8 ms·

This seems like reasonable regulation. And all of this demand-side management is going to do nothing for affordability. Housing affordability is a supply-side

by pkaler 9y ago

This seems like reasonable regulation. And all of this demand-side management is going to do nothing for affordability. Housing affordability is a supply-side zoning issue and can be fixed very quickly: - Unify/standardize zoning. The entire country of Japan only has about a dozen different zoning types. I see more than a dozen zoning types from my home office window. - Stop going to council for spot upzoning. This should not be a council function. This should be handled by city operations. - Upzone Grandview-Woodland and Hastings-Sunrise from RS-1 to RM-4. RM-4 is how Kitsilano is zoned. TADA! You’ve just created 50,000 housing units and solved the whole problem. Zoning visualization: http://maps.nicholsonroad.com/zones/ http://maps.nicholsonroad.com/zones/

Tiktaalik 9y ago
Sure I mean if we're playing with lines on a graph in a theoretical space then building enough supply can exceed the demand and result in more affordable housing. That's not real life however. In reality supply creation is constrained by real world factors such as time and labour supply and "just add more supply" is not so easy. It takes time. On top of this Airbnb has acted as a sort of friction against supply creation, as when you create a new building, some percentage of the new units were being bought purely to be rented out 100% of the time as a hotel business and were thus never contributing to increasing the vacancy rate. This is why this new policy from the City of Vancouver is explicitly aimed at this sort of Airbnb use. When the City of Vancouver approves a new condo building, which takes years to build, they ideally want 100% of the units in that apartment building available for local renters.
- pkaler 9y ago
  This is not theoretical. This is the exact same process that took place in Victoria, Australia. https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-reform/reformed-zones-for-victoria https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning...
- notatoad 9y ago
  >In reality supply creation is constrained by real world factors such as time and labour supply and "just add more supply" is not so easy. It takes time. Ultimately, supply is constrained by cost. And in Vancouver, that's not an issue - if the regulation allows it, converting a single family home to a multi-unit dwelling is so ridiculously profitable that the solution to the housing crisis is to simply change zoning to allow it, and then wait. "just add more supply" really is that easy if you let the market forces work. yes, it's going to take time, but this problem has been ongoing in Vancouver for much longer now than the amount of time needed to fix it.
  - munk-a 9y ago
    Vancouver has some special geographic considerations that you need to consider and within the downtown core the conversion away from single family units is AFAIK completely done[1]. Density increases in the downtown core are now being down by removing lower density apartment/condo buildings and replacing them with higher density buildings. I am aware that the nearest city (New Westminster) is developing pretty actively, but there is a deadzone in between the two (Burnaby) that seems to have draconian NIMBY zoning laws. Generally speaking, Vancouver's housing crisis is pretty amazingly interesting and probably is more a result of the incredibly poor transit here[2] than anything else. [1] There may be some single family units remaining in the Denman neighborhood and there are some remaining in Strathcona (near east van.) as well as lots in Kitsilano and the south shore in general, but both of these areas are generally considered outside of the downtown core. [2] Oh yea, we have driverless trains, woo... but there are only three transit lines none of which connect to either of our major universities and poor management of the system has left the lines overcapacity.
    - brailsafe 8y ago
      What makes you think transit is poor?
      - PakG1 8y ago
        Compare to a city with great transit, then you know. I used to think that Vancouver transit was great. Then I started working in Shenzhen. Shenzhen and Hong Kong are awesome at public transit, Vancouver sucks. Part of the problem is that it's difficult for public transit in Vancouver to be profitable because the population density is so low.
- icebraining 9y ago
  > takes years to build It only takes about a year in the US: http://eyeonhousing.org/2015/08/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-an-apartment-building/ http://eyeonhousing.org/2015/08/how-long-does-it-take-to-bui...
knuththetruth 9y ago
Supply is part of the problem, but the real culprit is that housing has been financialized and opened up as an investment vehicle for global capital. It doesn’t really matter if you change zoning laws if everything that gets built is to serve this kind of investment. Major cities in the US, such as LA and NYC, simultaneously have huge lots of vacant luxury housing stock and homelessness crises for precisely this reason.Vancouver has obviously taken steps to curb the worst excesses of this, but it’s still vulnerable to this form of “market failure.”
- pkaler 9y ago
  This is not empiracly true for Vancouver. Global capital is flooding into RS-1 and CD-1. There is very little speculation into RM-4.
- eloff 9y ago
  I think this contributes, but it's not the principal problem. The core problem is supply shortage, which given the current astronomical prices has everything to do with zoning. Relax that enough and the market will solve the problem in a matter of years.
  - Tiktaalik 9y ago
    This would be a satisfying solution were it not for the fact that Vancouver's housing starts and completions graph is a giant up and to the right. Vancouver has been building supply. At this point if you're a politician in Vancouver that is promising to solve the problem in a few years you're going to get dumped. People wanted this problem solved yesterday.
    - eloff 9y ago
      It takes years. Whether people like it or not. It's never too late to start doing something about it.
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      Absolute growth in housing supply doesn’t matter. It’s growth in housing supply relative to growth in population.

