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Why not let developers build all the luxury housing they want? Affordable housing is often luxury housing built 30 years ago. It's very difficult to solve affor

Why not let developers build all the luxury housing they want? Affordable housing is often luxury housing built 30 years ago. It's very difficult to solve affordability today but much easier to solve it in the future. Let time do the work.

iamwpj 4y ago
Yes, two generations of working homelessness and we'll be all sorted! After all, it's the best we can do! /s
- Yahivin 4y ago
  What's the alternative? Ban the only kind of housing that developers, residents, and municipalities are excited to build and then blame capitalism?
  - addisonl 4y ago
    You know things can land somewhere in the middle right? No need to be so intentionally black and white.
  - mkaic 4y ago
    No! The alternative is explicitly to unban the kind of housing that there's demand for. Single-family zoning prevents capitalism from doing its job properly by limiting developers' ability to respond to demand for high-density and low-income housing. Getting rid of most single-family zoning wouldn't make it illegal to build single-family homes, but as the article says regarding Santa Monica, developers are eager to build high-rises and denser housing.
lukas099 4y ago
That part seems more like feelgoods than sound economics, but sometimes you need feelgoods to make something politically viable.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  It is sound economics. Housing is fungible -- poor people would gladly occupy luxury housing if the price is right, and rich people can and do pay luxury prices for dumps when the alternative is sleeping on the streets. Therefore the primary thing that matters is how many units are built. If there are N people and N-1 housing units, then if you build super cheap housing the poorest guy can move off the streets into it. But if you build a luxury unit, the richest guy moves out of his unit into the new one, which opens up rich guy's place for a not-quite-as-rich person, etc.
  - lukas099 4y ago
    I meant that the 20% low income requirement is not sound economics. I agree with you.
kibwen 4y ago
Presumably because the housing crisis is here today, not 30 years from now. > It's very difficult to solve affordability today but much easier to solve it in the future. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this is. I see no reason that affordable housing should magically solve itself. The only possible explanation that comes to mind is if you think population will collapse, but the population of the US is projected to continue growing apace for the next 40 years: https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/idb/#/country?COUNTRY_YR_ANIM=2021&COUNTRY_YEAR=2023&FIPS_SINGLE=US https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/idb/#/country?COUNTRY...
- MagicMoonlight 4y ago
  If expensive housing keeps selling then somebody must be living there… therefore it is solving the problem
  - kibwen 4y ago
    It's entirely common for luxury properties to be seen as investments. Having people actually live there would reduce their value as investments. See any of the new luxury skyscrapers in Manhattan, whose units are mostly vacant despite being sold. More luxury housing doesn't solve a damn thing.
    - km3r 4y ago
      So add a vacancy tax (like SF and Oakland have). Even though our vacancy rate shows this is not a problem currently.
pwinnski 4y ago
Yes, affordable housing today often luxury housing from the past. That works well enough for areas dealing with slow growth. In Dallas, for example, the apartment I rented in 1996 was top of the line, and is now mid-range. When a government interrupts that process for years on end by disallowing any new construction, you end up with a backlog, and can't afford to wait the decades it would take for affordable housing to be available. In the future, given sane zoning, the process will work. For now, though, there's a dire need to fill in the gap with affordable housing today.
- km3r 4y ago
  If you can build 2 market rate units for every affordable unit, why would you build affordable? Why can't the millions of homes that exist today be the mid-range to affordable and just flood the market with market rate homes/
  - thereisnospork 4y ago
    Because demanding subsidized housing be built (sorry 'affordable') is a useful tool to stop people from building housing.
    - km3r 4y ago
      > subsidized Subsidizes are fine, requirements are not.
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    I feel like there are so many things wrong with these questions that I must be misunderstanding you. Like, every assumption seems counter-factual.
    - km3r 4y ago
      Affordable housing requirements lead to less overall units being built. That only makes the problem worse. Affordable housing subsidies help, because they enable both to be built. So often in the bay area we see large market rate developments blocked for the potential of an affordable project that never comes. Let them build, because until we make up the MASSIVE shortage of housing, there is no getting around needing to build more.
ripley12 4y ago
It doesn't take 30 years for new housing to have an impact. New homes immediately affect the price+availability of existing homes, because when someone moves into a shiny new home they free up the place where they were living before.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
Here on Long Island, it tends to be the opposite. As the city metropolitan area expands, neighborhoods that used to be marginal, are now tony. Brooklyn is turning into quite the yuppie stronghold. It used to be known as a fairly scrappy, affordable area.
ouid 4y ago
I think this is a bad argument for an essentially correct position, an unintentional strawman, presented in good faith. The price of housing is not dependent on how nice the housing is in aggregate, only how much of it there is. The argument for building "affordable" housing comes from landlords who own luxury housing not wanting the new housing to hurt their investments.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Why not let developers build all the luxury housing they want? Affordable housing is often luxury housing built 30 years ago. Because the requirements on the local governments that the builder’s remedy deals are failures to provide affordable housing on a much shorter timescale than 30 years from now.

