Anonymous
07/23/2019 15:29
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
ITA. There is plenty of affordable housing in parts of DC that yuppies don't want to live in.
And if yuppies go there (some already are, of course - yes, EOTR) that will push out the current low income residents. More gentrification is not the answer to making housing more affordable.
What is your suggestion for lower income residents? Are you saying we should build public housing in large quantity, which would naturally be concentrated in lower cost parts? Do you suggest we should give incentive to market rate landlords or developers to build at a loss/rent at a loss or somehow motivate them to be more self-sacrificing? NYC had not solved this problem despite insane rate of new construction and incredible density and zoning laws. The poor also get pushed out into more distant or more unsafe parts due to gentrification there.
The only way to make housing more affordable is to make someone pay for it, simple as that. Who will pay for it? Solve this problem and get back to us.
Anonymous
07/23/2019 15:28
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Anonymous
07/23/2019 15:26
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
+1.
There's actually a lot of affordable housing in Washington. It's just not where people want to be -- they want affordable housing that's surrounded by coffee shops and cool bars and has great schools.
If there's so much affordable housing, how come such a large proportion of people are spending such a large proportion of their income on housing costs?
Move to Anacostia. Your housing costs will plummet.
Where do you think the people currently living in Anacostia should go, once housing costs start to rise in Anacostia?
First of all people need to want to move to Anacostia in such numbers to make this area rise in price to become unaffordable for current residents or tempting to sell. Where do you think these jobs or this housing demand from highly compensated existing professionals will come from?
It depends on whether DC and other localities restrict development or take steps to get out of the way. If restrictive policies win out, the demand will come from people priced out elsewhere (and again, there are already young middle and upper middle class people moving EOTR - maybe not "highly compensated professionals" but gentrification usually starts with artists, young people without a lot of money, etc.
Anonymous
07/23/2019 15:24
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Older buildings in desirable parts of DC go for pretty penny.
Older buildings in Ward 3 go for about what new buildings in newly transitioning areas EOTP go for. Its hard to see how much less they go for than new buildings in W3, because there are so few new buildings in W3. Or how much less old buildings in transitioning areas are because most transitioning areas have few old buildings (or they are all rent controlled) But if you look at older building in SW DC, you can see the discount for older buildings (though that may be changing as that neighborhood gets filled with amenities) You can see this even more clearly in inner suburbs, where there are buildings in South Arlington, West Alexandria, and Silver Spring that are relatively affordable, but less so than they would be were it not for the pressure from people priced out of newer and closer buildings.
"people not wanting to sell or rent at a loss. "
But if the market softens, they will take what they can get.
I think you somehow believe that allowing zoning to build another NYC is going to make DC into magical affordable mecca with high paying jobs. If there is no demand, it's hard to motivate builders to buy and build.
In Seattle they allowed more new density, and they have seen a decline in rents. Magical affordable mecca is a straw man, its about making things MORE affordable for MORE people. And it won't take another NYC - whats proposed for McMillan is not that, what the PUD called for in Brookland manor is not that, what was proposed for that Safeway in Palisades was not that.
And again, there is lots of demand.
Anonymous
07/23/2019 15:18
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
+1.
There's actually a lot of affordable housing in Washington. It's just not where people want to be -- they want affordable housing that's surrounded by coffee shops and cool bars and has great schools.
If there's so much affordable housing, how come such a large proportion of people are spending such a large proportion of their income on housing costs?
Move to Anacostia. Your housing costs will plummet.
Where do you think the people currently living in Anacostia should go, once housing costs start to rise in Anacostia?
First of all people need to want to move to Anacostia in such numbers to make this area rise in price to become unaffordable for current residents or tempting to sell. Where do you think these jobs or this housing demand from highly compensated existing professionals will come from?
Anonymous
07/23/2019 15:14
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
Where is that land of benevolent high rise builders? You cannot increase supply without giving government incentives, which usually means some sort of subsidized housing. You cannot force developers to take a hit to build. They are not non profits. In NYC building developers get tax breaks if they allocate certain percentage of housing to mid income, they don't want low/no income as they want steadily employed law obedient people, just not high earners, they want MC. But this housing is very hard to get, there are long waitlists and lotteries and qualification requires certain level of earned income, but not more than cut off. I know people who live in these places, there used to be entire buildings and compounds, but nobody is building this anymore. Developers give only a few units away in exchange for tax breaks and this costs the city and its taxpayers.
