Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:55     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think the title is supposed to be "Boomers and Real Estate Developers plan to ruin Arlington"

Or

"Missing Middle: in ARL you need 1.5 for an MM unit"


It’s boomers who seem to be most against missing middle.

What costs more: a $500,000 condo in a six plex, or a fancy new $2,000,000 Mcmansion?

I am fascinated that you think this is how it’s going to play out. What do you think that $2m house is going to be worth once it is upzoned? You think current property owners are going to leave money on the table and hand it over to developers to profit?


Somewhere between $2.05m to $2.1m. Because it makes no sense for developers to bid each other up when there are so many other lots they could buy instead.
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:52     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think the title is supposed to be "Boomers and Real Estate Developers plan to ruin Arlington"

Or

"Missing Middle: in ARL you need 1.5 for an MM unit"


It’s boomers who seem to be most against missing middle.

What costs more: a $500,000 condo in a six plex, or a fancy new $2,000,000 Mcmansion?

I am fascinated that you think this is how it’s going to play out. What do you think that $2m house is going to be worth once it is upzoned? You think current property owners are going to leave money on the table and hand it over to developers to profit?
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:51     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think the title is supposed to be "Boomers and Real Estate Developers plan to ruin Arlington"

Or

"Missing Middle: in ARL you need 1.5 for an MM unit"


It’s boomers who seem to be most against missing middle.

What costs more: a $500,000 condo in a six plex, or a fancy new $2,000,000 Mcmansion?


There’s no real shortage of 500k condos in Arlington, but I guess the idea is some people would prefer to live in a non walkable neighborhood?

https://www.redfin.com/VA/Arlington/1021-N-Garfield-St-22201/unit-235/home/11281195

Those are all walkable neighborhoods. The shortage is in housing less than $1.5m in unwalkable neighborhoods. That is what these people want. They want to live in N. Arlington in a SFH, not in a condo but cannot afford it. So they think this will help them get access to those nice and leafy rich neighborhoods. The problem is that it will just make those houses even more expensive. If I own a $2.1m SFH and my lot is up zoned to 6 units then the value of my lot has at least tripled and I probably wouldn’t sell my house for less than $4m.


How on earth would your property be worth that much? It would make no sense for developers to start a bidding war for your property when there are so many across the county to develop. Countywide upzoning makes those sorts of bidding wars unlikely, which is why property values won’t increase by much, if at all.
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:48     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think the title is supposed to be "Boomers and Real Estate Developers plan to ruin Arlington"

Or

"Missing Middle: in ARL you need 1.5 for an MM unit"


It’s boomers who seem to be most against missing middle.

What costs more: a $500,000 condo in a six plex, or a fancy new $2,000,000 Mcmansion?


There’s no real shortage of 500k condos in Arlington, but I guess the idea is some people would prefer to live in a non walkable neighborhood?

https://www.redfin.com/VA/Arlington/1021-N-Garfield-St-22201/unit-235/home/11281195


There’s a massive shortage of homes under $750k in residential neighborhoods. Or what you might call single-family neighborhoods. Big shortage of rentals too. The apartments and condos along the corridors aren’t meeting that demand.

Hey, if I’m wrong, then those cheaper homes won’t get built.
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:47     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think the title is supposed to be "Boomers and Real Estate Developers plan to ruin Arlington"

Or

"Missing Middle: in ARL you need 1.5 for an MM unit"


It’s boomers who seem to be most against missing middle.

What costs more: a $500,000 condo in a six plex, or a fancy new $2,000,000 Mcmansion?


There’s no real shortage of 500k condos in Arlington, but I guess the idea is some people would prefer to live in a non walkable neighborhood?

https://www.redfin.com/VA/Arlington/1021-N-Garfield-St-22201/unit-235/home/11281195

Those are all walkable neighborhoods. The shortage is in housing less than $1.5m in unwalkable neighborhoods. That is what these people want. They want to live in N. Arlington in a SFH, not in a condo but cannot afford it. So they think this will help them get access to those nice and leafy rich neighborhoods. The problem is that it will just make those houses even more expensive. If I own a $2.1m SFH and my lot is up zoned to 6 units then the value of my lot has at least tripled and I probably wouldn’t sell my house for less than $4m.
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:45     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think the title is supposed to be "Boomers and Real Estate Developers plan to ruin Arlington"

Or

"Missing Middle: in ARL you need 1.5 for an MM unit"


It’s boomers who seem to be most against missing middle.

