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Large-scale housing developments exist largely because of the regulatory burden. If you need to spend years, if not decades, shepherding a project through a bur
by wahern 4y ago
Large-scale housing developments exist largely because of the regulatory burden. If you need to spend years, if not decades, shepherding a project through a bureaucracy, then you need that economy of scale in units of housing per unit of regulation to make a project financially viable.
The lesser the regulatory burden, the more organic development you'd see, including a much larger proportion of smaller projects and smaller buildings. Large steel or steel + concrete structures are grossly inefficient in terms of construction costs per square footage, except where property values are incredibly high. (Wherever you see such structures in areas without extremely expensive property prices, you can be sure there are other factors at play--regulation, government funding, etc.) That's why 5-over-1 (wood framing over concrete) is so common where possible. Some people might complain that many 5-over-1 buildings have too large of a footprint, but that's also largely due to the same regulatory economics.
Anyhow, if communities simply made a laundry list of things they don't want--e.g. no more than 4 stories, ground footprint smaller than N square feet, etc--and then provided for approval by-right (i.e. if your project meets those restrictions, you're automatically approved), then most areas suffering from severe housing supply issues would be in a dramatically better situation than they are now, California especially.
But NIMBYs won't accept approval by-right; they want every project, no matter how small, to go through the same endless gauntlet where every interest group or interested party effectively gets a veto based on whatever imaginary impact they can think of ([insert comparison to security theater and fantastical terrorist threats]), with predictable and deliberate results.
- jcranmer 4y ago> But NIMBYs won't accept approval by-right; they want every project, no matter how small, to go through the same endless gauntlet where every interest group or interested party effectively gets a veto based on whatever imaginary impact they can think of ([insert comparison to security theater and fantastical terrorist threats]), with predictable and deliberate results. Just because a project was approved by right doesn't mean that NIMBYs won't file a lawsuit against you anyways to find some reason to get the project canned.
- wahern 4y agoFair enough. In my head I'm implicitly assuming that in a state like California approval by-right would necessarily require as a practical matter reform to, for example, CEQA so EIS reports couldn't be so trivially challenged. But in the abstract it's the same pathology--the opposition abusing legal procedures to hold up projects indefinitely, rather than advocating for and relying on substantive law. The problem with the latter is that it makes the opposition uncomfortably accountable; it becomes much more transparent that requirement X is responsible for Y costs, which allows the public to make more informed decisions about the utility of X.
- runamok 4y agoEven with approval by right many buildings that exist could not be built today. Sometimes for good reasons like fire code but often not. https://la.urbanize.city/post/forbidden-city-how-los-angeles-banned-some-its-most-popular-buildings https://la.urbanize.city/post/forbidden-city-how-los-angeles... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-percent-of-manhattans-buildings-could-not-be-built-today.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-... (archive of same without paywall: https://archive.ph/mvLpO https://archive.ph/mvLpO )
- laurencerowe 4y agoSix stories is probably my preferred urban scale, but the 5 over 1 buildings we get in the US are just terrible. A six story apartment in Berlin has windows front and back while the US version has windows only on one side due to the long central corridor to connect to the two stairwells required by US regulations (a result of the wood construction?)
- mjevans 4y ago2 fire escapes is a good thing, redundancy also helps in cases of unforeseen failure and disasters. As an alternative, a 1.5 level (per apartment, a ramp, stair, or interior elevator) design where one side has 2 floors and the other just one, such that three floors are split among 2 floors of buildings. I'd still want enough acoustic insulation and isolation to enjoy silence, and an airflow design for the whole building that keeps all the exhausts and smells away from all residences.
- laurencerowe 4y agoOr just do what other developed countries with far lower fire death rates do and build single access apartments out of less combustible materials. They provide far more pleasant layouts. https://slate.com/business/2021/12/staircases-floor-plan-twitter-housing-apartments.html https://slate.com/business/2021/12/staircases-floor-plan-twi...
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y agoYeah, having two fire escape routes in a large apartment building is not some sort of mistaken regulation. Also I very much doubt your characterization of properties in Germany. I'm sure there's a wide variety that broadly resembles what we see in all developed urban areas. The US uses wood construction a lot because it's a cost effective local material. Fire safety standards in the US are generally quite high. Building with wood is not some sort of problematic thing as you imply. Seriously, the weird chip on the shoulder some people get about the US is tiresome. Sure we have some stupid laws and bureaucracy like anywhere, but we're not aliens with pokadot skin or anything. I assure you people are pretty much the same everywhere.