.

But for that the density reachable without elevators (if you're ignoring accessibility; i.e., 4~6 floors plus basement) suffices.

And yeah, having the bottom floor be commercial is often effective. Even if it's just a GP's doctor's office.

Look at pre-WW1 urban core neighborhoods in Germany, for example.

> With the impending single zoned commercial building crash, I was hoping we could get a massive push at all levels (federal, state, local) to provide incentives for converting these to mixed zone properties.

You had me up until this point. Sadly, office buildings are constructed quite differently from residential buildings, and it really is hard to convert them over. It makes more sense to leave them as non-residential space, even if vacant for awhile before finally being reoccupied, and then to separately build brand new purpose-specific high rise residential buildings (which will be nicer than a converted office building ever could).

And another problem with the conversion plan is that office buildings aren't fully vacant! Here in NYC, the office vacancy rate is just under 20% (and falling). But that means it's very hard to find a single building that's 100% vacant to convert over. Most buildings are mostly full with long-term commercial tenants on long leases. Yes, some few floors might be vacant, but many are not; you can't exactly kick out the existing tenants that are making the building mostly full in order to convert everything over. It doesn't make sense and it would incredibly costly. Plus, the buildings with the highest vacancy rates are the oldest ones with the worst conditions (i.e. not prime commercial space); these are less attractive for conversion for residential.

> Sadly, office buildings are constructed quite differently from residential buildings, and it really is hard to convert them over.

That may be true, but not sure why it's relevant. If someone wants to take on the cost of doing so for an ROI, why not have the regs in place that allows it?

If doing so causes some other _harm_ (environmental, whatever), then sure lets address that but not allowing something because "it's hard" seems an odd take.

I have lived in apartments where basic commercial needs were within walking distance, and it was fine for that period in my life. I'd love to not have to drive or be driven to do that now, even with my SFH. There are several mixed-zone communities in my area where are all booming (not in the same building, but I don't see that as anything but the obvious next step).

>That may be true, but not sure why it's relevant. If someone wants to take on the cost of doing so for an ROI, why not have the regs in place that allows it?

It's relevant because the extent of the difference has significant impact on the cost of the conversion, which determines whether the ROI is likely to be positive or negative and so whether somebody is likely to went to take on the cost without additional incentive.

You had it there for a minute, but... The potential profitability of converting a tower is something only the buyer should be concerned with, not the government.

The reasons to not convert a tower =! The reasons to change zoning, which could reasonably include concerns over traffic or appearance.

>The potential profitability of converting a tower is something only the buyer should be concerned with, not the government.

I have no idea how you could possibly hold such a position, so I'm not really sure what to say. Do you think incentives don't matter? Do you think the government doesn't already heavily involve itself in real estate pricing beyond just zoning via numerous regulatory means and subsidies? Do you think that what gets built in a jurisdiction just isn't its government's concern?

I am equally clueless as to how you came up with this line of questions. Of course incentives matter, when did I imply they didnt? Of course the government is involved, which is why I said the reasons for not converting a building (the buyer) arent the same reasons why you wouldnt rezone (government), something there not clear?

You're a bit confused about how this works. If the gov changes an area with office buildings to mixed zoning then some will be converted and some wont because of cost. Market forces can decide what's cost effective in that case. It does not matter that some will not be cost effective to convert. There is also no damage done if magically none of them get converted...

>If the gov changes an area with office buildings to mixed zoning then some will be converted and some wont because of cost.

Unless, because of the costs, none of them are. And while that does no harm, if the purpose of changing the zoning was to get more housing, then it also does no good. The profitability of the conversion absolutely should be a consideration, because a tax abatement or something could effect change where simply altering zoning might not.

You're arguing the wrong direction, I think.

If the gov does not change zoning restrictions to something less restrictive, then the work will, by law, not be possible.

If they do, then it's POSSIBLE, but it's not up to gov't to MANDATE it.

Arguing that they shouldn't "loosen" the restrictions because the market _MIGHT_ determine it's still not worthwhile seems odd to me. Perhaps this is from a cultural bias.

The point of the article wasn't to make more housing required, it was to make it possible to do so. Perhaps in other countries/cultures/governments the incentives are different (market vs. gov), but this article is not that.

>but it's not up to gov't to MANDATE it.

>Arguing that they shouldn't "loosen" the restrictions because the market _MIGHT_ determine it's still not worthwhile

Neither of those arguments are being made. The argument being made is that if the government intends to effect change in the housing market, it must concern itself with the economics, because those economics are largely determined by government policy and determine whether new housing is actually likely to get built.

Once upon a time in new york, people built bleechers on their roofs to watch baseball games. Neighbors would potluck or sell home cooked food. There was enough housing for everyone, because they had very loose regulations.

If you really want to turn this into a multiday thread, then we can start with the different theorems of value; you will come to see how even theory proves it is a terrible idea to have government trying to manage for profit endeavors. But, if you just want the magic fix to the housing shortage, you should just run with deregulation.

>It makes more sense to leave them as non-residential space, even if vacant for awhile before finally being reoccupied, and then to separately build brand new purpose-specific high rise residential buildings (which will be nicer than a converted office building ever could).

Under what criteria? Also, a large ask, but if you might indulge me: posit circumstances in which it WOULD make more sense to convert.

>Under what criteria?

If maintaining the property value is a better move in your risk analysis, over making income from renters. Maintaining the value of your $100M+ tower makes a lot of sense if you are expecting commercial real estate to turn around soon. If you convert it, it will probably never be able to sell for more than a fraction of that and investors get hosed.

>posit circumstances

Massive deregulation in what qualifies as legal arounding housing would be one major chip. The other would be massive devaluation (which probably depends on the former point), such as massive amounts of housing going up in neighboring areas.

> posit circumstances in which it WOULD make more sense to convert.