What costs more: a $500,000 condo in a six plex, or a fancy new $2,000,000 Mcmansion?


Not the boomers in WCWL
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:42     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think all of this proves that HOAs are in fact good.


All of this proves that for people who want to control what their neighbors do with their property, they should have moved to a neighborhood with an HOA.

You mistake control with agreement for mutual benefit, i.e. solving a collective action problem.


Ah yes, the “collective action problem” of living near multifamily housing. Might as well start getting used to it.

You’re one of those people that hate Haussmann’s renovation of Paris.


Paris is lovely! It's one of the densest, most livable cities in the world. It's actually the ubiquity of mid-rise multifamily buildings, with ground-floor retail and restaurants, throughout the city that makes it so livable. We should try it!


So would all the poor people in this scenario live in high rises in Prince William County?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/02/how-the-rise-of-american-style-segregation-is-feeding-division-in-europe/

That’s the goal.


No, we should build homes for them as part of mixed-income neighborhoods.


Ok, so not like Paris then.

Seems like you should be requesting that the county board mandate that 1/3 of all new missing middle units be permanently affordable if you want your vision to be a reality.


Paris’ challenge is that its urban core is mostly built-out. It’d have to knock down mid-rises to build high-rises. We don’t have that problem. Almost 80% of our residential land is single family houses. We can add a bunch more housing by converting those.

This is not true. Paris heavily restricts the ability to redevelop properties to increase density where market demand clearly exists. That is the problem. The reason why they do that is because they believe that is because they prioritize the non-economic community benefits derived from maintaining the aesthetic to the benefit of adding more dense housing.


So how about we allow enough denser housing until we’re as built out as Paris?

Or alternatively, stop using European cities as a model/ideal if you are promoting prioritization of private property rights.
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:38     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think the title is supposed to be "Boomers and Real Estate Developers plan to ruin Arlington"

Or

"Missing Middle: in ARL you need 1.5 for an MM unit"


It’s boomers who seem to be most against missing middle.

What costs more: a $500,000 condo in a six plex, or a fancy new $2,000,000 Mcmansion?


There’s no real shortage of 500k condos in Arlington, but I guess the idea is some people would prefer to live in a non walkable neighborhood?

https://www.redfin.com/VA/Arlington/1021-N-Garfield-St-22201/unit-235/home/11281195
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:33     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:I think the title is supposed to be "Boomers and Real Estate Developers plan to ruin Arlington"

Or

"Missing Middle: in ARL you need 1.5 for an MM unit"


It’s boomers who seem to be most against missing middle.

What costs more: a $500,000 condo in a six plex, or a fancy new $2,000,000 Mcmansion?
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:29     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

I think the title is supposed to be "Boomers and Real Estate Developers plan to ruin Arlington"

Or

"Missing Middle: in ARL you need 1.5 for an MM unit"
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:29     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Why are we still talking about whether missing middle is good or not? The county board is going to pass some version of it.
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:27     Subject: Re:Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Move somewhere you can afford.


And when 6-plexes get built north of Langston Blvd with homes under $1m each, households who can afford those homes can move into them.


People who can afford $900k townhouses are not what proponents of “missing middle” want. They want places for the poor.


But people who move into those townhouses creates more room at the slightly less expensive houses they would otherwise buy, which trickles down and increases availability at lower price levels.

How will only 20 MM developments spread across the county have an impact on prices and when has trickle down economics ever worked?


Filtering isn’t “trickle down economics.” Trickle down is the idea that giving rich people money will spur investment that (maybe eventually) create gains for everybody else. Adding housing means more supply for buyers to bid on and fewer competing bids that push up prices.
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:22     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think all of this proves that HOAs are in fact good.


All of this proves that for people who want to control what their neighbors do with their property, they should have moved to a neighborhood with an HOA.

You mistake control with agreement for mutual benefit, i.e. solving a collective action problem.


