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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Adding more housing units will make housing affordable. Just look at Navy Yard.

It's probably the most densely populated neighborhood now in the city. It's almost nothing but condos.

And 600 square foot condos there cost....more than the single family homes that were knocked down to make way for them?  Wait, that wasnt supposed to happen. I thought increasing density was supposed to push prices down? [/quote]
[b]
Density suppresses increases in housing prices - this has been thoroughly documented in research. It's a settled matter.

The SFHs in Near Southeast were knocked down when 395 was built, the redevelopment of Navy Yard displaced mostly warehouses and night clubs, but that's neither here nor there. You're examining this from the wrong perspective. The question you should be asking is how much more expensive SFHs in Navy Yard would be if those condos hadn't been built.[/b][/quote]

Heh. This is all nonsense. Increasing density drives housing prices up because it creates economies of scale for businesses. When lots of people are packed into an area, restaurants and bars and boutiques want to be there too because they want foot traffic. People in turn want to live near walking distance of those restaurants and bars, which drives up demand to live in that area, which increases prices. That creates more incentive to build housing there, which draws even more businesses, which leads more people to want to live there, which further drives up housing prices.

But this entire upward spiral in prices was driven in the first place by the fact that condos created a critical mass of people to allow gentrification to take off. If those condos weren't there in the first place, single family homes in Navy Yard would be cheap today, because there wouldnt be much incentive to leave there, except that it's cheap.

You can read about what the recent changes in Navy Yard have meant here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/b6843312f4c145efbef65a8942fb987b

To quote:

"It may even be the most gentrified neighborhood in the nation. Since 2000, the median household income in Census tract 72 has increased ten-fold; the percentage of people with a college degree has increased ten-fold; and the average home value has increased three-fold. Although racial change is not technically included in the measure of gentrification (which focuses on economic changes), it is often part of the popular definition. Thus, it is worth noting that the Black population of this tract decreased from 95% in 2000 to 24% in 2018. And the White population increased from 3% to 68%." [/quote]

Increased density CAN increase housing prices, but increasing density in Ward 3 (which is where I live) would almost certainly not. Houses here already routinely sell for more than $1 million. I don't think two- or three-bedroom condos in small buildings would sell for that much per unit. Adding density in an already expensive neighborhood doesn't bring any of the downsides of gentrification -- you aren't displacing people by raising rents, and there are already high-end services and amenities there, so your theory that more appealing businesses will flood the area, driving prices up, doesn't seem to apply.

So how, exactly, would allowing for non-SFH uses on, say, my block in upper NW (near Wisconsin Avenue, currently all single-family homes) lead to higher prices? It might make my kids' school more crowded, and make it noisier near my house, but [b]I don't really have the right to prevent that sort of thing just because I happened to have the money to live here already[/b]. [/quote]

DP. I’m a nimby who lives in SFH in Woodley Park, and I will weigh in to prevent further density where I live. When I purchased my house (which is by far the largest investment I’ve ever made), I did my due diligence first. Part of that was learning about the applicable zoning and historical regulations. As a current stake holder in the neighborhood in which I live, I have every right to oppose potential changes to those regulations. And I will. [/quote]

My home purchase was also by far the largest investment I've ever made. And while you and I may both have the legal right to oppose changes to existing zoning regulations, I don't think we'd have any moral ground to stand on in doing so just to avoid having more people live nearby.[/quote]

I couldn’t disagree more. Most people who worked hard to buy their home (meaning, no family money) wouldn’t want the things they like about their neighborhood to change. Change is neutral. It’s not necessarily good or bad. Even animals will try to protect their homes that they worked hard to build.

You don’t think you’d have any moral ground to stand on if the city changes zoning to allow a high rise immediately next door to you? What about a hundred-person homeless shelter? If that’s really how you feel, you kinda just sound like a pushover.[/quote]

I live in a city, and part of living in a city is having other people nearby. Your hypotheticals are a little extreme, since I’m suggesting there should be, like, eight-unit apartment buildings next to me, not high-rises or enormous shelters, but ultimately, no, I don’t think I have a moral right to say there shouldn’t be one of those things next door. If circumstances about my neighborhood change and I don’t like it, I can always decide to move. [/quote]

I’m not interested in semantics about what it means to live in a “city.”

Feel free to move if your neighborhood starts sucking because you didn’t fight to keep it. And then you can move from your next home too. And the next. I’ll stay here and fight to keep the things I like the same. And I feel completely morally comfortable with it. :)[/quote]

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