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

[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 doesn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Housing is not a homogeneous commodity. Developer margins are higher with more expensive housing. In this area, those more expensive units will sell. There is little incentive to create "low income" housing. Even worse, the banks know this. Why didn't the real estate market crash here like it did in the rest of the country? Banks held onto the properties until the real estate market in this area began to recover and they could make a profit again selling the properties.

It did crash - what are you talking about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You mean like the entirely rent controlled building on Connecticut Avenue that is being emptied out for an upscale renovation, with the expectation of fewer than 2 IZ units once the building has been redone?

The residents of the building who were forced out have all been Bowsered.

Which building is this?

There's a recent Post article you can google. gets into the lack of follow up that DC provided, feces smeared in stairwells etc.

Sedgwick Gardens. The owner is taking lots of voucher tenants now, getting something like 150 percent of market rate. Such vouchers also take the unit out of rent control. Incidents like what the PP described are forcing many longtime tenants in rent controlled units to leave. After the owner has pocketed a lot of taxpayer money for vouchers and emptied out most of the rent controlled units, then it will renovate the building into very expensive units. That’s called housing Bowserization. Developers always win in the end.

No added density there. This has nothing to do with zoning laws, the topic of this thread.

What it mostly shows is that there are loopholes in rent control such that AH units that are not committed AH will disappear anyway. So upzoning creates no loss in that regard.

[Anonymous]

Seasons Greetings from Mayor Bowser, DC developers’ ho, ho, ho!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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 doesn’t.

It’s not about affordable housing per se, but it is about loosening restrictions to build more housing in desirable neighborhoods in DC. Discussing it in terms of affordable housing makes the regulatory changes more politically palatable to key constituencies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Housing is not a homogeneous commodity. Developer margins are higher with more expensive housing. In this area, those more expensive units will sell. There is little incentive to create "low income" housing. Even worse, the banks know this. Why didn't the real estate market crash here like it did in the rest of the country? Banks held onto the properties until the real estate market in this area began to recover and they could make a profit again selling the properties.

It did crash - what are you talking about?

Not like the rest of the country did. Yes, we lost some value but not like most of the country.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/002636-why-housing-so-expensive-metropolitan-washington

Banks kept the foreclosures sitting empty to keep prices stable in our area. Those units slowly dribbled back onto the market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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 doesn’t.

It’s not about affordable housing per se, but it is about loosening restrictions to build more housing in desirable neighborhoods in DC. Discussing it in terms of affordable housing makes the regulatory changes more politically palatable to key constituencies.

So all the talk about affordable housing is just a lie? Gotcha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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 doesn’t.

It’s not about affordable housing per se, but it is about loosening restrictions to build more housing in desirable neighborhoods in DC. Discussing it in terms of affordable housing makes the regulatory changes more politically palatable to key constituencies.

So all the talk about affordable housing is just a lie? Gotcha.

You know that responding to yourself is not persuasive, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Housing is not a homogeneous commodity. Developer margins are higher with more expensive housing. In this area, those more expensive units will sell. There is little incentive to create "low income" housing. Even worse, the banks know this. Why didn't the real estate market crash here like it did in the rest of the country? Banks held onto the properties until the real estate market in this area began to recover and they could make a profit again selling the properties.

It did crash - what are you talking about?

Not like the rest of the country did. Yes, we lost some value but not like most of the country.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/002636-why-housing-so-expensive-metropolitan-washington

Banks kept the foreclosures sitting empty to keep prices stable in our area. Those units slowly dribbled back onto the market.

Source other than Kotkin's website?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Housing is not a homogeneous commodity. Developer margins are higher with more expensive housing. In this area, those more expensive units will sell. There is little incentive to create "low income" housing. Even worse, the banks know this. Why didn't the real estate market crash here like it did in the rest of the country? Banks held onto the properties until the real estate market in this area began to recover and they could make a profit again selling the properties.

It did crash - what are you talking about?

Not like the rest of the country did. Yes, we lost some value but not like most of the country.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/002636-why-housing-so-expensive-metropolitan-washington

Banks kept the foreclosures sitting empty to keep prices stable in our area. Those units slowly dribbled back onto the market.

In case you have forgotten, the job market was stronger here. Bank incentives were no different here than elsewhere.

Anyway, developers have an incentive to build what sells. Its a competitive business. Some tale from Kotkin about banks and REOs is not evidence that developers form cartels to keep housing from being built when it becomes cheaper to build. Hell, if they did do that, the NIMBYs wouldn't be so afraid of developers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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 doesn’t.

It’s not about affordable housing per se, but it is about loosening restrictions to build more housing in desirable neighborhoods in DC. Discussing it in terms of affordable housing makes the regulatory changes more politically palatable to key constituencies.

So all the talk about affordable housing is just a lie? Gotcha.

It’s more a question of emphasis. DC needs more housing, period. End of story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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 doesn’t.

It’s not about affordable housing per se, but it is about loosening restrictions to build more housing in desirable neighborhoods in DC. Discussing it in terms of affordable housing makes the regulatory changes more politically palatable to key constituencies.

So all the talk about affordable housing is just a lie? Gotcha.

It’s more a question of emphasis. DC needs more housing, period. End of story.

1. The metropolitan regioin needs more housing, period.

2. The region needs more housing near job centers and transit

3. We need more affordable housing in places that are increasingly segregated to be for only high income people

4. Making more housing legal is needed both to actually allow affordable housing and also because more market rate housing will lead to more housing being affordable - and to more revenues for social services

[Anonymous]

So the plan is to build affordable housing in Great Falls and Chevy Chase Village? Ha ha!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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 doesn’t.

It’s not about affordable housing per se, but it is about loosening restrictions to build more housing in desirable neighborhoods in DC. Discussing it in terms of affordable housing makes the regulatory changes more politically palatable to key constituencies.

So all the talk about affordable housing is just a lie? Gotcha.

It’s more a question of emphasis. DC needs more housing, period. End of story.

1. The metropolitan regioin needs more housing, period.

2. The region needs more housing near job centers and transit

3. We need more affordable housing in places that are increasingly segregated to be for only high income people

4. Making more housing legal is needed both to actually allow affordable housing and also because more market rate housing will lead to more housing being affordable - and to more revenues for social services

Seems like you need to play some sim city and let the adults actually live in the real world

but to start why are liberals so obsessed with trying to add more poor people to areas

why should we subsidize employers instead of letting the market run things which if there are truly shortages would require employers to raise wages

please take an economics course

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So the plan is to build affordable housing in Great Falls and Chevy Chase Village? Ha ha!

Housing affordable for the middle class, yes.

Duplexes are part of the "missing middle" in the housing supply.

https://missingmiddlehousing.com/about