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I'll bite... I've protested apartments being built near my house-with-a-garden in the suburbs (Seattle area). Not because I have a particular interest in my ho

I'll bite... I've protested apartments being built near my house-with-a-garden in the suburbs (Seattle area). Not because I have a particular interest in my house price, or want to interfere with other people, but because the plans are doing absolutely sweet FA to improve the infrastructure to cope with the additions. In general, I'd be happy for the extra apartments if they came with extra infrastructure. We'd all benefit from it. In one case, they started planning to add hundreds of apartment blocks specifically targetting young families, and yet the way it was being done there would be zero money going towards local schools to deal with the extra influx. Usual construction requires money towards schools, but there are loopholes, and the developer was using them, and the city seemed happy to let them. Nor were there any plans to deal with the additional cars being added. Even with good transit links to Seattle, the roads leading to the proposed site. Nor were there plans to deal with increased sanitation or power demand on an already flaky power grid. The list literally goes on and on. What we keep seeing around here is developers interested in doing the absolute bare minimum to build apartment blocks, and a city content to just let them overload an stretched resources.

WaxProlix 8y ago
Whose job is it/should it be to get that infrastructure built, and on what timeline? Obviously it's not reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block (or is it?), but if the people haven't moved in yet then there's no data to show the city so that they can project tax/levy money and scale schooling, transit, and other infrastructure appropriately. If we let the circular dependencies stymie us at all turns, we'll never get anywhere. Gotta start somewhere, and having people to clamor for services seems like a good place to do so as any to me.
- vkou 8y ago
  > Whose job is it/should it be to get that infrastructure built, and on what timeline? The new residents, so, by proxy, the developer putting the apartment block in. Of course, the developer immediately starts grousing about regulation, and excessive fees, and apparently, this is the reason for why we can't have sub-$400,000 apartment units. > Obviously it's not reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block (or is it?) It is reasonable for them to pay the city enough money to construct the infrastructure necessary to serve the new density they are adding.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - helen___keller 8y ago
    infrastructure in sprawl costs more per capita than in dense urban developments. If these people will move to the same city anyways, maybe the city should be subsidizing the cost of the infrastructure because it’s cheaper to provide it to a big building on an existing street than it is to a new subdivision down the road
    - maxsilver 8y ago
      > infrastructure in sprawl costs more per capita than in dense urban developments. (snip) it’s cheaper to provide it to a big building on an existing street than it is to a new subdivision down the road Unfortunately, even if you divide the costs per person, it's still often cheaper to get 40 people new water lines in say 20 average suburban homes, than it is to get 40 people new water lines in say, one building in Manhattan. Infrastructure costs do not scale evenly per mile. The capital costs in infrastructure are rarely the actual wires or pipes, it's the installation and maintenance labour. Which are considerably more complex and more expensive in dense urban environments, than it is in the sprawl. There are plenty of downsides to sprawl (it's a waste of land, for instance). But sprawl is nearly always cheaper (even after removing all subsidies), that's kind of the whole reason sprawl exists in the first place.
      - Karrot_Kream 8y ago
        The problem is, you're comparing a Manhattan high-rise to 20 single-family homes. Price/performance tends to be mid-rise apartments, which look like duplexes for the most part. These mid-rise apartments are cheaper per-capita both capital wise and maintenance wise than sprawly single-family homes. Sprawl exists because of zoning codes, not because of a market equilibrium. If you're interested in the phenomenon, read https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ about the Growth Ponzi Scheme.
- stormbrew 8y ago
  This isn't really a circular dependency because the developers can't build without the city's permission. If a developer plans to add N units of housing to an area that means there is need for NxM of various kinds of resources in the area, and you need them before NxY people move into the area and need them. You can't just suddenly have 10,000 more people and no sewer system for them until you find out exactly how much poop they produce. It's not even like questions like "If you add this many 3 bedroom homes to an area how many schools do you need" aren't unstudied questions, either. Civil engineering is a thing and should be able to answer questions like that pretty darn well. Who is responsible for actually building it is a fair and open question with several different answers, but as long as city planning is a thing, the city that approves construction is responsible for ensuring that that construction will not overload resources somehow, and I don't even see how that can be under dispute.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > It's not even like questions like "If you add this many 3 bedroom homes to an area how many schools do you need" aren't unstudied questions, either. Civil engineering is a thing and should be able to answer questions like that pretty darn well. That's not the kind of question civil engineering answers. That's more urban planning.
