Reply to "We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to ""We don't really have housing options." Other cities have proactive land policies–DC needs them too."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote][In] most of the US, we have banal and expensive housing forms — sprawling detached houses, townhomes, and a smattering of condos or apartments — but we don’t really have housing options. There isn’t the variety in forms and cost one might find in a typical German city. Our urban land-use policies are weak to nonexistent; there are virtually no formats or vehicles for non-market housing.

Meanwhile, cities like Berlin, Vienna, and Freiburg have [b]proactive land policies for non-market housing like social housing, cooperatives, and baugruppen.[/b] They award sites to projects incorporating sustainability, affordability, or other innovations.

A quarter of housing in the Netherlands is social housing. Two-thirds of Vienna residents live in social housing. Zürich, Switzerland, is aiming for a quarter of all households to live in cooperatives. By 2030, 30 percent of all Parisian homes will be social housing.

[b]Household formation today is diverse and varied, and we should have housing options that match that diversity. More specifically, we should have affordable housing that matches these shifting demographics, encourages community[/b], and enhances solidarity.

Many of the EU re-compaction and brownfield developments I am praising are going all-in on diverse housing types: social housing, multigenerational housing (for young and old, single and families), clusterwohnungen (“cluster apartments” with large communal units for six to 15 people), baugruppen (urban cohousing), elderly housing, housing for single parents, housing for couples, cooperatives, and rental syndicates (a la Mietshäuser Syndikat, a networked syndicate of affordable rental cooperatives), temporary worker housing, maisonettes (two-story apartments), and more.

There is no housing in the US like the stunning Wohnprojekt Wien baugruppe in Vienna or the R-50 baugruppe in Berlin. The Swiss city of Zug is getting an enormous mass timber skyscraper that will incorporate many of these housing types, with abundant amenity space: galleries, music rooms, a library, ateliers, workshops, and sport studios.

[b]Housing diversity is built around the idea of choosing one’s community, choosing how to live.[/b] Almost always, sustainability, walkability, and low-carbon living are paramount. There are multiple venues and forums for discussing these issues, including symposia, building exhibitions, and competitions. [b]Many cities encourage diverse housing forms through direct subsidy or progressive land policies (using public land for non-market housing).[/b]

US demographics have shifted in the last half-century, to say the least, but there is virtually no discussion here of true housing diversity.
[/quote]

From David Roberts at Substack/Volts, a guest essay by Michael Eliason.

https://www.volts.wtf/p/the-5-coolest-trends-in-urbanism

This is what DC needs, before our city is fully broken by spiraling ever higher housing costs chases out everyone but the rich, and the old who purchased years ago.  We need to start talking about all these issues now.

Let's not be afraid to learn lessons that other countries and cultures have tried, and adopt the best of them.

There are many other good ideas in the above post at the link.[/quote]

Someone should really do a project that includes a baugruppen and a woonerf. That's the kind of forward-thinking urban design that will activate streetscapes and lead to effective placemaking.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics