We need homes. A lot of homes. Not just affordable, but also middle-income homes.

[Anonymous]

We need homes. A lot of homes. Not just affordable housing, but also middle-income ones, and even luxury homes. I agree with virtually every word of Hayley Bonsteel’s excellent piece for The Urbanist titled “How to Finetune Rep. Macri’s Single-Family Rezone Bill.” I have long been opposed to single-family zoning (not housing), for a number reasons but largely because of its malicious history. Bonsteel is correct in that we must return to our abundant housing roots.

However, abolishing single-family zoning will barely move the needle on our housing crisis. We can’t duplex and triplex our way out of this—though it’s a good step since we do need more diverse types of housing, and rapidly. The decades long fight just to add, and then liberalize accessory dwelling units, or re-legalize duplexes and small apartments in now single-family zones, will pale in comparison to the needed shift.

We sit at the threshold of a decades long housing crisis, and a steepening climate crisis (one our mayor seems wholly unprepared to take on). The region includes some of the smartest and most sophisticated companies in the world, but rather than come to terms with the depth of the scale of this crisis, we put on blinders.

https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/01/29/housing-action-on-a-truly-massive-scale/

(2020)

About Seattle, but every word applies to the DC area EXCEPT that Seattle is farther along on zoning reform than we are.

We first need to upzone single family home lots.
That means Takoma Park. And Bethesda. And Ward 3 DC. Allow duplexes, triplexes, pop ups, and ADUs.

Then we need even more homes than that.

And if we don’t do all these things, average people will be priced out of anything within 90min of DC.

[Anonymous]

This is honestly idiotic. If middle income people won’t live in duplexes they can’t live in dense urban housing. You can’t “policy” your way into affordable SFH in close-in urban areas.

People in NYC already know this. The rest of the country apparently is too stupid to get it.

[Anonymous]

What do you think all of the townhomes, pseudo townhomes, and condos are? That’s middle housing and DMV is an outlier that it is actually building it.

What you socialists forget though is the market. Many don’t want to live with shared walls and overcrowded streets, far from jobs. At least not at the minimum price point that these things can be built for. That’s why there is a lack of housing at an entry level.

That and starter homes are a terrible investment and for condos basically entrapment.

In other areas, when home prices exceed what the majority of the market can pay, developers are building smaller to meet the price point.

Again it’s the market. Not just zoning, which is relatively permissive when it comes to density around here.

Never mind you or anyone else can buy in Anacostia right now. Super affordable. The problem is everything else, like safety and schools. Not zoning.

[Anonymous]

MoCo passed the accessory dwelling regulation last year.

[Anonymous]

Remote work (accelerated by Covid and dim-witted CEOs finally realizing that paying for large office space doesn't help productivity and employee engagement along with climate change focus that realizes millions of people commuting to work everyday doesn't help the global warming cause) will change everything over the next 20 to 30 years. People will move to suburbs, ex-urbs, rural areas and still have a good paying job. This will depress existing cities even further and make lots of housing more "affordable" there, by default.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you think all of the townhomes, pseudo townhomes, and condos are? That’s middle housing and DMV is an outlier that it is actually building it.

What you socialists forget though is the market. Many don’t want to live with shared walls and overcrowded streets, far from jobs. At least not at the minimum price point that these things can be built for. That’s why there is a lack of housing at an entry level.

That and starter homes are a terrible investment and for condos basically entrapment.

In other areas, when home prices exceed what the majority of the market can pay, developers are building smaller to meet the price point.

Again it’s the market. Not just zoning, which is relatively permissive when it comes to density around here.

Never mind you or anyone else can buy in Anacostia right now. Super affordable. The problem is everything else, like safety and schools. Not zoning.

I was with you until “socialist” and then I stopped reading because I am sick of seeing random insulting statements aimed at literally everyone else responding on this board. That’s so rude and aggressive. Go away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you think all of the townhomes, pseudo townhomes, and condos are? That’s middle housing and DMV is an outlier that it is actually building it.

What you socialists forget though is the market. Many don’t want to live with shared walls and overcrowded streets, far from jobs. At least not at the minimum price point that these things can be built for. That’s why there is a lack of housing at an entry level.