If office buildings had been built with conversion in mind in the first place. This would require smaller floorplates, more utility stacks, etc., and they wouldn't be as profitable as office buildings built without those constraints, but you would at least have better future flexibility in what kind of use the building gets.

But you can't just ignore that existing office buildings are not remotely like residential buildings, and would be extremely expensive to convert. So I suppose the criteria you might say is profitability; if a conversion won't turn a profit, no developer is going to do it.

>If office buildings had been built with conversion in mind in the first place.

No, respectfully, that's a cop-out. I'll give an example: New Jersey gets nuked; residents are successfully evacuated, but now they all need a new place to live, and suddenly it makes to do makeshift retrofits of Manhattan high-rises to house them, if temporarily. That's obviously at the far end of the spectrum. I'm looking for the line where we cross from "untenable" to "tenable".

The line is defined by profitability. And it's simply not profitable to do most of these conversions, as the conversions are extensive and costly and still don't yield units that are as good as purpose-built residential apartments. I'm not sure what part of that is confusing.

>The line is defined by profitability.

In what scope? Something that might not be profitable for a single company could be value-generating at a national level.

> as the conversions are extensive and costly and still don't yield units that are as good as purpose-built residential apartments

I understand that you've decided this. I'm saying that it's not a given, and asking you to free your mind a bit. How could the conversions be less costly? What compromises in design would people actually be willing to live with? What external conditions might lead to conversions making sense (including ones where potential profit is not the primary purpose of the build).

I GET that the people investing in real estate right now don't want to build anything but what they want to build. We're not obligated to confine our imagination to their ideal balance sheet.

The solution to empty office buildings is to bring more workers to live in the city to use that office space.

this is by design. cram people in, the „car ownership problem” will fix itslef

> It's no accident that throwing out the parking rules was vital to the Sundial's construction. "The elimination of parking requirements has been the most effective regulatory reform we have made," McMahan says.

This is a really neat fact! Even if other areas don’t build hardcore, why not remove this regulation anyways? Let the market decide if they want cars!

> Let the market decide if they want cars!

Be careful of what you wish for.

Why? Worst case scenario is that the market decides it does want cars, but the burden of paying for space to store them falls on the people that want them instead of everyone buying/renting a dwelling.

Or you end up with fist fights and road rage over limited resources. And it's very easy to say "limit access to cars", but it absolutely requires a build-up of public transit to make up for it, which usually goes beyond local zoning practice

I interpret “let the market decide” as also charging market rates for street parking, in which case the resources are only as limited as the market decides -- if more people want to park than there is room for, the private market can meet that demand by building garages/private lots.

The High Cost of Free Parking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking) is pretty eye-opening in terms of how non-drivers end up bearing the cost of parking minimums.

If the market determined the price of parking then people would flip out because parking was only affordable to the middle class and it would instantly be framed as an anti-poor thing.

It would be framed that way, but the irony is that mandatory parking minimums are more anti-poor, it’s just that the burden on the poor is hidden in the cost of housing making it less obvious.

Car ownership is lower among people with very low incomes, but if they want a place to live they still have to pay for parking to be built. Shoup’s book has some examples of proposed low-income housing that ended up getting blocked over parking minimums, even though most of the would-be residents did not own cars.

And will the market provide viable, sustainable alternatives to driving?

Hint: no it won't, because markets don't work in delivering large-scale infrastructure for the commons

Not immediately, but internalizing the cost of parking could nudge two-car households towards becoming one-car households, or encouraging people to carpool instead of owning.

I was living in 16 story building with 112 apartments and no parking besides curbside (~30 cars). Worst part there were around 10 such buildings close by. So you have to either adjust your schedule to get back early (or block someone and get out early) or park far away and wall 20 minutes. Wasn’t fun time.

If you have to walk 20 minutes to get a parking space, the parking meters were non-existent, too cheap, an unusual event happened, or parking fees weren't enforced.

To prevent a tragedy of the commons in street parking spaces, Japan has an excellent system, the shako shomeisho, though looking at how hard it's been to push through a congestion tax in lower Manhattan, I doubt it'd be politically viable anywhere in the US:

"Under the regulation in Japan... all private owned automobile must have a specific parking space. Parking by the roadside is prohibited. The width and length of the space should be sufficient for your vehicle and must be within 2 km from your registered residence address."

https://www.driveinjapan.com/parking/

https://www.parkingreformatlas.org/parking-reform-cases-1/ja...

> Let the market decide if they want cars!

* Does that include carbon pricing on gas to take into account climate change externalities?

* Higher health insurance premiums as a non-active transport method causes a more sedentary lifestyle?

* Distance-based and weight-based fees for damage on roads that cars do to roads (as compared bicycles, or even motorcycles)?

* Tolls on roads instead of subsidizing highway construction?

* Having the suburbs actually pay for themselves long-term, versus the current Ponzi scheme of development?

** https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/8/28/the-growth-pon...

** https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growt...

Bizarre NIMBYism (for HN) going on in these comments right now.

Really bizarre! What’s going on?

It’s just contrarianism. Most articles are about how cities are not building housing so most of the time, HN commenters talk about how we need more housing. As soon as an article is about building housing, all anyone wants to talk about is NIMBY. Taking the article’s topic/argument and making your comment the opposite is a standard HN trope.

To contradict still further: I think it's a general law of comment pages. People who agree just read the content and nod silently, perhaps upvoting. People who disagree will voice their disagreement.

So it looks like a constant vortex of contradiction and confusion.

It's why "ratio" is such a big thing on Twitter: ratio of likes to comments, because comments tend to be 'negative' towards the post.

People on the U.S. west coast are still asleep! So all the commenters you see are posting from their McMansions in the Midwest.

Wouldn't the NE be up now and replying with pro-building comments?

Also, not everyone in the Midwest lives in a McMansion, your snide comments are not helpful. Is it possible that people don't agree with you?

Possible. Yet as a Midwesterner most of my life, almost all new construction since the late 90s have been -- and continue to be -- McMansions.

