5 ms·

Zoning pretty much dooms this where I live and many other places. One recent recommendation to allow tiny homes in Atlanta had the caveat, no mobile homes. They

Zoning pretty much dooms this where I live and many other places. One recent recommendation to allow tiny homes in Atlanta had the caveat, no mobile homes. They wanted housing that could not move. The Atlanta proposal was to permit them on lots that already have a home but not elsewhere. Issues of utilities along with school load come to mind but those occur with any other dense housing. So why wouldn't apartments be better? To make it easier on residents with bad credit and such the utilities could be baked in to the rent and the state or city could offer to subsidize. However what doomed many existing communities near me were property taxes. The land is more valuable for actual homes or in some cases businesses. With tiny/mobile homes as you propose your location may require local governments reducing the tax load to make the location affordable.

yellowapple 6y ago
Moving from property tax to land value tax would readily address that last point. This would incentivize turning unused land into tiny/mobile home parks - and would further incentivize residents cooperatively owning that land in order to reduce overhead to a bare minimum.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Cramming more people into a land value taxed plot of land doesn’t address the school funding issue. Taxes exist to provide services. Finding ways to structure housing to minimize local taxes is just squeezing a balloon.
  - francisofascii 6y ago
    Land value taxes help to prevent inflated real estate prices. The purpose is more than just providing services.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      When GP proposes using them to replace property taxes, they need to serve the role that property tax served.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    Are schools underfunded right now? I'm not aware of any such issues in my state.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      a. That depends on who you ask. I think ours are adequately funded as well now. b. My concern over school funding was if you cram more households into a given amount of tax, which was an explicit part of the strategy above, you create a school funding issue that wasn't there before. (I admit I was not explicit about that point and should have used another dozen words to make that clear.)
  - yellowapple 6y ago
    > Cramming more people into a land value taxed plot of land doesn’t address the school funding issue. LVT itself addresses the school funding issue, since schools increase land value and therefore increase the tax revenues on that land value.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    For the people on the internet who yak about LVT, it solves all problems.
    - yellowapple 6y ago
      Well yeah, because it does ;)
wil421 6y ago
Why does Atlanta need tiny homes? We don’t have restrictive zoning policies and we can build out or up in most directions. Brookhaven worked with developers to provide low income housing. They also provide legislation that doesn’t completely gentrify Brookhaven.
- rektide 6y ago
  Why? Kids that return to the nest. Grandparents that come to help. Grandparents that need help. Being able to rent out your property for additional income. I live in DC and there was a flurry of activity, with neighbors forming housing cooperatives, getting together to build up. It's possible. At least, it used to be. You talk about upzoning as if it's sensible & straightforward, & tiny home or additional separate dwelling units are weird, but they're what's in reach for a lot of people. I'd love to see a resurgence of coop housing developments. There's so many older row houses around here, way under-developed, and I think of how much value those folks are sitting on, if only they could work with each other, & find funding & trustworthy developers to do the job. In addition to construction costs, everyone's got to go find somewhere to live for a year while the place gets redeveloped, which is costly & disruptive. Another advantage to tiny houses &c.
clairity 6y ago
> "The Atlanta proposal was to permit them on lots that already have a home but not elsewhere." they implemented something similar here in southern california. the reason for this is to get homeowners on board, by giving them all the control and potential income from a proposal that nominally increases housing (giving politicians a 'win' without changing much). the problem with this kind of policy is many-fold, but most egregiously it serves to intentionally lock out non-homeowners from both homebuying (by raising prices further) and homebuilding (by keeping buildable land off the market). it's literally designed to suppress class mobility and exclude the lower classes from homeownership. it also exacerbates homelessness, misallocates capital, and ultimately stagnates an economy. instead, we need to overhaul zoning regulations, building codes/permitting processes, and tax policy (perhaps by land value principally) to encourage subdivision and construction.

yellowapple 6y ago

Moving from property tax to land value tax would readily address that last point. This would incentivize turning unused land into tiny/mobile home parks - and would further incentivize residents cooperatively owning that land in order to reduce overhead to a bare minimum.

sokoloff 6y ago
Cramming more people into a land value taxed plot of land doesn’t address the school funding issue. Taxes exist to provide services. Finding ways to structure housing to minimize local taxes is just squeezing a balloon.
- francisofascii 6y ago
  Land value taxes help to prevent inflated real estate prices. The purpose is more than just providing services.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    When GP proposes using them to replace property taxes, they need to serve the role that property tax served.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Are schools underfunded right now? I'm not aware of any such issues in my state.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    a. That depends on who you ask. I think ours are adequately funded as well now. b. My concern over school funding was if you cram more households into a given amount of tax, which was an explicit part of the strategy above, you create a school funding issue that wasn't there before. (I admit I was not explicit about that point and should have used another dozen words to make that clear.)
- yellowapple 6y ago
  > Cramming more people into a land value taxed plot of land doesn’t address the school funding issue. LVT itself addresses the school funding issue, since schools increase land value and therefore increase the tax revenues on that land value.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  For the people on the internet who yak about LVT, it solves all problems.
  - yellowapple 6y ago
    Well yeah, because it does ;)

wil421 6y ago

Why does Atlanta need tiny homes? We don’t have restrictive zoning policies and we can build out or up in most directions. Brookhaven worked with developers to provide low income housing. They also provide legislation that doesn’t completely gentrify Brookhaven.

rektide 6y ago
Why? Kids that return to the nest. Grandparents that come to help. Grandparents that need help. Being able to rent out your property for additional income. I live in DC and there was a flurry of activity, with neighbors forming housing cooperatives, getting together to build up. It's possible. At least, it used to be. You talk about upzoning as if it's sensible & straightforward, & tiny home or additional separate dwelling units are weird, but they're what's in reach for a lot of people. I'd love to see a resurgence of coop housing developments. There's so many older row houses around here, way under-developed, and I think of how much value those folks are sitting on, if only they could work with each other, & find funding & trustworthy developers to do the job. In addition to construction costs, everyone's got to go find somewhere to live for a year while the place gets redeveloped, which is costly & disruptive. Another advantage to tiny houses &c.

clairity 6y ago

> "The Atlanta proposal was to permit them on lots that already have a home but not elsewhere." they implemented something similar here in southern california. the reason for this is to get homeowners on board, by giving them all the control and potential income from a proposal that nominally increases housing (giving politicians a 'win' without changing much). the problem with this kind of policy is many-fold, but most egregiously it serves to intentionally lock out non-homeowners from both homebuying (by raising prices further) and homebuilding (by keeping buildable land off the market). it's literally designed to suppress class mobility and exclude the lower classes from homeownership. it also exacerbates homelessness, misallocates capital, and ultimately stagnates an economy. instead, we need to overhaul zoning regulations, building codes/permitting processes, and tax policy (perhaps by land value principally) to encourage subdivision and construction.