    - stormbrew 8y ago
      That's fair. The point still stands.
  - Retric 8y ago
    10,000 people sounds like a lot, but in terms of a large city’s sewer system it’s not that meaningful. In terms of traffic etc you are talking about 10k people in a 3,870k people population area. That less than 1/3 of one percent. PS: Simply from the overall US population growth rate the metro area should expect to add ~27,000 people every year.
    - stormbrew 8y ago
- Symbiote 8y ago
  > Obviously it's not reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block (or is it?) In the UK there have been various methods to get residential developers to pay for infrastructure. They're fairly recent, and I'm not too familiar with them. Even if the developer isn't to pay the full cost, there are efficiencies by the local government working with the developer to build relevant infrastructure at the same time. Example: https://www.telfordhomes-ir.london/media/press-releases/2017/telford-homes-receives-a-remarkable-three-housing-design-awards-2017/telford-homes-receives-a-remarkable-three-housing-design-awards-2017/ https://www.telfordhomes-ir.london/media/press-releases/2017...
  - MarchHare 8y ago
    I wonder to what point some of these methods just increase housing prices. For example, having the developer plant trees along the street means the price of the new build goes up (of course the developer will pass along costs), and existing residents get an improved neighbourhood without increased taxation. But is this not something the council should be paying for? After all the new homeowners will be paying council tax, why must the also pay a fee to join the community?
- souprock 8y ago
  For large-scale development, it is reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block. I've seen it in Flowermound, TX. The developer built a really nice elementary school and donated it to the city. Perhaps it was required by the town. Perhaps the developer got a tax break. Either way, the nice school surely contributed to higher selling prices for the homes the developer was selling.
albertop 8y ago
Shouldn’t all this be a responsibly of local government that will get influx of tax revenues?
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
  Developers ask for tax breaks in the form of TIFs and cities oblige. When that happens you don't get the full revenue. A complicating factor is that you can charge more in nicer areas so developers are more willing to build there, but to get developers to build in bad areas with cheaper rents TIFs are almost required. It just so happens that those already poor areas probably need those property taxes worst of all, compounding already pernicious societal problems. Here: https://www.gazettextra.com/opinion/our_views/our-views-tif-deals-for-apartments-logical-next-step/article_10cdd879-a524-567a-a457-9d90e615a55b.html https://www.gazettextra.com/opinion/our_views/our-views-tif-... is some interesting reading.
- kurthr 8y ago
  That government is run by elected officials who receive a majority of their political contributions from developers... nobody has a lot of time to read (and "help write") the controlling rules (that they always want to update) which affect them as much as the developers do. City councils are run by developers. Also, the tax revenues often don't offset the ongoing cost of the development to the city (if they do the proper roads, sewers, power, trash, policing). They are a sunk cost at the time of development and then there's no money for maintenance (without more growth).
- vkou 8y ago
  Imagine you rented a shared, five-bedroom house, with 4 other roommates. Each of you pays 20% of the rent, and utilities. These are your only expenses. Now, imagine that I move into your house, demand that you knock down a wall, build a fifth bedroom, and a second bathroom. Construction will cost $100,000, and I will generously chip in my 16% of it. Do you see a problem, here? The only fair way to handle this, is to make me pay the full cost of construction. New construction must pay for 100% of the new infrastructure necessary to support it.
  - 8y ago
koverda 8y ago
Don't schools get funded by local property taxes? More development (the hundreds of apartment blocks) = more property taxes = more funding for the school.s
- ghaff 8y ago
  That’s the problem. Housing geared toward young families tend to have a lot of school age children and they tend to create higher school costs than they pay in taxes.
- runako 8y ago
  In theory, more development = more property taxes. But reading the OP's post, it sounded like the developer was avoiding those taxes. It's fairly common for big developers to get temporary tax abatements for developing big projects. I have seen "temporary" over 10 years, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that sometimes it goes beyond 20. The OP mentioned Seattle, which apparently has a boilerplate 12-year tax abatement for multi-family developments: https://clarknuber.com/seattles-multifamily-property-tax-exemption-program-2/ https://clarknuber.com/seattles-multifamily-property-tax-exe... 12 years is a long time to underfund municipal services in an area.
- tracker1 8y ago