NE is in church.

Consider that in this thread, the premise of which is that an ostensibly shallow attitude is strange for HN, your comment is "all the commenters you see are posting from their McMansions in the Midwest", and it is still not grey or flagged after seven hours at the time of my writing this.

To me, that's more concerning than HNer's not all having a single voice on the broad and complex topic of housing development.

I have a fairly obvious theory.

NIMBYism is directly proportionate to the amount of capital you can access. More money, more protectionist of the status quo.

It's the same reason people say you get more conservative politically as you age. When you have nothing, you don't mind if the system changes, and vice versa.

I call it Loughla's Theory of Pulling Up the Ladder.

Possibly, I suspect though that most Americans here grew up in SFH and are reluctant to see that lifestyle go away.

I'm not so certain, I grew up in a (modular) sfh in a nice suburb. My experience with sfh as a child was that it meant being far from any other friends I could interact with.

The only time where this wasn't the case was a brief period where I lived in a dense set of homes near a lake.

As an adult, I have no love for the lifestyle.

Maybe a majority outside of HN, but NIMBYs (and even just people who don't particularly like apartments) are not exactly welcome here on HN, so it's unusual when their comments appear. They are all predictably being downvoted to -4, so it looks like it's temporary. I usually stay out of these discussions because the strong groupthink on this topic tends to keep discussions one-sided.

That lifestyle will never go away, but it has no place to be required in big cities that would instead benefit from much more housing in total.

"NIMBYism is directly proportionate to the amount of capital you can access."

I tend to think it's more of a bell curve. The lower classes want more housing. The middle classes are NIMBY because the majority of their net worth is tied to their house value. The upper classes don't care, with rare exceptions for people who don't want their views spoiled.

If you live in a 20,000 sqft. penthouse in Manhattan with a doorman and a private elevator what do you care what they're building or not building at the end of the block? Safe to say it won't be anything that kills your property values. A lot of vocal YIMBYs to be Silicon Valley tech moguls.

It's not even NIMBYism. It's some sort of even-more-radical "Never Build Anywhere"

Not all that bizarre, if you've ever been around for these conversations. HNers are, by and large, affluent, white (or "white-aspiring"), grew up in middle-class or immigrant families. They want things to stay the way they were when they were growing up/when they came here, and have little experience with political battles where they disagreed with the status quo but couldn't influence a shift (because network/money). This is par for the course for that kind of entitlement.

Also, the elephant in the room is that a repeat of 2008 (roping in commercial real estate, while we're at it) is not completely out of the question. Anyone with a significant portion of their wealth in real estate at the moment is going to be restless, waiting for the other shoe to drop. That means circling the wagons.

White Aspiring! That's a new one. I'll go tell my wife her parents didn't move here to flee communism. They actually fled to this country so they could be white!

>They actually fled to this country so they could be white!

We could have an interesting conversation about how this very well could be true, if you'd like.

I am not affluent and I have never had an ounce of power to influence anything, and I believe we need more housing, speaking as broadly as possible, yet I still disagree loudly with development in cases where it significantly harms middle-class communities in nice places that people have worked their whole lives to live in, and I am called NIMBY as an insult for it (exclusively on the internet - people in real life are generally more charitable).

In fact, I believe the problem is the inverse of the one you've described (aside from race, which I'm not particularly interested in making people feel bad about) - that there are a lot of people in internet politics who are so caught up with focusing on the image of their political enemies (e.g. affluent housing-as-an-investment NIMBYs a la California) that they lose their imagination for reasonable NIMBYism and start making enemies of reasonable people.

In that environment, a comment like mine might look like "Bizarre NIMBYism (for HN) going on in these comments right now."

>yet I still disagree loudly with development in cases where it significantly harms middle-class communities in nice places that people have worked their whole lives to live in, and I am called NIMBY as an insult for it

It sounds like you are.

The issue, to me, is this idea of viewing "keeping" communities "middle-class" and "nice" through some sort of race/discrimination-agnostic lens, in a country that's historically (within living memory)(of Millennials) done anything but.

Unfortunately, race and racial politics are inextricably linked with housing policy in America. It's impossible to talk about "nice places" without digging into the racialized meaning of "nice", or to talk about "middle-class" places when those encompass everywhere from "shops at Dollar General" areas to "orders Instacart from Whole Foods" areas. And, in terms of "keeping" neighborhood character, it'd be interesting to know the history of the specific neighborhoods you have in mind. "Were they gentrified, or just always inaccessible to marginalized people?" I wonder.

So, sorry, these nebulous harms to "niceness" don't cut it as reasons to forbid development prospective (and, often, current!) residents desire.

>I am not affluent and I have never had an ounce of power to influence anything

I've never met someone who was who'd admit to it. However, giving you the benefit of the doubt: that characterization was not directed solely and expressly at happytoexplain.

Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest (darrellowens.substack.com)

on going discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39414954

Without expressing either I like the policy or not, it means they buying a house in those cities no longer means buying a house in a neighborhood with a certain feel.

Historically changes happened, but we're confined to what the zone allowed. You have a quiet street? Street remains quiet, as there is only so much house that can be built next door.

But with this the house next door can be torn down and a quadplex could be put in place.

That is an extremely risky thing that home buyers need to consider when they're paying extra just to be in a certain part of the city.

The risk is exacerbated by the piecemeal why in which this is occurring.

The authority will generally only rezone the quadplex’s lot and not the whole neighborhood, leaving your home with the costs of greater density, but without the value of less restrictive zoning.

I see you are getting downvoted, but I think you are right.

People spend a lot of money finding a neighborhood and home they like. If you build next to a huge open field, you need to assume it could become anything. But if you build in a neighborhood that is built out, you like the feel of, and then it suddenly changes... that's a scary prospect.

