5 ms·

Thankfully this is beginning to look like a trend. Minneapolis adopted a similar deal (redefining all single family to be residential up to three units) late la

Thankfully this is beginning to look like a trend. Minneapolis adopted a similar deal (redefining all single family to be residential up to three units) late last year, and more of these kind of upzonings are in the works across the country. Ref: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/12/12/three-cheers-for-minneapolis-the-3-is-for-triplex https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/12/12/three-cheers-...

H8crilA 7y ago
Wonder how long will it take for prices to take notice, doesn't seem to be happening yet: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MNXRSA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MNXRSA
- bluGill 7y ago
  In Oregon? 60 years if ever. You can't get a building permit to build anything without your lawyers ($$$) spending years getting you through the process. Or so I've heard. In Minneapolis I expect it will start to make a difference in 5 years. In Minneapolis a building permits for something allowed in code takes an hour from the time you park your car to the time you drive away, and no lawyer needed. Note that we will never really know that a difference was made: there are any other factors involved in housing prices with no way to control for any of them. Thus no matter what happens you will be able to reasonably argue from data whichever side you want.
  - Frondo 7y ago
    People exaggerate. Portland's already been transformed by row houses, lots of apartment and condo structures, and dense building. Unsurprisingly, a lot of old-timers hate it, and their complaints all boil down to "it's different from when I was a child/raising a family here". The dense building is already taking place, in every neighborhood in the city. Getting a permit is no problem; my little brother, an engineer with no background in building, got a permit to build a four-unit building on one of the sites where they were already allowed (before this law was passed) in 8 weeks; the normal time for any permit approval for construction, he says, and in his engineering work he did a lot of work with permitting for customer projects, too, so I'd guess he knows. Portland's already been changing and it's made the city so much more pleasant to walk through. Neighborhood after neighborhood of single-family detached housing is boring, tiresome to drive or bike through, and an environmental disaster (as the ODOT study recently confirmed). If the rest of Oregon can now follow suit, this is only a good thing. The funny thing is, driving through old towns in Oregon or anywhere, where most of the building was done before these zoning laws made everything into the same boring city planning style, architecture and construction used to be a lot more interesting and visually pleasing. It's neat to drive through places with variety of structure. These laws are one of the most pointless things, that's done a great deal of damage, the US has done.
    - DougN7 7y ago
      This might be a good thing for the environment, but fixing “boring” is very questionable in my opinion. Now you’ll simply have driveways that are 2-4x wider than before (which also means more rain run-off) and less lawn. That sounds boring and ugly IMHO.
      - bluGill 7y ago
        Short term yes. However duplexes start enable the next level. Public transit needs a certain level of density to become useful, so longer term people can think about getting rid of a car. Density also means that while there is more solid pavement on lots, there are less lots overall, and less roads between the lots, and less driving from place to place. So globally this is an environmental win even though locally it is worse.
        lonelappde 7y ago
        What actually happens is that the roads get clogged by all the people in cars, and then no one want to ride buses because if you are stuck in traffic anyway, why also add an extra 15-30min waiting for a bus to be stuck in traffic behind other people's cars?
        DuskStar 7y ago
        Because I'd rather spend 15 minutes on my phone waiting for a bus + 30 minutes on my phone on the bus than 30 minutes driving a car through traffic.
        msteffen 7y ago
        Seattle made a bunch of lanes bus-only and my understanding is it helped with both congestion and transit use
      - Frondo 7y ago
        The rain runoff can flow into the bioswales the city is already building all over; it won't just run into the city sewers. As for needing to build wider driveways, and that making it boring, I realize there's a certain kind of subjectivity here but I don't think that what we're going to end up with is literally "duplexes with double-wide driveways replacing single-family dwellings on the same-sized lots." The front-runner for the 2020 mayoral race has an architectural background and has been talking about ideas like introducing an LA-style design review board to Portland, to ensure that new development has to pass aesthetic review in addition to environmental review. I guarantee you that six months after something like that were enacted, every architect in the city would know exactly what they needed to do to keep the city interesting as well as weird.

H8crilA 7y ago

Wonder how long will it take for prices to take notice, doesn't seem to be happening yet: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MNXRSA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MNXRSA

bluGill 7y ago
In Oregon? 60 years if ever. You can't get a building permit to build anything without your lawyers ($$$) spending years getting you through the process. Or so I've heard. In Minneapolis I expect it will start to make a difference in 5 years. In Minneapolis a building permits for something allowed in code takes an hour from the time you park your car to the time you drive away, and no lawyer needed. Note that we will never really know that a difference was made: there are any other factors involved in housing prices with no way to control for any of them. Thus no matter what happens you will be able to reasonably argue from data whichever side you want.
- Frondo 7y ago
  People exaggerate. Portland's already been transformed by row houses, lots of apartment and condo structures, and dense building. Unsurprisingly, a lot of old-timers hate it, and their complaints all boil down to "it's different from when I was a child/raising a family here". The dense building is already taking place, in every neighborhood in the city. Getting a permit is no problem; my little brother, an engineer with no background in building, got a permit to build a four-unit building on one of the sites where they were already allowed (before this law was passed) in 8 weeks; the normal time for any permit approval for construction, he says, and in his engineering work he did a lot of work with permitting for customer projects, too, so I'd guess he knows. Portland's already been changing and it's made the city so much more pleasant to walk through. Neighborhood after neighborhood of single-family detached housing is boring, tiresome to drive or bike through, and an environmental disaster (as the ODOT study recently confirmed). If the rest of Oregon can now follow suit, this is only a good thing. The funny thing is, driving through old towns in Oregon or anywhere, where most of the building was done before these zoning laws made everything into the same boring city planning style, architecture and construction used to be a lot more interesting and visually pleasing. It's neat to drive through places with variety of structure. These laws are one of the most pointless things, that's done a great deal of damage, the US has done.
  - DougN7 7y ago
    This might be a good thing for the environment, but fixing “boring” is very questionable in my opinion. Now you’ll simply have driveways that are 2-4x wider than before (which also means more rain run-off) and less lawn. That sounds boring and ugly IMHO.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      Short term yes. However duplexes start enable the next level. Public transit needs a certain level of density to become useful, so longer term people can think about getting rid of a car. Density also means that while there is more solid pavement on lots, there are less lots overall, and less roads between the lots, and less driving from place to place. So globally this is an environmental win even though locally it is worse.
      - lonelappde 7y ago
        What actually happens is that the roads get clogged by all the people in cars, and then no one want to ride buses because if you are stuck in traffic anyway, why also add an extra 15-30min waiting for a bus to be stuck in traffic behind other people's cars?
        DuskStar 7y ago
        Because I'd rather spend 15 minutes on my phone waiting for a bus + 30 minutes on my phone on the bus than 30 minutes driving a car through traffic.
        msteffen 7y ago
        Seattle made a bunch of lanes bus-only and my understanding is it helped with both congestion and transit use
    - Frondo 7y ago
      The rain runoff can flow into the bioswales the city is already building all over; it won't just run into the city sewers. As for needing to build wider driveways, and that making it boring, I realize there's a certain kind of subjectivity here but I don't think that what we're going to end up with is literally "duplexes with double-wide driveways replacing single-family dwellings on the same-sized lots." The front-runner for the 2020 mayoral race has an architectural background and has been talking about ideas like introducing an LA-style design review board to Portland, to ensure that new development has to pass aesthetic review in addition to environmental review. I guarantee you that six months after something like that were enacted, every architect in the city would know exactly what they needed to do to keep the city interesting as well as weird.