4 ms·

Local metro put in a light rail line years ago through an area with the expectation that it would re-invigorate those neighborhoods and cause more housing to be

Local metro put in a light rail line years ago through an area with the expectation that it would re-invigorate those neighborhoods and cause more housing to be built. For years, there was very little movement; existing rents and land values along the line were too low for anyone to bother building additional dense housing. This failure, among others, became a talking point among those who have tried to stall building additional lines. Now, with the metro in an acute housing crunch, rents have gone up enough that investors are finally building more housing along the light rail line. What are they building? Small, chic apartments geared towards young people. It's not really the sort of thing that fosters strong communities, as anyone who wants to start a family is unlikely to stay there long term. There's really only two outcomes I see: housing prices stabilize at marginally affordable at best, or the "character" they are trying to go for disappears not long after the housing bubble pops, and the area becomes blighted. All of this is to say that there are market-driven price floors on housing that aren't easy to shift. The "just build housing" mantra might be over-estimating the extent to which people are willing to accept prices going down. There's better ways to make money elsewhere for the people you expect to do the building and management after a certain point.

Jasper_ 4y ago
It seems absurd to me that they'd judge the success of public transit as when the property values go up, rather than whether people are riding it and using it. We should build public transit because it's an improvement on quality of life for the community, not because people who don't live there will see a return on investment. Housing prices will always be a bubble, as long as they're so detached and distant from the communities they're trying to build.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  The people who ride the lines were already getting from point A to point B using other means (cars, busses, taxis), so ridership isn't really a useful metric. Pretty much all of the lines that are being built are being sold as ways to improve the economy along the line, as people are pulled out of cars and off the freeway (i.e. greater visibility of local stores and housing options to commuters).
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    There is a way to look at it and that is time saved. Seattle traffic is so horrendous it does legitimately save time (or, if not saving time, take a consistent amount of time.)
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      OP here. In this particular case, for this particular line, traveling by car is roughly between a third and half the time it takes by light rail. Most of the other lines that I know of are similar or slightly better, but there's a bit of a spread. I don't know of any that are actually faster. This is a metro that wishes it was a coastal style metro, but is not on the west or northeast coasts.
      - bobthepanda 4y ago
        I-5 craps the bed on a fairly regular basis, particularly on game day at the SODO or UW stadiums (and all bets are off if there are multiple games scheduled for one day). It may be 45 minutes to SeaTac on light rail, but it is always 45 minutes on light rail, whereas travel times on I-5 can vary widely depending on congestion, accidents, etc. Some trips are much faster. The Capitol Hill extension was wildly popular, because pre-opening the surface traffic could easily take 20-40 minutes from Capitol Hill to either downtown or UW. Now, it's five minutes to either, and the surface traffic has also adjusted accordingly somewhat since less people are congesting the roads with cars and rideshares. In general the highway network in the area is super fragile because there are only 4 major highways in the area (I-5, 520, I-405, I-90) and few parallel arterials. I suspect that East Link will also become wildly popular, as will the northern and southern extensions, because of predictable travel times. Already many people take the buses that get stuck in traffic that these light rail lines will replace. And it will also help alleviate the issues with the commuter buses, such as there not being enough bus drivers to operate the scheduled services. The light rail isn't perfect, but few things are. Modern metro construction in the US has mostly gone sideways worse than light rail systems.
  - red_trumpet 4y ago
opportune 4y ago
Young people need places to live too. What's wrong with some developers building housing that appeal to that group? As long as they're building more than there was previously, it means less competition for the other housing for those who don't like that style of building.
- klyrs 4y ago
  The problem isn't that developers are building units that appeal only to young people, the problem is when they're exclusively building those units.
  - cplusplusfellow 4y ago
    If developers aren't building housing for families higher on the SES ladder, that's generally a result of regulatory issues.
    - klyrs 4y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean by "higher on the SES ladder" because the "young renters" in this case are Amazon employees with ridiculous disposable income. They are high on the SES ladder, it's the lower rungs that are getting priced out of the market.
    - mantas 4y ago
      It’s complex. Usually the max price people are willing to pay is mortgage they may get from a bank. So developers who want to push margin can build smaller apartments and still sell for the same price. With fancy marketing how tiny apartments and DINK is cool. We have same issue in my city. New apartments are 40-50sqm 2 rooms (1 bedroom + kitchen-living room) or 60-70sqm 3 rooms (2 bedrooms + kitchen-living room ) at best. If you want family-sized housing, house in suburbia is pretty much the only option.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Detached homes are better for families in many ways, second would be townhomes then row homes and finally apartments. Sadly many apartments are not built to withstand a screaming child in a neighboring unit. When the children are older those things don’t matter quite as much, but by that time people often can afford to move to more space.
civilized 4y ago
I still think that if you build a ton of housing, prices go down. But I've been told by commenters on here that you could build and build and build until your city is stuffed to the gills with empty housing - empty housing that does nothing but drain the owners' bank accounts with property taxes - and still, somehow, prices would relentlessly go up. Supposedly, the owners of empty properties would rather "charge" a zillion dollars for their "luxury condos" and never actually profit from their property in any way, than ever allow the "value" to go down. It's a baffling mentality. Housing alone is thought to fly free of supply and demand.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Counties don't want the price of housing to go down because they collect taxes at (typically) 1% of the listed market value, basically collecting rent from residents but in a quite inequitable way.