Unless you buy a home simply to rent it out to others, you need to be an active participant in its affairs. At the bare minimum, it means staying abreast in what’s going on. Any responsible homebuyer would have done their due diligence in at least asking the realtor what is the current trend of the local community, long before any papers are signed. Zoning law changes should never come as a “sudden” surprise, especially since they are universally a source of controversy.

I'm going to guess you might be young? People in my neighborhood have owned their houses for decades. Are you saying that someone buying a house in 1988 should have foreseen all the changes in the following 35 years?

If you’ve been living in the same neighborhood in 35 years you should be even more familiar with the changes going on to it, hell, you should even be an active participant in aiding or resisting change if you’re such a firmly-established local. There should be no surprises if you’ve been there since 1988. The talk of “suddenly changes” - which is the whole point of this subthread - does not apply to you.

And then 8 people show up at a city council meeting and set you on a path of financial ruin. The whole point of american government is that it shouldnt interfere with your life.

Local homeowners are an incredibly powerful bloc and have successfully thwarted development and upzoning in myriads of communities. The idea of “outside agitators” coming in and having the power to change your community is a specious, pernicious myth. It also undercuts the principles of American democracy. If you want things to stay exactly the way they are, then you must fight for it, you cannot expect others to do it for you.

> The idea of “outside agitators” coming in and having the power to change your community is a specious, pernicious myth.

Pessimistically, one could view the missions of HFH and and many HUD programs (esp. FHA) as exactly that. Every house built, bought, or renovated can affect change, and external assistance can tilt the changes. Ditto big developers coming in to "revitalize" urban areas.

However, while I would agree that local government is still generally pretty answerable to local voters, state and federal grants and other "external" sources of money can and do alter their priorities. Changing demographics, esp. simple population growth, can attenuate or amplify various voting blocs over time. Most change happens very slowly at first, but then suddenly accelerates.

No matter your politics, I think there are good examples of this. Whether it be poorer neighborhoods that suddenly get gentrified after decades of stability, pricing out families who've lived there for generations, or richer neighborhoods that suddenly get a low-cost complex built nearby to qualify for a grant or comply with a DOJ "consent agreement", the character of a neighborhood _can_ change quickly even if it generally _doesn't_. In these situations, the most that participating in local government will get you is advance warning, which is a lot less useful for the poorer example than the richer one.

That is a much more nuanced and even-handed description of the state of things than a simplistic “housing activists have invaded my council meeting” bogeyman.

Sorry you lost me at "american democracy".

It is simply an echo of “the whole point of american government is […].” Did you lose yourself too while writing your own comment?

No, as in the pernicious myth is that american democracy is a thing, that it ever existed, that it ever will exist, and/or that such a thing would be desirable.

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity.

Its a political topic, and you have taken an ideological stance towards it. If you want to say this topic shouldnt be on hacker news, I agree with you. Conversely, if you cant take the heat then get out of the kitchen.

Avowing extremist positions is indulging in trolling and unsubstantiative. It is also (con)ceding your position as indefensible and not worth talking about.

That itself is a product of current culture. Since the Second World War the expectation in most places is that cities and towns get built and then just grow with new permanent neighbourhoods. Nothing changes, the city just gets appended to.

On the other hand someone living in New York City in 1900 would have no expectation of their area staying the same forever - things were constantly getting replaced because that was the culture of the the time - replace something old with something better.

This is probably just a product of the car making it practical to throw up new far flung developments instead of modifying the development of existing dense areas.

Robert Caro’s “The power broker” talks about that for anyone looking for a quick read. Hundreds of thousands of people displaced for the “better” of the community.

It is scary. But so what, it’s not that one bought the right to not have things change. If one doesn’t want things to change around them, they have to buy the land around them, easy as that. The market will fix take care of it.

No, historically (as in, the rules that were in effect when all the beloved neighborhoods were created), if you wanted to built apartments, you could.

In most American cities, that rule wasn’t changed until the 1970’s, when the Supreme Court ruled that you couldn’t overtly discriminate by race. So all the white neighborhoods switched to this indirect way to maintain the status quo.

I'm not going to argue with the past because it's true and unfortunate.

But what I don't like, and distracts from the debate, is that anyone that says they want to live on a quiet SFH street is a racist or "hates the pores". It is antagonizing and just pushes more people away from your cause.

There’s a difference between “if you like this policy, you’re a racist” and “this policy has historically harmed people of color”.

If you want to live in a quiet SFH while benefiting from the amenities of urban or suburban life then yes, you should understand that you're seeking some kind of exclusivity and not everyone will be able to afford that. There are plenty of quieter outlying areas where people can have their larger homes more cheaply, but at the cost of being more isolated and directly dependent on transportation.

It's not just about the status quo or racial homogeneity. Every time I've lived in multi-unit dwellings I have had to deal with the following problems caused by neighbors:

1. Smoking. Maybe not such a problem in a brand-new dwelling with well isolated HVAC but it is a serious problem in older construction with poorly isolated HVAC. The negative effects vary from one room being smoky sometimes (usually a bathroom) to the entire place being unlivable at certain times of day.

2. Loud noises late at night. This can be parties, heavy footfalls, old pipes that clang or ring, animals, etc.

3. Pets. Besides the noise, the animals can be aggressive and their owners may not clean up their waste.

4. Water damage. If you can't tear the place down to the studs and rafters, you can't get rid of mold.

You can try to ask people to change, you can try to get the landlord involved, you can even get the cops involved. But it's a lot of hassle, it rarely fixes the problem long-term, and you will be seen as "that guy" who causes trouble.

Nobody’s seeking to forcibly evict homeowners and seize their property. If you like your house, you can keep it.

Ok, cool?

I don't think that was the issue at hand.

You listed a bunch of reasons that you personally don’t want to live in an apartment building, but the issue at hand is whether other people should be allowed to build them on the land they own.

Ok, as I understood it, you were saying that the primary reason why zoning has become less flexible is that white homeowners used the zoning process to maintain discrimination.

I was challenging that. Though my experience may not be universal, I don't think all of those issues are unique to me.

