Is there a coherent argument that loosening zoning laws will lead to affordable housing in DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Ill do you one better: How about we knock down not only SFHs but also all one-, two- and three-bedroom condos. Replace them all with studios. No one in the District gets more than 450 square feet. Housing would be way cheaper then.

Few if anyone is suggesting that all SFHs be knocked down. Just that people who own them be ALLOWED to redevelop them with more density. Why do people like you keep changing "We should allow X" into "We must mandate X for everyone"? Straw man?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

A few observations:

1. Obviously a 600 square foot condo costs less than a 2000 square foot house, because living in a 600 square foot condo *sucks* compared to living in a 2000 square foot house.

2. Those condos may be cheaper than a SFH but they still aren't remotely affordable. The price per square foot is off the charts. We regularly see ones go up that cost $1 million. (That in turn is pushing up the price of SFHs. The value of my house has doubled in five years. So, thank you, density people -- you're making single-family homes a lot more valuable).

3. Single-family homes and condos appeal to very different demographic groups. Simply put, people with children don't want to live in glorified dorms. If you replace SFHs with condos, you're pushing out people with children to make way for childless adults. DC is already hostile to parents. I don't know why we want to give parents yet another reason to leave for the suburbs.

That's silly, PP. Different people, in different circumstances, like different things. As you yourself say.

And if these condos aren't even remotely affordable - that's because PEOPLE WANT THEM. Demand for them exceeds supply.

This is why adding to the housing supply in DC will never result in affordable housing. Demand will always exceed supply.

No, that's why we need a LOT more housing, and why part of building more housing in Ward 3 should also include building large amounts of high-quality public housing, instead of just mandating affordable units alongside new market-rate ones.

Washington D.C. is like New York City or San Francisco in that the number of people who want to live here far exceeds the number of housing units that could ever conceivably be built. That's why adding to the housing supply doesn't reduce housing prices. It just makes the city more crowded.

In fact SF builds very little new housing, and even NYC has some significant zoning limits.

NYC also has a much larger employment base than DC has.

Plenty of suburbanites work in the suburbs and will never want to live in DC. Quite a few who do work in DC will never want to live in DC. And unlike NYC, DC is not attractive to trust fund kids.

So I do not think you are at all correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Give rich people what they want, and there will be dregs for average people! In the far suburbs! Awesome.

The rich people in Ward 3, and similar places, want to stop development. Send the lesser folks somewhere else, as far away as possible.

It's the density people who want to push out poor people to make way for their million-dollar condos.

No, I am a density person in Ward 3, and what I want is (a) new buildings with affordable housing in them to replace empty lots, (b) zoning that allows for apartment buildings and other multi-family housing throughout the ward instead of just big single-family homes, and (c) taller buildings in general to allow for more housing in the area. I want more poor people to be able to move TO the neighborhood.

None of this stuff will actually result in lower housing prices. That's the whole point of this thread.

No, actually, buildings with units designated for affordable housing will lower housing prices. As will different kinds of housing (like, for instance, smaller apartments that a family could live in instead of only $1 million SFHs). As will an increase in supply, generally. No one has offered any evidence that a broad, deliberate policy to increase housing and specifically target housing affordability would not reduce housing prices. There's just been a lot of assertions that, for instance, building condos will make the area more desirable and therefore more expensive.

But if you knocked down my house tomorrow and replaced it with a six-unit building full of two-bedroom condos, every single one of them would sell for less money than my house would if sold as a single family four-bedroom house. That is to say: Housing prices would be reduced.

Ill do you one better: How about we knock down not only SFHs but also all one-, two- and three-bedroom condos. Replace them all with studios. No one in the District gets more than 450 square feet. Housing would be way cheaper then.

What's so sacrosanct about living in DC? Not everyone can afford to live in Georgetown or on U Street, for example. We live in a metropolitan region, with cheaper price points in several nearby jurisdictions. For example, there are good values in Prince George's including inside the Beltway.

1. Pretty much all houses in PG are already inhabited. So getting people take advantage of those "values" means pushing out some working class PG family.

