5 ms·

It's kind of rediculous that the article ends with a picture of the apartment building and it is barely 4 stories tall, and on either side are 2 story suburban

It's kind of rediculous that the article ends with a picture of the apartment building and it is barely 4 stories tall, and on either side are 2 story suburban dwellings. Walk down any block of brownstones and in NYC and you'll note even the 100+ year old brownstones are 5 stories tall. At that height you still don't even need elevators or any of the other special systems that go into tall buildings. The owner simply prices the 5th floor walk up at a lower price, which actually turns out to be a win if your goal is affordability. We're not suffering from a lack of space, just a lack of permissive zoning.

Spooky23 11y ago
There was no ADA in 1910. IIRC, if you have more than 4 units, you need an elevator. Elevators cost a fortune to install and represent a significant ongoing cost for a landlord. Landlords avoid incurring costs at all costs. Also, you need to incur more costs for things like fire escapes in taller buildings, need to build to a higher standard, and have to figure out issues like parking that get more complicated at higher density. ...Or you can just throw up some 4-story disposable building, milk it for 10-years, then offload it to another property manager who squeezes the pennies out of the property. The economics don't make sense, which is why they don't get built.
- saosebastiao 11y ago
  I live in an 8 floor building with two elevators that seem to break every other week...and yet despite that ongoing expense, our total HOA fees are less that $600/yr. That is half of what I pay for a parking spot that needs no maintenance. Elevators aren't a ridiculous expense.
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    A two-stop hydraulic elevator costs about $70k, depending on where you are. Maintenance is around $3k/year, plus about $500-900 in energy. If it's being appropriately maintained, a traction elevator like what is in an 8-story building can cost 2-5x more in annual maintenance.
- krschultz 11y ago
  I would argue requiring parking and elevators fall exactly into my point that the problem is restrictive zoning. In the general sense the solution here should not be forcing people to make do with terrible living situations, it should be fixing the laws causing these problems. If you want more ADA units, require a certain % are ADA compliant. That basically means in larger buildings the first floor units will all be ADA. Do we really need the elevator? Do we really need to still mandate off street parking a world of Uber and soon self driving cars?
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    That's not what the law says. If the building was built after 1991, residents and employees with disabilities must be able to reasonably access all apartments, period. Re: Uber, etc. I do not live in the future, nor do the people next door. So if you put a 20 story high-rise on my street, there will be no place for the people to park their cars. The tech world's focus on disruption and telling everyone to go fuck off is really irritating. Nobody cares about disabilities until they need to deal with such a situation. Declaring cars irrelevant is a completely absurd position for something like 90% of the US population, but hey, lets screw up the neighborhood anyway!
saosebastiao 11y ago
> We're not suffering from a lack of space, just a lack of permissive zoning. Exactly. In Seattle, the big bogeyman is Manhattanization. But even Brooklynization with its midrise density that is common throughout pockets of Seattle could allow for a 6x increase in the population living within Seattle. A little bit of zoning flexibility can go a long way.

Spooky23 11y ago

There was no ADA in 1910. IIRC, if you have more than 4 units, you need an elevator. Elevators cost a fortune to install and represent a significant ongoing cost for a landlord. Landlords avoid incurring costs at all costs. Also, you need to incur more costs for things like fire escapes in taller buildings, need to build to a higher standard, and have to figure out issues like parking that get more complicated at higher density. ...Or you can just throw up some 4-story disposable building, milk it for 10-years, then offload it to another property manager who squeezes the pennies out of the property. The economics don't make sense, which is why they don't get built.

saosebastiao 11y ago
I live in an 8 floor building with two elevators that seem to break every other week...and yet despite that ongoing expense, our total HOA fees are less that $600/yr. That is half of what I pay for a parking spot that needs no maintenance. Elevators aren't a ridiculous expense.
- Spooky23 11y ago
  A two-stop hydraulic elevator costs about $70k, depending on where you are. Maintenance is around $3k/year, plus about $500-900 in energy. If it's being appropriately maintained, a traction elevator like what is in an 8-story building can cost 2-5x more in annual maintenance.
krschultz 11y ago
I would argue requiring parking and elevators fall exactly into my point that the problem is restrictive zoning. In the general sense the solution here should not be forcing people to make do with terrible living situations, it should be fixing the laws causing these problems. If you want more ADA units, require a certain % are ADA compliant. That basically means in larger buildings the first floor units will all be ADA. Do we really need the elevator? Do we really need to still mandate off street parking a world of Uber and soon self driving cars?
- Spooky23 11y ago
  That's not what the law says. If the building was built after 1991, residents and employees with disabilities must be able to reasonably access all apartments, period. Re: Uber, etc. I do not live in the future, nor do the people next door. So if you put a 20 story high-rise on my street, there will be no place for the people to park their cars. The tech world's focus on disruption and telling everyone to go fuck off is really irritating. Nobody cares about disabilities until they need to deal with such a situation. Declaring cars irrelevant is a completely absurd position for something like 90% of the US population, but hey, lets screw up the neighborhood anyway!

saosebastiao 11y ago

> We're not suffering from a lack of space, just a lack of permissive zoning. Exactly. In Seattle, the big bogeyman is Manhattanization. But even Brooklynization with its midrise density that is common throughout pockets of Seattle could allow for a 6x increase in the population living within Seattle. A little bit of zoning flexibility can go a long way.