You say that as if the prospect of such disturbances weren't used as a pretext for discrimination - because, of course, "those people" are loud/smoke/have rotties and pitbulls/don't take care of the property they're renting. /s The characterization also ignores that the reason those things (lax maintenance, smoking indoors as sequela of tobacco company propaganda/anti-marijuana laws, etc.) do occasionally happen are closely intertwined with social disregard for marginalized groups. In other words, treatment of a symptom, not the cause.

GP's point is that it's difficult to solve the issue without acknowledging that we made a stupid policy decision predicated mostly on class and racial hysteria. If we recognize those decisions for what they are and stop making them, maybe we can get somewhere. It's quite unlikely that your local zoning board forbade duplexes and low-rises 50 years ago because they were concerned about mold.

I have dealt firsthand with all of those things, I didn't make them up. It can't be a mere "pretext" if it's real. I think there's more to the story than just SFH vs multi-unit, of course, but there's a pretty strong correlation in my experience, much stronger than anything racial.

Myself and the other poster are asking you politely to stow your ego and self-interested focus, and to think about why sweeping, nationwide changes in policy might have come about. I don't deny that you've experienced those issues firsthand; I'm saying it doesn't matter.

Put yourself in the time period: babes born after MLK was assasinated aren't even in elementary school yet, and we're at the height of white flight and the Marlboro Man and asbestos-infused flooring. You can't seriously hold that the shift to SFH-only zoning was predicated on smoking and mold concerns, can you?

If you honestly believe that such concerns, wholly divorced from racial and class politics, were the impetus for this shift, you're being irrational, and selfish. I apologize, because I know saying so can be considered rude, but it is the crux of our disagreement: it's not about you. Your personal concerns do not, by themselves, define the scope of a national problem.

This is unnecessarily antagonistic. People are allowed to bring their personal experiences to the table, and just because you don't think that those, alone, change the big picture - which is a perfectly reasonable thing to point out - that doesn't mean that they should simply not share those experiences or the opinions that are informed by them. It certainly doesn't make them "ego(tistical)", "irrational", and "selfish". There's just no reason to treat people this way.

In this case, it does. It (and accusations of incivility) is also right in-line with the historically racist and classist character of these discussions. You think that you're being polite, but it's a "measured" tone in service of monstrous ends: continuing a status quo that sees Americans routinely without shelter, or insecure in it. It is selfish, it is irrational, it is egotistical.

So you're saying that it is about the status quo, where living in a multi-unit dwelling means having to put up with terrible neighbors. This will not be as much of a problem if you own a condo, where the HOA is there to enact policies that deal with these issues as they arise.

I don't consider wanting to avoid the dizziness, headaches, and nausea I get as a non-smoker from prolonged exposure to tobacco smoke to be the same thing as me trying to preserve the status quo. It may be my "status quo" to not be constantly exposed to tobacco smoke, but it's not "the" status quo.

Condos _are_ better, but they are also more expensive. As far as I can tell, where I live, condos are closer in cost (including fees) to townhomes or even single-family homes than they are to apartments in regular complexes. They may have benefits, but affordability isn't one of them.

Affordability is relative, a condo unit can still be more affordable than a SFH sitting on the exact same lot. It makes sense to have a range of options rather than force everyone to pick either the lowest (rented flat) or most exclusive (single-family dwelling) quality of housing.

Yeah, I think you're getting at the other big reason for zoning inflexibility: property value. High asset prices and a dearth of other reliable ways to grow wealth have caused many to prioritize the sticker prices of their houses over the livability of their neighborhoods.

I think smoking has become much less common. I rent in Cambridge, MA and my lease prohibits smoking of any kind, which I think is standard. Once the landlord sent out an angry email threatening eviction if someone in our building didn't stop smoking. Smoking in the outdoor courtyard is also specifically forbidden.

My most recent rental experiences are from 2021 (urban MD) and 2023 (suburban MS).

That's an oversimplification. For example, in the neighborhood I lived in years ago in Flatbush, they had a single family covenant in place since the 19th century.

This topic is one of those that suffers particularly from the noise of petty race-based paintbrushing. Obvious the villains you're referring to exist, but if you're white and object to some construction that will have a non-negligible negative impact on the preexisting residents, there is nigh universally a voice accusing you of hating poor people or whatever race is disproportionately represented among your poor population, despite the fact that pretty much anybody of any race would have (and do have) the same objection in that circumstance. You certainly should question the unjust historical and cultural reasons why white people are lucky enough to be in that situation more often to begin with, but it doesn't make them different or justify calling them out based on their race or encouraging hatred of them ("all the white neighborhoods").

Addressed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39420084

So a double policy win then?

So the risk needs to be priced in then? Lower housing prices? Yes please

I too want to see housing prices come down, but I think the only "safe" way to do it is to keep interest rates high. Setting aside recessions (and their undesirable/punitive effects), housing affordability seems to be inversely related to credit availability. I think this is explained primarily through two mechanisms:

1. compounding interest drastically penalizes higher principal amounts

2. at lower interest rates, debt is more advantageous than savings

I'd argue that interest rates still aren't high enough yet, and they will need to stay high for a decade or more, in order for these mechanisms to really manifest virtuously. We had a great opportunity during the pandemic, when people weren't spending much, they were saving a lot, and they became more focused on taking care of themselves and considering their choices. Sadly, post-pandemic, we went on a ZIRP spree to try to "get the economy back on track" which did employ a bunch of people (for a little while anyway) but put us fiscally in a position even worse than before the pandemic.

I think it's an interesting question to ponder. If neighbourhood character was so important and valuable, what would be the fairest way to enforce/preserve it, while not hideously distorting the market?