  A lot of Communities charge "impact fees" as a bit of a pre-tax so that they can extend infrastructure as necessary to support development projects. Of course a lot of municipalities will just mismanage and spend it on other things.
- Twirrim 8y ago
  Yes, but in addition to that are impact fees for development. That's specifically designed to cover the build up of additional infrastructure necessary to support the buildings being added. But there are loopholes that developers like to use to avoid them, and cities willing to look the other way. I don't blame the developers for wanting to avoid the fees, that's just good business sense. I do blame the city for being willing to look the other way and enabling it.
arprocter 8y ago
I wonder if the same folks who were against extending the NW to LaGuardia are now the same ones complaining about Amazon moving in Bit of a vicious circle when there are complaints about lack of infrastructure and then objections to building more transport links
ryandrake 8y ago
I’ll also bite and say it should not be that controversial to oppose housing development that comes without a transportation/education/garbage/power/water plan. You can’t just shovel thousands of people into a neighborhood designed to support hundreds and declare the housing problem solved. “Just add housing” is a simplistic and insufficient solution.
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  This. Who must do the infrastructure building may be debatable, but it's entirely reasonable to oppose new units when no one is pulling their sleeves to build infrastructure.
dba7dba 8y ago
I have a funny anecdote about developer building high rise condos in a very crowded market, take some shortcuts to squeeze in as many units as possible under the local zoning law, and pay the consequences. I know people who live in a newly built high rise condo in a very crowded, popular city to live in west side of US. It was built during the recent building boom. Recently they found out that about a few dozen units in the building have filed claim against the HOA/owner due mold under carpet, that starts around laundry machine. The outbound water pipe connecting between washer and the main outbound pipe of the building is apparently too small. When the washer is in use, it builds up too much pressures and starts a slow leak behind the washer. This is in a hard to view area and goes undetected, starting mold problem. I was told that the builder wanted to fit in more condo units but stay below allowed outbound sewage pipe size (?), so the hack they came up with is using narrower pipe between the washer and the main outbound pipe in the condo building. Yes, builders don't have to build/pay for roads and other infra, but indirect cost is always paid by someone else. Even the residents of the development.
will_brown 8y ago
>Not because I have a particular interest in my house price Where I live condos/highrises have gone up and the very few houses that remain as neighbors...well the prices haven’t gone down because supply is up, in fact the prices of the houses have skyrocketed. That wouldn’t be true of every location, but it would be interesting to have an interactive map to see where this type of developments have occurred/when and then resulting prices of the remaining homes. Correlation/causation and all of that but I’m sure there would be interesting patterns.
woah 8y ago
What a weird coincidence. As someone who rents, I share none of those concerns, even though in theory they should affect me just as much. This “but what about the parking?!” argument gets trotted out so often, but it only ever really seems to concern those who stand to gain from a housing shortage. If you want more infrastructure, vote for more infrastructure.
- kurthr 8y ago
  Race to the bottom... make everyone's life worse because there's a fad right now, till the techbros get kids. Still won't let the working class stay where they grew up, but who cares. Yeah, the Safeway parking lot is already half full at 3am with cars that don't move until the next morning. All the street parking is full and the "transit corridor", that allows the apartment owners not to put in parking, is a bus line that is loved by the homeless because it takes 3hrs each way (no one else wants to take it). What kind of infrastructure are they going to put in? A $30B subway that goes everywhere (the buses are late because of the traffic)? I don't think my vote is going to convince everyone else to kick in $30k.
  - Karrot_Kream 8y ago
    I don't think demand for housing is called a fad. Demand for housing changes. What was once a bad place to live becomes a good place to live. Unless you want to freeze the nature of changing demand, we need to change the way we build housing. Also, as long as population increases, housing stock will have to increase more.
  - ocschwar 8y ago
    Not quite a techbro, but I am a techie old enough to have kids. We have a house, with a backyard the size of a tablecloth, and one car. My wife drives it. Lots of apartment buildings nearby, some of which do not come with any parking.
  - woah 8y ago
    If you're referring to the move away from suburbs as a "fad" that you oppose, you're on the wrong side of history. Suburbs are extremely wasteful, boring, and lacking in opportunity for their residents. We need to get as many people into the urban centers as possible.
seizethecheese 8y ago
> the way it was being done there would be zero money going towards local schools to deal with the extra influx This is built into the system. More housing units means more property taxes which goes directly to schools.
- throwawayjava 8y ago
  > but there are loopholes, and the developer was using them