2. You could add more multifamily in PG. But thats already being done to some extent at most inside the beltway PG metro stations. At some point even those places won't have much room (and its particularly hard because some PG metro stations are difficult to walk to

3. For people who work on the west side of DC, thats a pretty hefty commute. If they commute by metro that eats up time and cost. If they commute by car, that adds emissions, and creates safety issues for people in DC neighborhoods. The regional imbalance (jobs in DC and NoVa, housing in PG) is one of the main transportation challenges for the region. In terms of the region we want more jobs in PG, not so much more housing for commuters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ill do you one better: How about we knock down not only SFHs but also all one-, two- and three-bedroom condos. Replace them all with studios. No one in the District gets more than 450 square feet. Housing would be way cheaper then.

Few if anyone is suggesting that all SFHs be knocked down. Just that people who own them be ALLOWED to redevelop them with more density. Why do people like you keep changing "We should allow X" into "We must mandate X for everyone"? Straw man?

You obviously have never been to the GGW comments section, because there are a whole lot of people there who want to see this happen.

Except for David Alpert's single-family home, which sits two blocks from the Metro. A terrible use for that land. He gets to keep his SFH because reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ill do you one better: How about we knock down not only SFHs but also all one-, two- and three-bedroom condos. Replace them all with studios. No one in the District gets more than 450 square feet. Housing would be way cheaper then.

Few if anyone is suggesting that all SFHs be knocked down. Just that people who own them be ALLOWED to redevelop them with more density. Why do people like you keep changing "We should allow X" into "We must mandate X for everyone"? Straw man?

You obviously have never been to the GGW comments section, because there are a whole lot of people there who want to see this happen.

Except for David Alpert's single-family home, which sits two blocks from the Metro. A terrible use for that land. He gets to keep his SFH because reasons.

Could you please link to 3 comments on GGW where people are sincerely advocating that all single-family houses must be knocked down?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Give rich people what they want, and there will be dregs for average people! In the far suburbs! Awesome.

The rich people in Ward 3, and similar places, want to stop development. Send the lesser folks somewhere else, as far away as possible.

It's the density people who want to push out poor people to make way for their million-dollar condos.

No, I am a density person in Ward 3, and what I want is (a) new buildings with affordable housing in them to replace empty lots, (b) zoning that allows for apartment buildings and other multi-family housing throughout the ward instead of just big single-family homes, and (c) taller buildings in general to allow for more housing in the area. I want more poor people to be able to move TO the neighborhood.

None of this stuff will actually result in lower housing prices. That's the whole point of this thread.

No, actually, buildings with units designated for affordable housing will lower housing prices. As will different kinds of housing (like, for instance, smaller apartments that a family could live in instead of only $1 million SFHs). As will an increase in supply, generally. No one has offered any evidence that a broad, deliberate policy to increase housing and specifically target housing affordability would not reduce housing prices. There's just been a lot of assertions that, for instance, building condos will make the area more desirable and therefore more expensive.

But if you knocked down my house tomorrow and replaced it with a six-unit building full of two-bedroom condos, every single one of them would sell for less money than my house would if sold as a single family four-bedroom house. That is to say: Housing prices would be reduced.

Ill do you one better: How about we knock down not only SFHs but also all one-, two- and three-bedroom condos. Replace them all with studios. No one in the District gets more than 450 square feet. Housing would be way cheaper then.

What's so sacrosanct about living in DC? Not everyone can afford to live in Georgetown or on U Street, for example. We live in a metropolitan region, with cheaper price points in several nearby jurisdictions. For example, there are good values in Prince George's including inside the Beltway.

There is tons of affordable housing just over the border in PG county. But that doesnt count, because that's not where the density bros want to live. They want the government to shoehorn them into "cool" neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ill do you one better: How about we knock down not only SFHs but also all one-, two- and three-bedroom condos. Replace them all with studios. No one in the District gets more than 450 square feet. Housing would be way cheaper then.

Few if anyone is suggesting that all SFHs be knocked down. Just that people who own them be ALLOWED to redevelop them with more density. Why do people like you keep changing "We should allow X" into "We must mandate X for everyone"? Straw man?