In other words, under the legacy zoning system, its true that buying into a neighbourhood basically gave you a decade+ guarantee on the character staying similar. And yes, the desirability translates into higher prices. Except that the higher prices only flow to the person selling the house (ie, the person who is LEAVING the neighborhood), and is highly concentrated. Where-as the negative externalities (reduced housing stock) are borne by everyone else. Yes, the extra value is reflected in property taxes, but I don't think that really reflects properly... and definitely isn't helping control housing costs.

If a substantial portion of the neighbourhood character is coming from the zoning laws, then actually the people who are residing there are contributing just as much to the maintenance of that aspect as everyone else in the city. The people living in the neighbourhood are doing very little day to day to maintain that aspect of the neighbourhood they find attractive. In other words, the -city- is generating that value, not the people living there.

Perhaps there could be a mechanism where-by the extra value of "locking down" a zone to SFH was instead redirected to other neighbourhoods? Differential property taxes based on zoning or lot density?

This is a perceived risk only because of the status quo. You're almost arguing for a national or at least statewide zoning policy. This would make the "risk" uniform.

I am now in France and this seems to be the case everywhere: multi-million euro villas next door to apartment complexes. Houses of all styles and with odd-shaped lots. Etc. This is the status quo here and nobody complains. And the prices are as high as in the US, if not higher.

While allowing ADUs is all well and good, zoning has traditionally been excessively strict and often historically discriminatory, but there is going too far with land-use policy anarchy. Defenestrating essential regs like height restrictions or setbacks leads to subtle, long duration unintended consequences like eventual neighborhood ugliness and devaluation, unfair shadowing for months per year without direct sunlight, fire hazards, and blight. For example, without commercial and residential zoning, a convenience store or dollar store could decide to invade a residential only neighborhood, bringing quality of life issues like littering and loitering, ruining property values. On one hand, strict zoning is fair because everyone must meet an explicit set of standards. On the other hand, vague housing policies will lead to selective enforcement, new kinds of bias and discrimination, and unintentional variance leading to a decay of feng shui and community fragmentation.

PS: So don't be Austin or Houston. ;o]

amazing, we need more housing supply

I am at the center of this locally. We are seeing neighborhoods of houses be approved for 10 story housing buildings.

In effect, we are glorifying building tenements when what we really need to do is change zoning laws to allow for smaller homes.

Approving building of additional homes would have helped 10 or 20 years ago. I suppose the metaphor is of ignoring the doctor when advised to reduce cholesterol and then ignoring again when prescribed statins, and then being surprised when you now need a bypass surgery.

This is not true even in San Francisco. The population is barely now recovering from covid.

This is entirely about cities needing to grow their payroll tax to overcome their losses in retail and CRE.

No, it is about the exorbitant cost of housing in SF + the very real benefits from agglomeration

you need to do both but I think it's better for the smaller homes thing to come second because that has lots of negative outcomes if you implement that when there is a shortage (i.e. you supply a lot of tiny units that noone will want once supply and demand come back into balance from higher density and then you end up spending a lot of unnecessary resources demolishing/rebuiling/combining). My bigger concern around this higher density is uneven reconfiguration of the transportation corridors to accommodate more walking/cycling/non stupid transit (i.e. subway/lrt/trams and other forms that aren't sharing the road and therefore getting stuck in the car congestion). If you build much higher density and still expect everyone to get around by car, that's a disaster in itself.

I know this is an unpopular opinion in the US, but the tenements can be pretty great.

I grew up in Eastern Europe (Warsaw) in "commie" blocks and there was a lot of valid criticisms and problems (like poor quality of buildings, small apartments, or thin walls - but consider that they rebuilt whole Warsaw after it was completely grounded in WW2 in a decade or two!), but also a lot to love. Extremely walkable, safe, all amenities (cinemas, stores, cultural centers, playgrounds) in the walking distance, lots of trees and green, easy access to public transit. As a kid or teenager they were great. I preferred it 100x over suburbs where my parents moved later, and to typical American cityscapes. (And this is why I moved to NYC and love it)

Here is a fun and a bit provocative/exaggerated video https://youtu.be/1eIxUuuJX7Y

Everyone is different so I'm not forcing my perspective onto anyone, just worth considering - especially if you have not had such first hand experience (and the main objection to tenements comes from how depressing they look or American association of "projects = crime", which misses a lot of "why"). Feel free to disagree!

And apart from that, I don't think "more of small houses" solves anything. It has to create more car dependence and social isolation. And it does not really scale, where would you fit more of smaller homes in SF?

"Everyone is different"

I think this is the root of it. You prefer higher density -- and that's great. I'm sure not everyone agrees, but I don't see any reason to take that away. In fact, I think it should be encouraged for those that like it.

The issue, IMHO, is that some folks don't like that and prefer lower density. And a lot of these changes focus on taking that away from them (i.e. changing their current neighborhood).

Also, just a comment on: "It has to create more car dependence and social isolation"

I don't think that's true. I live in a pretty traditional SFH neighborhood. Within a 12 minute bike ride, I have:

* Four grocery stores (Major chains)

* 2 gyms

* Dozens of restaurants

* Several large parks

* 2 home improvement stores

* Several large employers

* Several (non-Starbucks) coffee shops

And lots more. It's certainly possible, with bikes, to have SFH neighborhoods where cars aren't required.

There are lots of less dense places in the US that are not major metros.

Many of the people who are pissed about more density coming to cities only moved to them in the last decade or two, especially on the east coast where white flight only recently reversed.

I lived in SF for ~1.5y, and it's not NYC, and I did not like it too much, but it certainly has some of the city conveniences and is not a car-hell suburb. (I lived in a building with ~10 units in Castro, which was cool)

But my question remains - how do you scale up your approach to the already-full SF? How do you make it more affordable, as prices are insane due to demand >> supply? Or do you just envision a more sprawled, but similarly dense SF as the solution?

I'm not sure existing cities can evolve themselves to fully solve these problems.

There are Americans that want affordable housing in densely populated areas that are also car centric. Hard to get all of three of those requirements. There are other Americans who already have a home in their ideal neighborhood and don't want change. The two groups are just incongruent.