There is such a thing as market-rate affordable housing.
Housing for poor people requires government support. But there's no reason the market can't support housing for lower-income people. It's not as though the housing market were segmented in two groups, (1) people with piles of money and (2) very poor people. If the builders build lots of "luxury" units, then the people with piles of money can stop bidding up the prices of the existing less-luxurious units.
The NIMBYs who write this stuff have apparently not shopped for an apartment lately. They do not seem to realize that middle class people live in older high rises, that those older hi rises are priced to the market with great precision, that a tight market for new luxury units sends people, at the margins, into the older buildings, driving their prices up and displacing people further down the ladder or out to sprawlville.
Older buildings in desirable parts of DC go for pretty penny. Crumbling rowhomes are sold for market price and are not remotely affordable to families making middle income. I have no clue what you are talking about. It's not about NIMBY at all, it's about market and people not wanting to sell or rent at a loss. One of my relatives family live in a rent controlled unit in a very popular area that hasn't been upgraded in 30 years. The building owners invest in renovating empty units and rent them for a market price that's not affordable to anyone not making professional incomes or rooming together. Families don't live in this building unless they had been there for decades, it's purely occupied for rent control/young professionals/students rooming together/childless couples.
I think you somehow believe that allowing zoning to build another NYC is going to make DC into magical affordable mecca with high paying jobs. If there is no demand, it's hard to motivate builders to buy and build.
Anonymous
07/23/2019 15:14
Subject: Cities with No Children
Anonymous wrote:I spent time in San Francisco from about 2008-2010 on and off and was always struck by how few children I saw. I didn’t even see many teens. It was all post-college 20s and up. On one of my trips, I took my grandmother, who was born and grew up in San Francisco and she noticed it too compared to her youth.
Still seems like there are a lot of kids and families in DC in comparison, but once you get out of preschool age, they seem to be mostly concentrated in the less desirable areas.
Have you ever been to Ward 3 in upper NW. It's all families with kids of all ages.
Anonymous
07/23/2019 15:09
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
+1.
There's actually a lot of affordable housing in Washington. It's just not where people want to be -- they want affordable housing that's surrounded by coffee shops and cool bars and has great schools.
If there's so much affordable housing, how come such a large proportion of people are spending such a large proportion of their income on housing costs?
Move to Anacostia. Your housing costs will plummet.
Where do you think the people currently living in Anacostia should go, once housing costs start to rise in Anacostia?
Anonymous
07/23/2019 15:03
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Anonymous wrote:
ITA. There is plenty of affordable housing in parts of DC that yuppies don't want to live in.
And if yuppies go there (some already are, of course - yes, EOTR) that will push out the current low income residents. More gentrification is not the answer to making housing more affordable.
Anonymous
07/23/2019 15:00
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
It's funny and strange how the rhetoric from affordable housing advocates and big real estate developers is exactly the same.Anonymous wrote: rate housing.
If the govt limited the amount of food that food producers could supply, then the rhetoric from food producers and from anti hunger folks would be the same.
If they made it hard to build new cars, and let people out bid each other for used cars, then the rhetoric from car makers and from people wanting to make cars affordable would be the same.
Anonymous
07/23/2019 14:58
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Anonymous wrote: Nobody is going to build there if there is not enough demand. To build in yuppie parts land costs a lot and developers won't built unless it's luxury condos. Same with the suburban developers in expensive burbs. If the lot costs north of 900, no developer is going to build a home under 5000sq.ft or something they cannot flip north of 2 mil. What crazy developer would pay 900 for a lot to build a 2500 sqft. home with inexpensive upgrades?
Land that is suitable for high rise development costs so much because we limit the parcels where high rises are allowed, and how much can be built on any one parcel. We create the scarcity.
Allow more parcels to have high rises, and while those particular parcels will go up in value, the general market for high rise zoned parcels will go DOWN. Which will make the economics of adding full luxury amenities less attractive.
Anonymous
07/23/2019 14:54
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Anonymous wrote:
Except they never actually build affordable housing. Literally the only thing they build are luxury condos for rich people. It's funny and strange how the rhetoric from affordable housing advocates and big real estate developers is exactly the same.
The more new luxury condos they build for rich people, the fewer existing non-luxury condos those rich people are going to outbid non-rich people for.