That and starter homes are a terrible investment and for condos basically entrapment.

In other areas, when home prices exceed what the majority of the market can pay, developers are building smaller to meet the price point.

Again it’s the market. Not just zoning, which is relatively permissive when it comes to density around here.

Never mind you or anyone else can buy in Anacostia right now. Super affordable. The problem is everything else, like safety and schools. Not zoning.

I was with you until “socialist” and then I stopped reading because I am sick of seeing random insulting statements aimed at literally everyone else responding on this board. That’s so rude and aggressive. Go away.

I’d think socialists would have thicker skin. Jeeez.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We need homes. A lot of homes. Not just affordable housing, but also middle-income ones, and even luxury homes. I agree with virtually every word of Hayley Bonsteel’s excellent piece for The Urbanist titled “How to Finetune Rep. Macri’s Single-Family Rezone Bill.” I have long been opposed to single-family zoning (not housing), for a number reasons but largely because of its malicious history. Bonsteel is correct in that we must return to our abundant housing roots.

However, abolishing single-family zoning will barely move the needle on our housing crisis. We can’t duplex and triplex our way out of this—though it’s a good step since we do need more diverse types of housing, and rapidly. The decades long fight just to add, and then liberalize accessory dwelling units, or re-legalize duplexes and small apartments in now single-family zones, will pale in comparison to the needed shift.

We sit at the threshold of a decades long housing crisis, and a steepening climate crisis (one our mayor seems wholly unprepared to take on). The region includes some of the smartest and most sophisticated companies in the world, but rather than come to terms with the depth of the scale of this crisis, we put on blinders.

https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/01/29/housing-action-on-a-truly-massive-scale/

(2020)

About Seattle, but every word applies to the DC area EXCEPT that Seattle is farther along on zoning reform than we are.

We first need to upzone single family home lots.
That means Takoma Park. And Bethesda. And Ward 3 DC. Allow duplexes, triplexes, pop ups, and ADUs.

Then we need even more homes than that.

And if we don’t do all these things, average people will be priced out of anything within 90min of DC.

So many affordable homes in NE, SE, pg county-many are on the metro or Marc lines! What We need are good schools.

[Anonymous]

Many cities here have ADU ordinances already. Do you know why they aren’t being built? The market, even the investor market which ironically would shut out new owners, won’t support it.

Even somewhat off the hook, you’re talking about a custom house, $150K, for a studio or studio plus, that may only rent for $1,200 a month. That’s a CAP rate of about 9%, but pretty average or even below average for Class B or worse property.

Easier than that is an index fund. Less risk, less work, more liquidity, and I don’t have to deal with landlord issues. That’s in an area that respects property rights. DC? Forget about it. I’d want at least 12% to make it worth my wild, and then no other issues, but at that point I’ll still take easy.

That’s why certain homes aren’t built. Everyone “needs” to get at least 4-8% off the deal, and if they don’t, it doesn’t happen and many don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We need homes. A lot of homes. Not just affordable housing, but also middle-income ones, and even luxury homes. I agree with virtually every word of Hayley Bonsteel’s excellent piece for The Urbanist titled “How to Finetune Rep. Macri’s Single-Family Rezone Bill.” I have long been opposed to single-family zoning (not housing), for a number reasons but largely because of its malicious history. Bonsteel is correct in that we must return to our abundant housing roots.

However, abolishing single-family zoning will barely move the needle on our housing crisis. We can’t duplex and triplex our way out of this—though it’s a good step since we do need more diverse types of housing, and rapidly. The decades long fight just to add, and then liberalize accessory dwelling units, or re-legalize duplexes and small apartments in now single-family zones, will pale in comparison to the needed shift.

We sit at the threshold of a decades long housing crisis, and a steepening climate crisis (one our mayor seems wholly unprepared to take on). The region includes some of the smartest and most sophisticated companies in the world, but rather than come to terms with the depth of the scale of this crisis, we put on blinders.

https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/01/29/housing-action-on-a-truly-massive-scale/

(2020)

About Seattle, but every word applies to the DC area EXCEPT that Seattle is farther along on zoning reform than we are.