No single family homes
No three-bedroom condos.
No two-bedroom condos.
No one-bedroom condos.

Only studios. Everyone gets 450 square feet. Housing would be so much cheaper. People will get used to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

A few observations:

1. Obviously a 600 square foot condo costs less than a 2000 square foot house, because living in a 600 square foot condo *sucks* compared to living in a 2000 square foot house.

2. Those condos may be cheaper than a SFH but they still aren't remotely affordable. The price per square foot is off the charts. We regularly see ones go up that cost $1 million. (That in turn is pushing up the price of SFHs. The value of my house has doubled in five years. So, thank you, density people -- you're making single-family homes a lot more valuable).

3. Single-family homes and condos appeal to very different demographic groups. Simply put, people with children don't want to live in glorified dorms. If you replace SFHs with condos, you're pushing out people with children to make way for childless adults. DC is already hostile to parents. I don't know why we want to give parents yet another reason to leave for the suburbs.

That's silly, PP. Different people, in different circumstances, like different things. As you yourself say.

And if these condos aren't even remotely affordable - that's because PEOPLE WANT THEM. Demand for them exceeds supply.

This is why adding to the housing supply in DC will never result in affordable housing. Demand will always exceed supply.

No, that's why we need a LOT more housing, and why part of building more housing in Ward 3 should also include building large amounts of high-quality public housing, instead of just mandating affordable units alongside new market-rate ones.

Washington D.C. is like New York City or San Francisco in that the number of people who want to live here far exceeds the number of housing units that could ever conceivably be built. That's why adding to the housing supply doesn't reduce housing prices. It just makes the city more crowded.

In fact SF builds very little new housing, and even NYC has some significant zoning limits.

NYC also has a much larger employment base than DC has.

Plenty of suburbanites work in the suburbs and will never want to live in DC. Quite a few who do work in DC will never want to live in DC. And unlike NYC, DC is not attractive to trust fund kids.

So I do not think you are at all correct.

There's five million people in the suburbs. They will instantly absorb any new units added in the District because who wants to spend three hours a day in the car? But don't worry -- you can get their old place in Manassas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What's so sacrosanct about living in DC? Not everyone can afford to live in Georgetown or on U Street, for example. We live in a metropolitan region, with cheaper price points in several nearby jurisdictions. For example, there are good values in Prince George's including inside the Beltway.

There is tons of affordable housing just over the border in PG county. But that doesnt count, because that's not where the density bros want to live. They want the government to shoehorn them into "cool" neighborhoods.

So we shouldn't build more housing in DC, because if we did, then people would just move into it from the distant extremities, because who wants to live in the distant extremities? Also, we shouldn't build more housing in DC, because there is already plenty of housing available in the distant extremities, where people don't want to live. Also, if we do build more housing in DC, it should only be for people who would otherwise have to live in the distant extremities. Also, why should people who live in the distant extremities get to live in DC?

There's only one coherent point here, and it's: opposition to building more housing in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ill do you one better: How about we knock down not only SFHs but also all one-, two- and three-bedroom condos. Replace them all with studios. No one in the District gets more than 450 square feet. Housing would be way cheaper then.

Few if anyone is suggesting that all SFHs be knocked down. Just that people who own them be ALLOWED to redevelop them with more density. Why do people like you keep changing "We should allow X" into "We must mandate X for everyone"? Straw man?

No single family homes
No three-bedroom condos.
No two-bedroom condos.
No one-bedroom condos.

Only studios. Everyone gets 450 square feet. Housing would be so much cheaper. People will get used to it.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Give rich people what they want, and there will be dregs for average people! In the far suburbs! Awesome.

The rich people in Ward 3, and similar places, want to stop development. Send the lesser folks somewhere else, as far away as possible.

It's the density people who want to push out poor people to make way for their million-dollar condos.

No, I am a density person in Ward 3, and what I want is (a) new buildings with affordable housing in them to replace empty lots, (b) zoning that allows for apartment buildings and other multi-family housing throughout the ward instead of just big single-family homes, and (c) taller buildings in general to allow for more housing in the area. I want more poor people to be able to move TO the neighborhood.