Affordable housing is possible, but it requires a number of drivers:

1) Don't make policies that disincentivize developers. 2) Don't turn homes into financial assets. 3) Don't build the city around cars. 4) Don't romanticize the single family residence (SFR) home.

This might require brand new cities to be built — where these promises can be set from the get go.

That depends on how much power you give the locals. Sometimes the state level has power to disempower the local NIMBYs. Like with SB-9. https://www.fullstackeconomics.com/p/how-california-plans-to...

Good point.

Speaking of incongruent ideas, I think your #1 and #2 are contradictory.

Financialization is an important part of getting markets to meet demand. If you can’t “speculate” on future demand, then developers will not be able to build houses in anticipation of future residents.

The government can both subsidize development with low construction loan rates and disincentivize owners from flipping homes for quick profits. There are places where capital gains rates on home sales are onerous if sold before ten years. Both can be true at the same time. The likely oversupply of homes in this scenario is what most people would reject.

Woohoo! More apartments so we can expand the percentage of the population that can be permanently enslaved by rent! Yay! We’re doing it everyone!

What? More housing means prices go down. You seem to be under the impression that apartments == renting and houses == owning, which is not true at all.

Really? That’s fascinating because there’s an explosion of apartments in my metro and rents have went… up! So I’m sure in whatever fairytale Econ 101 world you live in that’s the case, but not in the real world.

The amount of housing deficit we have in the United States will never be aided by building more apartments.

If the demand for housing increases faster than the supply increases then yes prices will still go up. They just go up less than they would if supply hadn’t increased.

Even the cities in the US that are building aren’t building nearly fast enough.

In desirable areas, the new buildings create new demand AND supply. It doesn't ever balance.

Wait. Im super confused. If building more housing doesn’t help with a lack of housing, what does? Genuinely asking. I know it’s more complicated than “just build housing bro” but I’ve never heard of a policy that says don’t build any new housing?!

If the only places that get built are up-market. Then wherever they get built rents will rise… this makes it challenging to support blanket construction proposals unless you as an individual own, or can afford top-of-market rent.

Then isn’t the solution still building more?? I’m so, so confused here!

Unfortunately, this is where micro and macro economics diverge.

If you take the position that housing will likely always be underbuilt and any new construction in your area will lead to higher rents. Then supporting construction just means higher rent a for you - without any benefit.

If we ever actually built enough, then as an individual you should be able to move to a better/cheaper apartment when new construction happens. This hasn't happened in the last 20+ years of urban development.

There may be a time delay for the effect to be felt.

But more directly (excuse my directness) building a nice new apt building in your area may actually increase rent in your area. But it may decrease rent in other areas, as people move into your area.

Weather is not climate, and your neighborhood is not "The Economy".

And in general, we should expect rents to increase over time, but hopefully at a much slower rate as we build more.

This is as stupid as saying people aren’t traffic.

I think there's a third party here that you're actually talking to, not me.

>>The amount of housing deficit we have in the United States will never be aided by building more apartments

Then... How? What are we missing? :)

Also.

We have to be careful of causation VS correlation VS confounding factors.

I. E. If your area was undergoing gentrification and That's why developers built more apartments, that's the true explanation for rise in prices. And still those apartments in your area may have relieved pressure somewhere else!

Going from one specific personal experience to global math is tempting but tricky.

The thing you’re not seeing is

a)how much pent-up demand there is.

b)how many people are moving in daily.

It might look like there’s a lot of housing going up, but if there were 1.5x that many households trying to move in during the same time period, it would still be getting bid up (and more roommate situations allowing higher bids - we used to share a 3BR 3 ways, but now we’re all making good money and have split into 3 homes). Most cities have been massively under building, compared to the number of new residents coming in, for a very long time. There’s been a tsunami of people moving from rural to urban areas, while residents have been resisting change. You’re not going to fix that with 10 new towers per year.

There's a fallacy going on with this kind of anecdote (observing both increases in housing and increases in pricing concurrently), namely not being able to observe the counterfactual of NOT adding housing (but keeping all other socio-economic factors constant). What would go on with rent in that scenario?

Yes, rents are going up today... but it's quite possible they would be going up MORE (on average) if the new housing wasn't being added. Unfortunately, not many Randomized Control Trials for housing economics.

Housing developers are incentivized to select locations for projects that will serve increasing rents, increasing population, increasing incomes, etc. They spend a lot of effort on understanding demographic and economic trends. Projects are often 3-4 years from conception to delivery. The causal chain is essentially: Do Market Research -> Select Project Type/Location Expected to Outperform (Financially) -> Build Housing (Hopefully Where Rents Go Up) -> Make $$. The observed concurrency of More Housing and Higher Rents is actually a "Thesis Proven Correct" thing from the perspective of the investors, lenders, etc. But the causality (more housing CAUSES higher rents) isn't quite as simple as outside observers sometimes think it is.

FWIW, there are real problems with having most of the housing creation/provision mediated through this profit motive. Developers stop producing housing once the profit expectations decrease to the point that capital is expected to achieve higher returns in other asset classes (capital is mobile, it will flee the asset class if there are better opportunities elsewhere). This point of slowing/stopping housing creation (at the margin) is often far short of what most people would consider socially optimal. But that's the logic of capitalism. I'm simply approaching this more from a "how things are" perspective not a "how things should be" perspective.

Disclosure: I'm a tech/stats/finance guy turned real estate developer

Does anyone have an equation that combines "Location Location Location" and "Supply/Demand" when it comes to housing costs?

I see this argued frequently and haven't made up my mind. Yes, Supply Demand hold true, however housing is slow moving. And, as "Locations" get more desirable (mostly through jobs), prices go up.

what? that "equation" is just "supply / demand"

as locations get more desirable, demand goes up.