Jasper_ 4y ago

It seems absurd to me that they'd judge the success of public transit as when the property values go up, rather than whether people are riding it and using it. We should build public transit because it's an improvement on quality of life for the community, not because people who don't live there will see a return on investment. Housing prices will always be a bubble, as long as they're so detached and distant from the communities they're trying to build.

zdragnar 4y ago
The people who ride the lines were already getting from point A to point B using other means (cars, busses, taxis), so ridership isn't really a useful metric. Pretty much all of the lines that are being built are being sold as ways to improve the economy along the line, as people are pulled out of cars and off the freeway (i.e. greater visibility of local stores and housing options to commuters).
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  There is a way to look at it and that is time saved. Seattle traffic is so horrendous it does legitimately save time (or, if not saving time, take a consistent amount of time.)
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    OP here. In this particular case, for this particular line, traveling by car is roughly between a third and half the time it takes by light rail. Most of the other lines that I know of are similar or slightly better, but there's a bit of a spread. I don't know of any that are actually faster. This is a metro that wishes it was a coastal style metro, but is not on the west or northeast coasts.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      I-5 craps the bed on a fairly regular basis, particularly on game day at the SODO or UW stadiums (and all bets are off if there are multiple games scheduled for one day). It may be 45 minutes to SeaTac on light rail, but it is always 45 minutes on light rail, whereas travel times on I-5 can vary widely depending on congestion, accidents, etc. Some trips are much faster. The Capitol Hill extension was wildly popular, because pre-opening the surface traffic could easily take 20-40 minutes from Capitol Hill to either downtown or UW. Now, it's five minutes to either, and the surface traffic has also adjusted accordingly somewhat since less people are congesting the roads with cars and rideshares. In general the highway network in the area is super fragile because there are only 4 major highways in the area (I-5, 520, I-405, I-90) and few parallel arterials. I suspect that East Link will also become wildly popular, as will the northern and southern extensions, because of predictable travel times. Already many people take the buses that get stuck in traffic that these light rail lines will replace. And it will also help alleviate the issues with the commuter buses, such as there not being enough bus drivers to operate the scheduled services. The light rail isn't perfect, but few things are. Modern metro construction in the US has mostly gone sideways worse than light rail systems.
- red_trumpet 4y ago

opportune 4y ago

Young people need places to live too. What's wrong with some developers building housing that appeal to that group? As long as they're building more than there was previously, it means less competition for the other housing for those who don't like that style of building.

klyrs 4y ago
The problem isn't that developers are building units that appeal only to young people, the problem is when they're exclusively building those units.
- cplusplusfellow 4y ago
  If developers aren't building housing for families higher on the SES ladder, that's generally a result of regulatory issues.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by "higher on the SES ladder" because the "young renters" in this case are Amazon employees with ridiculous disposable income. They are high on the SES ladder, it's the lower rungs that are getting priced out of the market.
  - mantas 4y ago
    It’s complex. Usually the max price people are willing to pay is mortgage they may get from a bank. So developers who want to push margin can build smaller apartments and still sell for the same price. With fancy marketing how tiny apartments and DINK is cool. We have same issue in my city. New apartments are 40-50sqm 2 rooms (1 bedroom + kitchen-living room) or 60-70sqm 3 rooms (2 bedrooms + kitchen-living room ) at best. If you want family-sized housing, house in suburbia is pretty much the only option.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Detached homes are better for families in many ways, second would be townhomes then row homes and finally apartments. Sadly many apartments are not built to withstand a screaming child in a neighboring unit. When the children are older those things don’t matter quite as much, but by that time people often can afford to move to more space.

civilized 4y ago

I still think that if you build a ton of housing, prices go down. But I've been told by commenters on here that you could build and build and build until your city is stuffed to the gills with empty housing - empty housing that does nothing but drain the owners' bank accounts with property taxes - and still, somehow, prices would relentlessly go up. Supposedly, the owners of empty properties would rather "charge" a zillion dollars for their "luxury condos" and never actually profit from their property in any way, than ever allow the "value" to go down. It's a baffling mentality. Housing alone is thought to fly free of supply and demand.

anigbrowl 4y ago
Counties don't want the price of housing to go down because they collect taxes at (typically) 1% of the listed market value, basically collecting rent from residents but in a quite inequitable way.