WaxProlix 8y ago

Whose job is it/should it be to get that infrastructure built, and on what timeline? Obviously it's not reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block (or is it?), but if the people haven't moved in yet then there's no data to show the city so that they can project tax/levy money and scale schooling, transit, and other infrastructure appropriately. If we let the circular dependencies stymie us at all turns, we'll never get anywhere. Gotta start somewhere, and having people to clamor for services seems like a good place to do so as any to me.

vkou 8y ago
> Whose job is it/should it be to get that infrastructure built, and on what timeline? The new residents, so, by proxy, the developer putting the apartment block in. Of course, the developer immediately starts grousing about regulation, and excessive fees, and apparently, this is the reason for why we can't have sub-$400,000 apartment units. > Obviously it's not reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block (or is it?) It is reasonable for them to pay the city enough money to construct the infrastructure necessary to serve the new density they are adding.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- helen___keller 8y ago
  infrastructure in sprawl costs more per capita than in dense urban developments. If these people will move to the same city anyways, maybe the city should be subsidizing the cost of the infrastructure because it’s cheaper to provide it to a big building on an existing street than it is to a new subdivision down the road
  - maxsilver 8y ago
    > infrastructure in sprawl costs more per capita than in dense urban developments. (snip) it’s cheaper to provide it to a big building on an existing street than it is to a new subdivision down the road Unfortunately, even if you divide the costs per person, it's still often cheaper to get 40 people new water lines in say 20 average suburban homes, than it is to get 40 people new water lines in say, one building in Manhattan. Infrastructure costs do not scale evenly per mile. The capital costs in infrastructure are rarely the actual wires or pipes, it's the installation and maintenance labour. Which are considerably more complex and more expensive in dense urban environments, than it is in the sprawl. There are plenty of downsides to sprawl (it's a waste of land, for instance). But sprawl is nearly always cheaper (even after removing all subsidies), that's kind of the whole reason sprawl exists in the first place.
    - Karrot_Kream 8y ago
      The problem is, you're comparing a Manhattan high-rise to 20 single-family homes. Price/performance tends to be mid-rise apartments, which look like duplexes for the most part. These mid-rise apartments are cheaper per-capita both capital wise and maintenance wise than sprawly single-family homes. Sprawl exists because of zoning codes, not because of a market equilibrium. If you're interested in the phenomenon, read https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ about the Growth Ponzi Scheme.
stormbrew 8y ago
This isn't really a circular dependency because the developers can't build without the city's permission. If a developer plans to add N units of housing to an area that means there is need for NxM of various kinds of resources in the area, and you need them before NxY people move into the area and need them. You can't just suddenly have 10,000 more people and no sewer system for them until you find out exactly how much poop they produce. It's not even like questions like "If you add this many 3 bedroom homes to an area how many schools do you need" aren't unstudied questions, either. Civil engineering is a thing and should be able to answer questions like that pretty darn well. Who is responsible for actually building it is a fair and open question with several different answers, but as long as city planning is a thing, the city that approves construction is responsible for ensuring that that construction will not overload resources somehow, and I don't even see how that can be under dispute.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > It's not even like questions like "If you add this many 3 bedroom homes to an area how many schools do you need" aren't unstudied questions, either. Civil engineering is a thing and should be able to answer questions like that pretty darn well. That's not the kind of question civil engineering answers. That's more urban planning.
  - stormbrew 8y ago
    That's fair. The point still stands.
- Retric 8y ago
  10,000 people sounds like a lot, but in terms of a large city’s sewer system it’s not that meaningful. In terms of traffic etc you are talking about 10k people in a 3,870k people population area. That less than 1/3 of one percent. PS: Simply from the overall US population growth rate the metro area should expect to add ~27,000 people every year.
  - stormbrew 8y ago
Symbiote 8y ago
> Obviously it's not reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block (or is it?) In the UK there have been various methods to get residential developers to pay for infrastructure. They're fairly recent, and I'm not too familiar with them. Even if the developer isn't to pay the full cost, there are efficiencies by the local government working with the developer to build relevant infrastructure at the same time. Example: https://www.telfordhomes-ir.london/media/press-releases/2017/telford-homes-receives-a-remarkable-three-housing-design-awards-2017/telford-homes-receives-a-remarkable-three-housing-design-awards-2017/ https://www.telfordhomes-ir.london/media/press-releases/2017...
- MarchHare 8y ago
  I wonder to what point some of these methods just increase housing prices. For example, having the developer plant trees along the street means the price of the new build goes up (of course the developer will pass along costs), and existing residents get an improved neighbourhood without increased taxation. But is this not something the council should be paying for? After all the new homeowners will be paying council tax, why must the also pay a fee to join the community?
souprock 8y ago
For large-scale development, it is reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block. I've seen it in Flowermound, TX. The developer built a really nice elementary school and donated it to the city. Perhaps it was required by the town. Perhaps the developer got a tax break. Either way, the nice school surely contributed to higher selling prices for the homes the developer was selling.