iamwpj 4y ago

Yes, two generations of working homelessness and we'll be all sorted! After all, it's the best we can do! /s

Yahivin 4y ago
What's the alternative? Ban the only kind of housing that developers, residents, and municipalities are excited to build and then blame capitalism?
- addisonl 4y ago
  You know things can land somewhere in the middle right? No need to be so intentionally black and white.
- mkaic 4y ago
  No! The alternative is explicitly to unban the kind of housing that there's demand for. Single-family zoning prevents capitalism from doing its job properly by limiting developers' ability to respond to demand for high-density and low-income housing. Getting rid of most single-family zoning wouldn't make it illegal to build single-family homes, but as the article says regarding Santa Monica, developers are eager to build high-rises and denser housing.

lukas099 4y ago

That part seems more like feelgoods than sound economics, but sometimes you need feelgoods to make something politically viable.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
It is sound economics. Housing is fungible -- poor people would gladly occupy luxury housing if the price is right, and rich people can and do pay luxury prices for dumps when the alternative is sleeping on the streets. Therefore the primary thing that matters is how many units are built. If there are N people and N-1 housing units, then if you build super cheap housing the poorest guy can move off the streets into it. But if you build a luxury unit, the richest guy moves out of his unit into the new one, which opens up rich guy's place for a not-quite-as-rich person, etc.
- lukas099 4y ago
  I meant that the 20% low income requirement is not sound economics. I agree with you.

kibwen 4y ago

Presumably because the housing crisis is here today, not 30 years from now. > It's very difficult to solve affordability today but much easier to solve it in the future. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this is. I see no reason that affordable housing should magically solve itself. The only possible explanation that comes to mind is if you think population will collapse, but the population of the US is projected to continue growing apace for the next 40 years: https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/idb/#/country?COUNTRY_YR_ANIM=2021&COUNTRY_YEAR=2023&FIPS_SINGLE=US https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/idb/#/country?COUNTRY...

MagicMoonlight 4y ago
If expensive housing keeps selling then somebody must be living there… therefore it is solving the problem
- kibwen 4y ago
  It's entirely common for luxury properties to be seen as investments. Having people actually live there would reduce their value as investments. See any of the new luxury skyscrapers in Manhattan, whose units are mostly vacant despite being sold. More luxury housing doesn't solve a damn thing.
  - km3r 4y ago
    So add a vacancy tax (like SF and Oakland have). Even though our vacancy rate shows this is not a problem currently.

pwinnski 4y ago

Yes, affordable housing today often luxury housing from the past. That works well enough for areas dealing with slow growth. In Dallas, for example, the apartment I rented in 1996 was top of the line, and is now mid-range. When a government interrupts that process for years on end by disallowing any new construction, you end up with a backlog, and can't afford to wait the decades it would take for affordable housing to be available. In the future, given sane zoning, the process will work. For now, though, there's a dire need to fill in the gap with affordable housing today.

km3r 4y ago
If you can build 2 market rate units for every affordable unit, why would you build affordable? Why can't the millions of homes that exist today be the mid-range to affordable and just flood the market with market rate homes/
- thereisnospork 4y ago
  Because demanding subsidized housing be built (sorry 'affordable') is a useful tool to stop people from building housing.
  - km3r 4y ago
    > subsidized Subsidizes are fine, requirements are not.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  I feel like there are so many things wrong with these questions that I must be misunderstanding you. Like, every assumption seems counter-factual.
  - km3r 4y ago
    Affordable housing requirements lead to less overall units being built. That only makes the problem worse. Affordable housing subsidies help, because they enable both to be built. So often in the bay area we see large market rate developments blocked for the potential of an affordable project that never comes. Let them build, because until we make up the MASSIVE shortage of housing, there is no getting around needing to build more.

ripley12 4y ago

It doesn't take 30 years for new housing to have an impact. New homes immediately affect the price+availability of existing homes, because when someone moves into a shiny new home they free up the place where they were living before.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

Here on Long Island, it tends to be the opposite. As the city metropolitan area expands, neighborhoods that used to be marginal, are now tony. Brooklyn is turning into quite the yuppie stronghold. It used to be known as a fairly scrappy, affordable area.

ouid 4y ago

I think this is a bad argument for an essentially correct position, an unintentional strawman, presented in good faith. The price of housing is not dependent on how nice the housing is in aggregate, only how much of it there is. The argument for building "affordable" housing comes from landlords who own luxury housing not wanting the new housing to hurt their investments.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Why not let developers build all the luxury housing they want? Affordable housing is often luxury housing built 30 years ago. Because the requirements on the local governments that the builder’s remedy deals are failures to provide affordable housing on a much shorter timescale than 30 years from now.