Anonymous
07/23/2019 14:54
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:If you tried to reduce housing prices in New York City by increasing the housing supply and you actually did build enough units to affect prices, you would encourage more people to move there because now it would be within their budgets. That would push prices back up.
That assumes that if rents went down in NYC by even 1%, lots more people would move there. It assume a homogeneity of preferences for urban living that is unrealistic - in English - even if NYC were cheaper, there are lots of people who do NOT want to live there.
second if that DID happen - more people living in NYC - it would reduce green house gas emissions, because NYC is the most GHG efficient place in the USA.
Similar things apply to DC.
Developers build what's profitable for them, which is luxury condos, not affordable housing. This helps nobody. Would you move from a 3K a month rowhouse rental or an older building 2 bedr apartment to a 3K a month one bedroom luxury apartment in the same area?
1. They build with as much "luxury" as they do because we limit supply so much. If auto producers faced a legal limit on total cars produced they would only produce luxury cars. Increase supply, increase competition, there will be fewer luxury touches added
2. Even so, new housing is costly to build. Markets in the US produce affordable housing when we allow housing to age. There are plenty of old apts in the DC area that are too expensive, because housing is scarce. Build more supply, get more people from those older buildings into the new ones, and the landlords of the older ones will need to cut rents to fill them
3. DC and some suburbs have actual inclusionary zoning requirements - to build more high end units, they have to build income limited units as well.
4. The same NIMBYs who oppose market rate units, generally also oppose new committed Affordable Housing - you won't get more low income housing by preventing new supply.
Where is that land of benevolent high rise builders? You cannot increase supply without giving government incentives, which usually means some sort of subsidized housing. You cannot force developers to take a hit to build. They are not non profits. In NYC building developers get tax breaks if they allocate certain percentage of housing to mid income, they don't want low/no income as they want steadily employed law obedient people, just not high earners, they want MC. But this housing is very hard to get, there are long waitlists and lotteries and qualification requires certain level of earned income, but not more than cut off. I know people who live in these places, there used to be entire buildings and compounds, but nobody is building this anymore. Developers give only a few units away in exchange for tax breaks and this costs the city and its taxpayers.
That's addressing point 1.
2. this is a classic chicken and egg problem. To make older units cheaper, new units have to be affordable and abundant. In order of new units to be affordable and abundant developers need to get paid.
3. To build limited income units you need incentives for developers and this costs money to the city. Developers are not going to build enough for a lot of limited income families unless there is profit in it. And building housing low income projects creates social problems, the name of the game these days is mixed housing.
4. To have new supply, someone has to build it, these people need to make money or be somehow compensated. This has to come from someone, are you ok with your RE taxes or income taxes raising up by a lot to have more of this housing built? Are you ok to be that landlord who invested in buying and improving property to give it away for a loss or way below market to forgo that retirement plan or college fund for your kids? What have you done or are willing to do to take away from yourself to improve the housing situation for others? Things cost money, I am not hearing any solutions to that.
I don't think you understand the RE market in DC. Developers are chomping at the bit to build. They are constrained by local zoning codes, that make it more costly. When we waive those, via PUDs in DC or DSUPs in Va, we make them jump through hoops - and after that people still file lawsuits to stop the development. Look at what has happened with Brookland Manor, or with McMillan, or the battles in Alexandria about the Robinson's Terminal properties.
You do NOT need subsidies to get developers to build more market rate housing.
So, you are saying that in DC market rate housing is affordable for low and mid income? Or are you saying that affordable below market housing is actually profitable for developers to build?
No, I am saying that developers will build new market rate housing aimed mostly at upper middle income people. This in turn will impact the market for middle income housing in older buildings.
So middle income people may not be able to afford market rate units in McMillan (some low income people will get the committed AH units there) but those units will draw people who otherwise would be competing for units built 5 or 10 years ago - and that opening those units up will draw in people who might have lived in 20 year old buildings, etc an so on. Impacting the rental market at each level down the line. This is called "filtering"
Anonymous
07/23/2019 14:53
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:If you tried to reduce housing prices in New York City by increasing the housing supply and you actually did build enough units to affect prices, you would encourage more people to move there because now it would be within their budgets. That would push prices back up.
That assumes that if rents went down in NYC by even 1%, lots more people would move there. It assume a homogeneity of preferences for urban living that is unrealistic - in English - even if NYC were cheaper, there are lots of people who do NOT want to live there.
second if that DID happen - more people living in NYC - it would reduce green house gas emissions, because NYC is the most GHG efficient place in the USA.