None of this stuff will actually result in lower housing prices. That's the whole point of this thread.

No, actually, buildings with units designated for affordable housing will lower housing prices. As will different kinds of housing (like, for instance, smaller apartments that a family could live in instead of only $1 million SFHs). As will an increase in supply, generally. No one has offered any evidence that a broad, deliberate policy to increase housing and specifically target housing affordability would not reduce housing prices. There's just been a lot of assertions that, for instance, building condos will make the area more desirable and therefore more expensive.

But if you knocked down my house tomorrow and replaced it with a six-unit building full of two-bedroom condos, every single one of them would sell for less money than my house would if sold as a single family four-bedroom house. That is to say: Housing prices would be reduced.

Ill do you one better: How about we knock down not only SFHs but also all one-, two- and three-bedroom condos. Replace them all with studios. No one in the District gets more than 450 square feet. Housing would be way cheaper then.

What's so sacrosanct about living in DC? Not everyone can afford to live in Georgetown or on U Street, for example. We live in a metropolitan region, with cheaper price points in several nearby jurisdictions. For example, there are good values in Prince George's including inside the Beltway.

There is tons of affordable housing just over the border in PG county. But that doesnt count, because that's not where the density bros want to live. They want the government to shoehorn them into "cool" neighborhoods.

No, actually, the "cool" neighborhoods are ALREADY dense. Neighborhoods in upper Northwest with tons of single-family houses aren't cool. (If they were, I wouldn't have moved to one in my 40s with two kids.) This debate isn't about whether to make U Street dense and let "the density bros" live there, because there's already more housing there and less restrictive zoning than there is along the Red Line, and the "density bros" already live there anyway. It's about whether to allow the rest of the city to get denser, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hear this constantly asserted, as if it were self-evidently true, but cannot figure out how it could possibly be correct.

There's 700,000 people in the District. There's 5 million in the suburbs. If you add 30,000 housing units in DC, they will instantly be soaked up by people in the suburbs looking for shorter commutes.

As people move into DC from Falls Church and Rockville and Fairfax, their old places will open up for other people. Other people will move into those places from suburbs even further out, which will open up slots in places like Chantilly or Columbia or wherever else those people are coming from and that would put downward pressure on housing prices in the suburbs they've left.

But how does any of that lead to affordable housing in DC?

it doesnt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s funny Bowser wants to make the city more dense but does nothing in the way of preparing the city’s infrastructure for more people. They can’t even take care of the metro.

Metro is not run by the DC govt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
There's five million people in the suburbs. They will instantly absorb any new units added in the District because who wants to spend three hours a day in the car? But don't worry -- you can get their old place in Manassas.

Pretty much nobody in Loudoun commutes to DC. They work in Loudoun, or Dulles or Tysons. You would have to make DC cheaper than Ashburn to get them to even consider living in DC.

Manassas? Well I guess some from there do commute to DC (though plenty commute to Fairfax, and to Arlington) But plenty of those would never want to live in DC.

To put it differently. There are close to 3 and a half million jobs in the metro area.

There are about 800k jobs in DC. So at most 1/4 of the metro pop really would want to live in DC.

So about 1.5 million? Double the current population of DC.

Except a lot of those people will not move to multifamily, period.

So, you are wrong. (You also neglect that there are parts of Arlington with SHORTER commutes to DC job centers than much of DC, but thats a relatively minor point)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ill do you one better: How about we knock down not only SFHs but also all one-, two- and three-bedroom condos. Replace them all with studios. No one in the District gets more than 450 square feet. Housing would be way cheaper then.

Few if anyone is suggesting that all SFHs be knocked down. Just that people who own them be ALLOWED to redevelop them with more density. Why do people like you keep changing "We should allow X" into "We must mandate X for everyone"? Straw man?

No single family homes
No three-bedroom condos.
No two-bedroom condos.
No one-bedroom condos.

Only studios. Everyone gets 450 square feet. Housing would be so much cheaper. People will get used to it.

Straw man. No one says "no sinfgle family homes" They just say "lets end SFH only zoning"

That you keep ignoring the difference only says something about you.