Ah yes, the “collective action problem” of living near multifamily housing. Might as well start getting used to it.

You’re one of those people that hate Haussmann’s renovation of Paris.


Paris is lovely! It's one of the densest, most livable cities in the world. It's actually the ubiquity of mid-rise multifamily buildings, with ground-floor retail and restaurants, throughout the city that makes it so livable. We should try it!


So would all the poor people in this scenario live in high rises in Prince William County?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/02/how-the-rise-of-american-style-segregation-is-feeding-division-in-europe/

That’s the goal.


No, we should build homes for them as part of mixed-income neighborhoods.


Ok, so not like Paris then.

Seems like you should be requesting that the county board mandate that 1/3 of all new missing middle units be permanently affordable if you want your vision to be a reality.


I have an idea! Let’s mandate at least one committed affordable home on any redeveloped residential property. So a single family home has to be affordable, one of two duplexes has to be affordable, etc. Why treat multi family housing any differently?


Is this a serious suggestion? Because it’s not legal. And developers aren’t altruistic, they are greedy. There is no incentive to lose money by building affordable housing.
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:21     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think all of this proves that HOAs are in fact good.


All of this proves that for people who want to control what their neighbors do with their property, they should have moved to a neighborhood with an HOA.

You mistake control with agreement for mutual benefit, i.e. solving a collective action problem.


Ah yes, the “collective action problem” of living near multifamily housing. Might as well start getting used to it.

You’re one of those people that hate Haussmann’s renovation of Paris.


Paris is lovely! It's one of the densest, most livable cities in the world. It's actually the ubiquity of mid-rise multifamily buildings, with ground-floor retail and restaurants, throughout the city that makes it so livable. We should try it!


So would all the poor people in this scenario live in high rises in Prince William County?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/02/how-the-rise-of-american-style-segregation-is-feeding-division-in-europe/

That’s the goal.


No, we should build homes for them as part of mixed-income neighborhoods.


Ok, so not like Paris then.

Seems like you should be requesting that the county board mandate that 1/3 of all new missing middle units be permanently affordable if you want your vision to be a reality.


Paris’ challenge is that its urban core is mostly built-out. It’d have to knock down mid-rises to build high-rises. We don’t have that problem. Almost 80% of our residential land is single family houses. We can add a bunch more housing by converting those.

This is not true. Paris heavily restricts the ability to redevelop properties to increase density where market demand clearly exists. That is the problem. The reason why they do that is because they believe that is because they prioritize the non-economic community benefits derived from maintaining the aesthetic to the benefit of adding more dense housing.


So how about we allow enough denser housing until we’re as built out as Paris?
Anonymous
Post 01/28/2023 11:19     Subject: Arlington "missing middle"

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think all of this proves that HOAs are in fact good.


All of this proves that for people who want to control what their neighbors do with their property, they should have moved to a neighborhood with an HOA.

You mistake control with agreement for mutual benefit, i.e. solving a collective action problem.


Ah yes, the “collective action problem” of living near multifamily housing. Might as well start getting used to it.

You’re one of those people that hate Haussmann’s renovation of Paris.


Paris is lovely! It's one of the densest, most livable cities in the world. It's actually the ubiquity of mid-rise multifamily buildings, with ground-floor retail and restaurants, throughout the city that makes it so livable. We should try it!


So would all the poor people in this scenario live in high rises in Prince William County?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/02/how-the-rise-of-american-style-segregation-is-feeding-division-in-europe/

That’s the goal.


No, we should build homes for them as part of mixed-income neighborhoods.


Ok, so not like Paris then.

Seems like you should be requesting that the county board mandate that 1/3 of all new missing middle units be permanently affordable if you want your vision to be a reality.


Paris’ challenge is that its urban core is mostly built-out. It’d have to knock down mid-rises to build high-rises. We don’t have that problem. Almost 80% of our residential land is single family houses. We can add a bunch more housing by converting those.

This is not true. Paris heavily restricts the ability to redevelop properties to increase density where market demand clearly exists. That is the problem. The reason why they do that is because they believe that is because they prioritize the non-economic community benefits derived from maintaining the aesthetic to the benefit of adding more dense housing.