albertop 8y ago

Shouldn’t all this be a responsibly of local government that will get influx of tax revenues?

frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
Developers ask for tax breaks in the form of TIFs and cities oblige. When that happens you don't get the full revenue. A complicating factor is that you can charge more in nicer areas so developers are more willing to build there, but to get developers to build in bad areas with cheaper rents TIFs are almost required. It just so happens that those already poor areas probably need those property taxes worst of all, compounding already pernicious societal problems. Here: https://www.gazettextra.com/opinion/our_views/our-views-tif-deals-for-apartments-logical-next-step/article_10cdd879-a524-567a-a457-9d90e615a55b.html https://www.gazettextra.com/opinion/our_views/our-views-tif-... is some interesting reading.
kurthr 8y ago
That government is run by elected officials who receive a majority of their political contributions from developers... nobody has a lot of time to read (and "help write") the controlling rules (that they always want to update) which affect them as much as the developers do. City councils are run by developers. Also, the tax revenues often don't offset the ongoing cost of the development to the city (if they do the proper roads, sewers, power, trash, policing). They are a sunk cost at the time of development and then there's no money for maintenance (without more growth).
vkou 8y ago
Imagine you rented a shared, five-bedroom house, with 4 other roommates. Each of you pays 20% of the rent, and utilities. These are your only expenses. Now, imagine that I move into your house, demand that you knock down a wall, build a fifth bedroom, and a second bathroom. Construction will cost $100,000, and I will generously chip in my 16% of it. Do you see a problem, here? The only fair way to handle this, is to make me pay the full cost of construction. New construction must pay for 100% of the new infrastructure necessary to support it.
- 8y ago

koverda 8y ago

Don't schools get funded by local property taxes? More development (the hundreds of apartment blocks) = more property taxes = more funding for the school.s

ghaff 8y ago
That’s the problem. Housing geared toward young families tend to have a lot of school age children and they tend to create higher school costs than they pay in taxes.
runako 8y ago
In theory, more development = more property taxes. But reading the OP's post, it sounded like the developer was avoiding those taxes. It's fairly common for big developers to get temporary tax abatements for developing big projects. I have seen "temporary" over 10 years, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that sometimes it goes beyond 20. The OP mentioned Seattle, which apparently has a boilerplate 12-year tax abatement for multi-family developments: https://clarknuber.com/seattles-multifamily-property-tax-exemption-program-2/ https://clarknuber.com/seattles-multifamily-property-tax-exe... 12 years is a long time to underfund municipal services in an area.
tracker1 8y ago
A lot of Communities charge "impact fees" as a bit of a pre-tax so that they can extend infrastructure as necessary to support development projects. Of course a lot of municipalities will just mismanage and spend it on other things.
Twirrim 8y ago
Yes, but in addition to that are impact fees for development. That's specifically designed to cover the build up of additional infrastructure necessary to support the buildings being added. But there are loopholes that developers like to use to avoid them, and cities willing to look the other way. I don't blame the developers for wanting to avoid the fees, that's just good business sense. I do blame the city for being willing to look the other way and enabling it.