We first need to upzone single family home lots.
That means Takoma Park. And Bethesda. And Ward 3 DC. Allow duplexes, triplexes, pop ups, and ADUs.

Then we need even more homes than that.

And if we don’t do all these things, average people will be priced out of anything within 90min of DC.

Guess what. If that happens, they will be only low income people in the area. And guess who pays the taxes. At the federal, almost 50% of us pay no income taxes. And average people are not being priced out everything within 90 minutes. Moreover, jobs are spread throughout the DMV, including distant burbs. Not much sympathy here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We need homes. A lot of homes. Not just affordable housing, but also middle-income ones, and even luxury homes. I agree with virtually every word of Hayley Bonsteel’s excellent piece for The Urbanist titled “How to Finetune Rep. Macri’s Single-Family Rezone Bill.” I have long been opposed to single-family zoning (not housing), for a number reasons but largely because of its malicious history. Bonsteel is correct in that we must return to our abundant housing roots.

However, abolishing single-family zoning will barely move the needle on our housing crisis. We can’t duplex and triplex our way out of this—though it’s a good step since we do need more diverse types of housing, and rapidly. The decades long fight just to add, and then liberalize accessory dwelling units, or re-legalize duplexes and small apartments in now single-family zones, will pale in comparison to the needed shift.

We sit at the threshold of a decades long housing crisis, and a steepening climate crisis (one our mayor seems wholly unprepared to take on). The region includes some of the smartest and most sophisticated companies in the world, but rather than come to terms with the depth of the scale of this crisis, we put on blinders.

https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/01/29/housing-action-on-a-truly-massive-scale/

(2020)

About Seattle, but every word applies to the DC area EXCEPT that Seattle is farther along on zoning reform than we are.

We first need to upzone single family home lots.
That means Takoma Park. And Bethesda. And Ward 3 DC. Allow duplexes, triplexes, pop ups, and ADUs.

Then we need even more homes than that.

And if we don’t do all these things, average people will be priced out of anything within 90min of DC.

So many affordable homes in NE, SE, pg county-many are on the metro or Marc lines! What We need are good schools.

If we want to improve the lives of the poor and lower income residents, lets spend money improving their neighborhoods, from schools, infrastructure, parks, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MoCo passed the accessory dwelling regulation last year.

Thanks for the TP crowd. Dumb regulation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remote work (accelerated by Covid and dim-witted CEOs finally realizing that paying for large office space doesn't help productivity and employee engagement along with climate change focus that realizes millions of people commuting to work everyday doesn't help the global warming cause) will change everything over the next 20 to 30 years. People will move to suburbs, ex-urbs, rural areas and still have a good paying job. This will depress existing cities even further and make lots of housing more "affordable" there, by default.

This would be amazing. We’ve realized most office work can be done remotely, but I don’t think it will be permanent.

The federal government could revitalize other areas of the country by simply allowing remote workstations. Plenty of people will need to stay here for classified work or Hill jobs, but so many will be able to leave. The feds could set up one salary scale for all remote capable jobs so no one would be enticed to stay in high cost of living areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you think all of the townhomes, pseudo townhomes, and condos are? That’s middle housing and DMV is an outlier that it is actually building it.

What you socialists forget though is the market. Many don’t want to live with shared walls and overcrowded streets, far from jobs. At least not at the minimum price point that these things can be built for. That’s why there is a lack of housing at an entry level.

That and starter homes are a terrible investment and for condos basically entrapment.

In other areas, when home prices exceed what the majority of the market can pay, developers are building smaller to meet the price point.

Again it’s the market. Not just zoning, which is relatively permissive when it comes to density around here.

Never mind you or anyone else can buy in Anacostia right now. Super affordable. The problem is everything else, like safety and schools. Not zoning.

"Single-family homes take up a lot of space in the District"


https://ggwash.org/view/71576/heres-how-much-of-dcs-housing-consists-of-single-family-homes

[Anonymous]

Much of ward 3 is zoned for SFH's only.
If we allowed anyone who wanted to to build triplexes on any lot now zoned for SFH:
- Real estate prices would go way up.
- Costs of individual units would go way down.

It might take a few years for the 2nd to happen.

But we need more houses. Many more houses. It's the only way to make it cheaper to live here.