by pkaler 9y ago

Tiktaalik 9y ago

Sure I mean if we're playing with lines on a graph in a theoretical space then building enough supply can exceed the demand and result in more affordable housing. That's not real life however. In reality supply creation is constrained by real world factors such as time and labour supply and "just add more supply" is not so easy. It takes time. On top of this Airbnb has acted as a sort of friction against supply creation, as when you create a new building, some percentage of the new units were being bought purely to be rented out 100% of the time as a hotel business and were thus never contributing to increasing the vacancy rate. This is why this new policy from the City of Vancouver is explicitly aimed at this sort of Airbnb use. When the City of Vancouver approves a new condo building, which takes years to build, they ideally want 100% of the units in that apartment building available for local renters.

pkaler 9y ago
This is not theoretical. This is the exact same process that took place in Victoria, Australia. https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-reform/reformed-zones-for-victoria https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning...
notatoad 9y ago
>In reality supply creation is constrained by real world factors such as time and labour supply and "just add more supply" is not so easy. It takes time. Ultimately, supply is constrained by cost. And in Vancouver, that's not an issue - if the regulation allows it, converting a single family home to a multi-unit dwelling is so ridiculously profitable that the solution to the housing crisis is to simply change zoning to allow it, and then wait. "just add more supply" really is that easy if you let the market forces work. yes, it's going to take time, but this problem has been ongoing in Vancouver for much longer now than the amount of time needed to fix it.
- munk-a 9y ago
  Vancouver has some special geographic considerations that you need to consider and within the downtown core the conversion away from single family units is AFAIK completely done[1]. Density increases in the downtown core are now being down by removing lower density apartment/condo buildings and replacing them with higher density buildings. I am aware that the nearest city (New Westminster) is developing pretty actively, but there is a deadzone in between the two (Burnaby) that seems to have draconian NIMBY zoning laws. Generally speaking, Vancouver's housing crisis is pretty amazingly interesting and probably is more a result of the incredibly poor transit here[2] than anything else. [1] There may be some single family units remaining in the Denman neighborhood and there are some remaining in Strathcona (near east van.) as well as lots in Kitsilano and the south shore in general, but both of these areas are generally considered outside of the downtown core. [2] Oh yea, we have driverless trains, woo... but there are only three transit lines none of which connect to either of our major universities and poor management of the system has left the lines overcapacity.
  - brailsafe 8y ago
    What makes you think transit is poor?
    - PakG1 8y ago
      Compare to a city with great transit, then you know. I used to think that Vancouver transit was great. Then I started working in Shenzhen. Shenzhen and Hong Kong are awesome at public transit, Vancouver sucks. Part of the problem is that it's difficult for public transit in Vancouver to be profitable because the population density is so low.
icebraining 9y ago
> takes years to build It only takes about a year in the US: http://eyeonhousing.org/2015/08/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-an-apartment-building/ http://eyeonhousing.org/2015/08/how-long-does-it-take-to-bui...

knuththetruth 9y ago

Supply is part of the problem, but the real culprit is that housing has been financialized and opened up as an investment vehicle for global capital. It doesn’t really matter if you change zoning laws if everything that gets built is to serve this kind of investment. Major cities in the US, such as LA and NYC, simultaneously have huge lots of vacant luxury housing stock and homelessness crises for precisely this reason.Vancouver has obviously taken steps to curb the worst excesses of this, but it’s still vulnerable to this form of “market failure.”

pkaler 9y ago
This is not empiracly true for Vancouver. Global capital is flooding into RS-1 and CD-1. There is very little speculation into RM-4.
eloff 9y ago
I think this contributes, but it's not the principal problem. The core problem is supply shortage, which given the current astronomical prices has everything to do with zoning. Relax that enough and the market will solve the problem in a matter of years.
- Tiktaalik 9y ago
  This would be a satisfying solution were it not for the fact that Vancouver's housing starts and completions graph is a giant up and to the right. Vancouver has been building supply. At this point if you're a politician in Vancouver that is promising to solve the problem in a few years you're going to get dumped. People wanted this problem solved yesterday.
  - eloff 9y ago
    It takes years. Whether people like it or not. It's never too late to start doing something about it.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    Absolute growth in housing supply doesn’t matter. It’s growth in housing supply relative to growth in population.