Similar things apply to DC.
Developers build what's profitable for them, which is luxury condos, not affordable housing. This helps nobody. Would you move from a 3K a month rowhouse rental or an older building 2 bedr apartment to a 3K a month one bedroom luxury apartment in the same area?
1. They build with as much "luxury" as they do because we limit supply so much. If auto producers faced a legal limit on total cars produced they would only produce luxury cars. Increase supply, increase competition, there will be fewer luxury touches added
2. Even so, new housing is costly to build. Markets in the US produce affordable housing when we allow housing to age. There are plenty of old apts in the DC area that are too expensive, because housing is scarce. Build more supply, get more people from those older buildings into the new ones, and the landlords of the older ones will need to cut rents to fill them
3. DC and some suburbs have actual inclusionary zoning requirements - to build more high end units, they have to build income limited units as well.
4. The same NIMBYs who oppose market rate units, generally also oppose new committed Affordable Housing - you won't get more low income housing by preventing new supply.
Where is that land of benevolent high rise builders? You cannot increase supply without giving government incentives, which usually means some sort of subsidized housing. You cannot force developers to take a hit to build. They are not non profits. In NYC building developers get tax breaks if they allocate certain percentage of housing to mid income, they don't want low/no income as they want steadily employed law obedient people, just not high earners, they want MC. But this housing is very hard to get, there are long waitlists and lotteries and qualification requires certain level of earned income, but not more than cut off. I know people who live in these places, there used to be entire buildings and compounds, but nobody is building this anymore. Developers give only a few units away in exchange for tax breaks and this costs the city and its taxpayers.
That's addressing point 1.
2. this is a classic chicken and egg problem. To make older units cheaper, new units have to be affordable and abundant. In order of new units to be affordable and abundant developers need to get paid.
3. To build limited income units you need incentives for developers and this costs money to the city. Developers are not going to build enough for a lot of limited income families unless there is profit in it. And building housing low income projects creates social problems, the name of the game these days is mixed housing.
4. To have new supply, someone has to build it, these people need to make money or be somehow compensated. This has to come from someone, are you ok with your RE taxes or income taxes raising up by a lot to have more of this housing built? Are you ok to be that landlord who invested in buying and improving property to give it away for a loss or way below market to forgo that retirement plan or college fund for your kids? What have you done or are willing to do to take away from yourself to improve the housing situation for others? Things cost money, I am not hearing any solutions to that.
I don't think you understand the RE market in DC. Developers are chomping at the bit to build. They are constrained by local zoning codes, that make it more costly. When we waive those, via PUDs in DC or DSUPs in Va, we make them jump through hoops - and after that people still file lawsuits to stop the development. Look at what has happened with Brookland Manor, or with McMillan, or the battles in Alexandria about the Robinson's Terminal properties.
You do NOT need subsidies to get developers to build more market rate housing.
Except they never actually build affordable housing. Literally the only thing they build are luxury condos for rich people. It's funny and strange how the rhetoric from affordable housing advocates and big real estate developers is exactly the same.
ITA. There is plenty of affordable housing in parts of DC that yuppies don't want to live in. Nobody is going to build there if there is not enough demand. To build in yuppie parts land costs a lot and developers won't built unless it's luxury condos. Same with the suburban developers in expensive burbs. If the lot costs north of 900, no developer is going to build a home under 5000sq.ft or something they cannot flip north of 2 mil. What crazy developer would pay 900 for a lot to build a 2500 sqft. home with inexpensive upgrades?
Anonymous
07/23/2019 14:52
Subject: Re:Cities with No Children
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
+1.
There's actually a lot of affordable housing in Washington. It's just not where people want to be -- they want affordable housing that's surrounded by coffee shops and cool bars and has great schools.
If there's so much affordable housing, how come such a large proportion of people are spending such a large proportion of their income on housing costs?
There’s a difference between “affordable” housing and committed affordable housing. I think PP is pointing out that many people can afford to live close-in, but maybe not in the hot or fashionable neighborhoods, and choose instead to stretch and spend more of their take-home pay on “unaffordable” housing in their desired location, or they move further out to find areas that meet their other criteria, and give up on desired proximity. I think PP is specifically talking about DCUM posters who consider large swaths of the city and close-in suburbs unacceptable because of their proximity to lower income populations who live in committed affordable housing.
What is "committed affordable housing"?