4 ms·

If we loosen zoning, and a half-dozen skyrises go up that are owned by a ~cartel~ group of friendly property developers, with X% of housing required to go to lo

by gen220 2y ago

If we loosen zoning, and a half-dozen skyrises go up that are owned by a ~cartel~ group of friendly property developers, with X% of housing required to go to low-to-middle income households with a govt-required vacancy rate on that segment, do you think that would make rental prices go down? Because we've run this experiment in Downtown Brooklyn for the last ten years, and rent has only gone very significantly up. I think, at some point, you have to begin asking questions of the concept of nonresident landlordism and privately-owned massively-multifamily housing, rather than zoning, when changes to zoning don't actually make a difference to residents.

bluGill 2y ago
A half dozen isn't much. The real question is how would it be different. I contend it would have been worse but we cannot know.
- gen220 2y ago
  I guess it was closer to a dozen if you add up all the smaller ones. City tower, the Death Star looking one, the Alexa looking one, the 3 or 4 medium sized ones on Gold St, the Brooklyner, the 5 or 6 medium sized ones on Hoyt, the One with the Apple Store, the three or four around Barclays Center. We’re talking about residential space for 10s of thousands of people that completely changed the vibe of the neighborhood for better and worse. You don’t need the counter factual to look at the prices they’re leasing for. Or to understand that the wealthy folk in these buildings look down at the cutesy brownstones and think to themselves “oh it’d be nice to live in one of those next!”. To realize that the influx of monied people and the accompanying influx of goods and services to pander to them induces top-end demand for the neighborhood and inflates rent. The kind of high-density housing we build in this country does not deflate housing prices. To clarify, it might be different if the neighborhoods surrounding this area were not majority owned by nonresident landlords, often the children of the original purchasers. Increased supply solves pricing when you have a competitive and free market, but the point people in this thread are trying to make is that housing (especially in urban areas) is not at all a free and competitive market. Landlords can afford to let an apartment lay fallow. However, people not only need places to live, but they believe that they can’t afford (socially, career-wise, whatever) to leave a set of zip codes. It leads to rent being a one-way ratchet that dramatically outpaces wage growth and inflation.

by gen220 2y ago

bluGill 2y ago

A half dozen isn't much. The real question is how would it be different. I contend it would have been worse but we cannot know.

gen220 2y ago
I guess it was closer to a dozen if you add up all the smaller ones. City tower, the Death Star looking one, the Alexa looking one, the 3 or 4 medium sized ones on Gold St, the Brooklyner, the 5 or 6 medium sized ones on Hoyt, the One with the Apple Store, the three or four around Barclays Center. We’re talking about residential space for 10s of thousands of people that completely changed the vibe of the neighborhood for better and worse. You don’t need the counter factual to look at the prices they’re leasing for. Or to understand that the wealthy folk in these buildings look down at the cutesy brownstones and think to themselves “oh it’d be nice to live in one of those next!”. To realize that the influx of monied people and the accompanying influx of goods and services to pander to them induces top-end demand for the neighborhood and inflates rent. The kind of high-density housing we build in this country does not deflate housing prices. To clarify, it might be different if the neighborhoods surrounding this area were not majority owned by nonresident landlords, often the children of the original purchasers. Increased supply solves pricing when you have a competitive and free market, but the point people in this thread are trying to make is that housing (especially in urban areas) is not at all a free and competitive market. Landlords can afford to let an apartment lay fallow. However, people not only need places to live, but they believe that they can’t afford (socially, career-wise, whatever) to leave a set of zip codes. It leads to rent being a one-way ratchet that dramatically outpaces wage growth and inflation.