Yes exactly. Prices are high because demand is high. So you build more housing, but the demand is still increasing and creating housing is slow. So you never catch up, the most expensive real estate is always desirable and always high price, no matter how much you build.

A common response to this is a thought experiment where you dump 100% vacancy, prices must come down. But that can't happen, building density is still slow no matter what. I'm talking in the most dense areas in the U.S. like Manhattan.

It isn't that simple, NYC is a good example. If you build a lot of new condos often that area gets gentrified and prices go up.

This has been studied, and the research doesn't seem to support this view. Here's a good review of the recent research that finds that increasing housing supply slows rent growth and in some cases even causes rents to fall and that gentrification doesn't cause significant displacement of low-income households. [1]

[1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4629628 (You have to make a free account, annoyingly, but you don't have to pay anything to access the paper.)

when has increased density ever actually lead to decreased prices?

Lots of building is a symptom of rising prices that also helps reduce the price increases.

Places with rising prices will generally also see increasing density, but if they increased density faster the prices would not increase as much or even decrease.

It’s hard to come up with a counterfactual. My hometown, DC, is very popular right now and is also building quite a bit of housing and rents aren’t accelerating like they are in similar places like Boston.

You think a single family home sitting on a 10 acre plot in the middle of Manhattan would be less expensive than an apartment in the same location?

If New York City were full of SFHs sitting on 10 acre plots, it seems like it might be more comparable to Halifax? I see a listing for a 1500 sq ft home on 13 acres for C$650k on Zillow.

To be fair, I do see a 39th floor 3 bedroom Manhattan condo for only $620k, but the HOA fee is $8k/month, which might be a little steep.

Right, and building a 39 story skyrise in Halifax wouldn’t suddenly make every single family home worth $15 million.

You’re forgetting about condos.

Which are nearly as worthless because most apartments are not for sale and condos come with their own rent-like fees.

But those “rent-like fees” are not rents. HOA maintenance fees, while irritating, have no bearing on whether someone gas ownership over a condo or not. Do you decry SFH because you have to pay property tax, are they also “rent-like fees” which cause residents to be “permanently enslaved by rent”?

I think most housing should be in the form of single-family homes or in property that you own outright. So, yeah, ideally I don’t think people should have to pay property taxes.

But you need schools funded, streets maintained, etc.

Edit: Of course they’re maintenance fees; you don’t get to decide what’s being maintained or to what standard.

Why? Because you don’t own it.

Then your caviling about condos is wrongheaded, because you can actually own them (and townhouses) outright. The “rent-like fees” are often for maintenance costs for shared infrastructure in complexes.

Do you even know what you’re complaining about?

Also missing is that many (especially new) SFH developments have HOA's that can be nearly as restrictive and heavy handed as some condo boards.

When buying real estate there is plenty of documentation explaining exactly what you are owning and what you don't. If you don't find the price fits the description of what you're buying, you aren't in any obligation to follow through until a mutual deal has been made.

Yeah, I don’t agree that you truly own your home in an HOA when they tell you that you can’t paint your house a particular color, etc.

And you can't do whatever you'd like to the sidewalk in front of your SFH. In fact, you can't even do plenty on your property without getting permits from the city. So perhaps the practical distinction is merely a difference in degrees.

https://web.archive.org/web/20071012030337/http://www.dallas...

https://www.cyburbia.org/forums/threads/restricting-paint-co...

Clearly a better alternative to let them die on the streets rather than the unthinkable alternative of having to share walls with a neighbor.

Sharing walls is better than no walls.

I wonder if we need more SROs, single residency occupant, with shared bathrooms, or boarding houses with shared kitchens. Or might be fine with small studio apartments with bathroom and kitchen.

What really need is three bedroom apartments for families or shared housing.

Hopefully the satire in my original comment was obvious - if not, I'll clarify that it was satire.

The priority should be to house everyone before any considerations such as home equity or other concerns are even up for consideration.

Building more housing is like building more freeways. It doesn’t work. Within a generation, housing costs are back to normal Levels—but now everything is uglier, there is less nature, and the earth suffers. Urban jungles and tenement slums are not sustainable. Humans need a check to prevent them from overrunning the earth breeding. That check is habitat control.

I don't believe that any of this is true. Building more housing does (provably) lower housing prices. And developed urban areas are more environmentally friendly than suburbs. People are going to live somewhere, and density actually has environmental benefits.

But what is "habitat control"? I've never heard of that.

Look beyond a five or ten year time horizon. More housing has been built continuously in the US for hundreds of years. Berkeley has existed for more than 150 yesrs. Did all of this building lower prices? No. It just encouraged people to have more children or to move into an area. Prices then move back up to the equilibrium point.

If anything, building more housing reduces slums.

edit: The parent comment was edited after my reply, so now mine is a nonsequitor

https://www.irp.wisc.edu/resource/many-rural-americans-are-s...

Your point?

Removing blockers to having more children and opening up more availability for people to move into their desired areas are good things.

But we need people to have children. Discouraging people from having children by limiting the housing stock would be terrible for the economy and for people.

The “Most Dystopian Point” award goes to…

Worst infant mortality, no healthcare, infinite wars every 20 years, dual incomes required, forever chemicals, highly processed food, no mandated maternity leave, wealth disparity worse than the French Revolution, on and on and on.

Maybe we SHOULD destroy the economy ?

I just think that depopulation via restricting housing would make things a lot worse than any dystopia we’re currently facing

That’s an excellent point.

> habitat control.

Not really, if you want to reduce the human population, ie lower the birth rate, it’s really about education: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3449224/

Additionally, the problem we have is sprawl, and upzoning fixes spraw. After that we then have the problem of how people get around, and the reliance on the car in the US and other places is a major problem. Most urban downtowns are only unpleasant when they are mixed with dangerous levels of car traffic.

"Building more housing is like building more freeways."

Possibly. But what building freeways does exactly is itself not uncontroversial. The article in this HN thread isn't great, but some of the comments are at least thought-provoking.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39353710

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