arprocter 8y ago

I wonder if the same folks who were against extending the NW to LaGuardia are now the same ones complaining about Amazon moving in Bit of a vicious circle when there are complaints about lack of infrastructure and then objections to building more transport links

ryandrake 8y ago

I’ll also bite and say it should not be that controversial to oppose housing development that comes without a transportation/education/garbage/power/water plan. You can’t just shovel thousands of people into a neighborhood designed to support hundreds and declare the housing problem solved. “Just add housing” is a simplistic and insufficient solution.

emiliobumachar 8y ago
This. Who must do the infrastructure building may be debatable, but it's entirely reasonable to oppose new units when no one is pulling their sleeves to build infrastructure.

dba7dba 8y ago

I have a funny anecdote about developer building high rise condos in a very crowded market, take some shortcuts to squeeze in as many units as possible under the local zoning law, and pay the consequences. I know people who live in a newly built high rise condo in a very crowded, popular city to live in west side of US. It was built during the recent building boom. Recently they found out that about a few dozen units in the building have filed claim against the HOA/owner due mold under carpet, that starts around laundry machine. The outbound water pipe connecting between washer and the main outbound pipe of the building is apparently too small. When the washer is in use, it builds up too much pressures and starts a slow leak behind the washer. This is in a hard to view area and goes undetected, starting mold problem. I was told that the builder wanted to fit in more condo units but stay below allowed outbound sewage pipe size (?), so the hack they came up with is using narrower pipe between the washer and the main outbound pipe in the condo building. Yes, builders don't have to build/pay for roads and other infra, but indirect cost is always paid by someone else. Even the residents of the development.

will_brown 8y ago

>Not because I have a particular interest in my house price Where I live condos/highrises have gone up and the very few houses that remain as neighbors...well the prices haven’t gone down because supply is up, in fact the prices of the houses have skyrocketed. That wouldn’t be true of every location, but it would be interesting to have an interactive map to see where this type of developments have occurred/when and then resulting prices of the remaining homes. Correlation/causation and all of that but I’m sure there would be interesting patterns.

woah 8y ago

What a weird coincidence. As someone who rents, I share none of those concerns, even though in theory they should affect me just as much. This “but what about the parking?!” argument gets trotted out so often, but it only ever really seems to concern those who stand to gain from a housing shortage. If you want more infrastructure, vote for more infrastructure.

kurthr 8y ago
Race to the bottom... make everyone's life worse because there's a fad right now, till the techbros get kids. Still won't let the working class stay where they grew up, but who cares. Yeah, the Safeway parking lot is already half full at 3am with cars that don't move until the next morning. All the street parking is full and the "transit corridor", that allows the apartment owners not to put in parking, is a bus line that is loved by the homeless because it takes 3hrs each way (no one else wants to take it). What kind of infrastructure are they going to put in? A $30B subway that goes everywhere (the buses are late because of the traffic)? I don't think my vote is going to convince everyone else to kick in $30k.
- Karrot_Kream 8y ago
  I don't think demand for housing is called a fad. Demand for housing changes. What was once a bad place to live becomes a good place to live. Unless you want to freeze the nature of changing demand, we need to change the way we build housing. Also, as long as population increases, housing stock will have to increase more.
- ocschwar 8y ago
  Not quite a techbro, but I am a techie old enough to have kids. We have a house, with a backyard the size of a tablecloth, and one car. My wife drives it. Lots of apartment buildings nearby, some of which do not come with any parking.
- woah 8y ago
  If you're referring to the move away from suburbs as a "fad" that you oppose, you're on the wrong side of history. Suburbs are extremely wasteful, boring, and lacking in opportunity for their residents. We need to get as many people into the urban centers as possible.

seizethecheese 8y ago

> the way it was being done there would be zero money going towards local schools to deal with the extra influx This is built into the system. More housing units means more property taxes which goes directly to schools.

throwawayjava 8y ago
> but there are loopholes, and the developer was using them