Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikem170 | Hacker News Reader

It's my understanding that houses in Japan are zoned to allow a percentage of the space to be used for a low-impact business, like the coffee shop in the article, and that bigger businesses are allowed on the bigger roads and in dedicated commercial/industrial districts. Also most houses can be converted to triplexes, too. This helps with density, encouraging more businesses nearby, less need for cars, better quality of social life, etc.

I see what you mean about the potential for abuse - maybe Big Money would buy all the houses and run small businesses from them? But regulations or taxes could be used to dissuade them. Theoretically, anyways.

I wondered if Japan does anything along those lines to avoid the problems you mentioned, but google ain't what it used to be and I wasn't able to find specifics.

View on HN

Some more context for Japan's land use (it does not differ prefecturally; some local regulations like kyoto and building colors)

The basics of Japan's Land use rules in english (only 8 pages; mostly tables/pictures and very straightforward): https://www.mlit.go.jp/common/001050453.pdf

- In the "Control of Building Use by Land Use Zones" you can see how even the most exclusive of zoning enables "Houses with other small scale function", Clinics, Schools or stores with very small footprints.

- Structures are restricted by the shape, shadow, and floor area.

- No mention of "single-family" housing.

A map (of Tokyo) overlaying the gradient of zoning from least to most permissive. You can see how the up-zoning follows the major roads: https://tokyochizu.github.io/zoning.html

Your last link of zoning density is incredibly cool. Did you create it?

Yes, it just uses the shapefile from the tokyo open data site.

https://catalog.data.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/dataset/t000008d00000...

It's a quarto site so if you navigate to the repository of the github page you can see the python code used to generate the map/choropleth.

> I see what you mean about the potential for abuse - maybe Big Money would buy all the houses and run small businesses from them? But regulations or taxes could be used to dissuade them. Theoretically, anyways.

This isn't actually possible because owning a lot of houses is not a good business. That's why almost all landlords are small-time and not corporate. Houses are depreciating assets, so if you own more of them it's just more chances you'll have to pay for a roof replacement.

In particular in Japan, houses are worth less than nothing and you may have to pay to demolish yours if you sell it! (Less true than it used to be because construction quality has gotten a lot better.)

I am not here to nit pick about this post, but this made me think:

    > owning a lot of houses is not a good business

Generally, I agree. What do you think makes commercial (office) buildings different? Probably 90% are owned by insurance companies, private equity, and pension funds. My guess: Scale matters. Also, maybe I am blinded by big cities, but second tier cities and below might have lots of small fry landlords that own one or two small commercial buildings

Office buildings are different because companies have more money and lower standards (for acceptable density) than residents.

I'm not sure, but I know everything about CRE is totally different from residential.

Office buildings are generally larger, and the tenants are more professional and more likely to pay for maintenance themselves.

> Houses are depreciating assets

.. which sit on top of the ultimate appreciating asset: land.

> That's why almost all landlords are small-time and not corporate.

https://wustllawreview.org/2023/12/27/corporate-consolidatio...

"Ownership of the nation’s rental housing stock is in transition. The approximately twenty million rental properties in the United States, and fifty million rental units within those properties, have been steadily shifting from individual to corporate hands".

Rent is profitable and the housing shortage is difficult to solve.

Almost no single-family houses in the US are rental properties. That's talking about apartments.

> Rent is profitable and the housing shortage is difficult to solve.

If a home is being rented out it's not contributing to the housing shortage though.

Missing the point. As long as an area has a shortage of housing rentals will likely remain a good investment.

That said I have to disagree that the housing shortage is difficult to solve, at least in a technical sense. It's due almost entirely to poor urban planning and infrastructure management. The problem is entirely political.

Then again, political issues can be some of the most difficult to make progress on so perhaps I agree after all.

I understand that to be one of the differences in approach to zoning, zones and buildings are considered on a spectrum of "impact". A high impact building like an industrial plant shouldn't be too close to low impact buildings like a single dwelling. But because it's a spectrum you get a natural mix of low, medium, and high impact buildings. A large residential complex might be considered medium impact and so can go next to a shopping complex that is also medium to high impact etc.

I would imagine that a great deal of Tokyo's megalopolis fits nicely in the medium impact zone, allowing housing, small scale manufacturing and commerce to mingle in an organic way.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com