|
Seattle Times op ed page with this thought provoking hot take that maybe home prices would drop if we just stopped building homes: http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/seattles-build-baby-build-frenzy-leaves-affordability-in-the-dust/ quote:So, should the city encourage more replacement of older, relatively affordable housing stock with new and bigger buildings that drive rents higher? Does that hurt or help affordability? Yes, let us become San Francisco. Cover me in the amber of immortality.
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2017 19:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 13:48 |
|
|
The Oldest Man posted:Seattle Times op ed page with this thought provoking hot take that maybe home prices would drop if we just stopped building homes: This guy is dumb in multiple ways, least of which is that "Seattle" is a catch all term for all that matters. The Mega Region the Mass Effect trilogy supposed is just as likely as careful build out at this point. He reeks of every anti building type ive run into in the ex-urbs throwing up his hands and screaming "No stop!" in the face of history. We dont have time to pause, history does not wait for us and those that do lose what little control and say they have. Just like with Black Diamond.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2017 19:56
|
|
|
I hear one little old lady cornering people in the grocery store all the time about trying to stop building out in North Bend. Howling into the wind won't stop the wind.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2017 20:22
|
|
|
RuanGacho posted:This guy is dumb in multiple ways, least of which is that "Seattle" is a catch all term for all that matters. The Mega Region the Mass Effect trilogy supposed is just as likely as careful build out at this point. He reeks of every anti building type ive run into in the ex-urbs throwing up his hands and screaming "No stop!" in the face of history. We dont have time to pause, history does not wait for us and those that do lose what little control and say they have. Just like with Black Diamond. Well the larger problem is that he is presupposing that single family homes are somehow going to be affordable again for the average buyer. They're not, that time in Seattle's history is gone and frankly it's not coming back.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2017 20:47
|
|
|
The Oldest Man posted:Well the larger problem is that he is presupposing that single family homes are somehow going to be affordable again for the average buyer. They're not, that time in Seattle's history is gone and frankly it's not coming back. Agreed, I don't get the obsession with it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2017 00:00
|
|
|
The Oldest Man posted:Seattle Times op ed page with this thought provoking hot take that maybe home prices would drop if we just stopped building homes: What's even worse are the lefties screaming about tech bros and developer profits and using that to advocate against any development what so ever. Guess what folks? It's not those who are new to the area who voted for bad housing policy over the past several years.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2017 17:51
|
|
|
The housing crisis is not going away. Even if new homes are built. The solution is the one thing nobody wants to talk about. Too much demand. How do you reduce demand? Build more? (Aghhh we're running out of land, well let's build up. Aghhhh prices are still increasing....) You will also, later down the line, run into the issues of cities exceeding their population for certain key infrastructure. (Water supply and sewage sanitation, heating distribution, etc.) While building more condos and high density housing might handle things in the short to medium term, this does not tackle the long term issue of overpopulation. People generally do not like being told, "Hey you can't have children!" Maybe we can reform the education system with free condoms and birth control in middle and high schools. Maybe we can emphasize to children that one mistake can easily cost you your future. (Be that having a kid, trying opiates, getting a dangerous loan, gambling.) The future is all doom and gloom. Senor P. fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Apr 2, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2017 19:58
|
|
|
On the street level in Seattle, fwhat I see happening is single homes being demolished and replaced with one of two options: 1) A new single family home that stretches the limit of what is allowed to occupy the lot. Very little if any yard is left. 2) Anywhere from 6 to 40 units taking the space of the previous house. The high occupancy buildings (re: 40 units) are typically micro housing with common kitchens. I can think of at least six of these examples that are currently in progress within a mile of my house.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2017 20:28
|
|
|
Senor P. posted:The housing crisis is not going away. Even if new homes are built. The solution is the one thing nobody wants to talk about. Too much demand. Overpopulation is a far less serious problem than how we live. The future is only doom and gloom because the massive demographic that is American suburbanites are unwilling to make changes. Some want to bury their head in the sand and pretend they can prevent change by willing it out of existence. Other people throw up their hands and say "well, too many people, the solution is not to change how I live, it's to educate future generations in a way that leads to long term population declines." Either way, you're abandoning your culpability and excusing yourself from being part of the solution. "It's overpopulation" is an easy cop out because that's a problem for the next generation to figure out. HEY NONG MAN posted:
I see this all the time in Portland too. It absolutely infuriates me. I work hard to try to advocate for density to my NIMBY neighborhood character friends and colleagues. But when you tear down a single family home to replace it with a yard destroying, tree eliminating bigger single family home then you're playing right into the NIMBY argument. HashtagGirlboss fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Apr 2, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2017 20:34
|
|
|
Those lot line to lot line SFH are the most economically logical thing to build given the current zoning. I since the land cost is fixed you might as well get the most sqft of house you legally can. If NIMBY scum don't like these big houses they could support http://missingmiddlehousing.com housing, ie row houses and such.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2017 21:41
|
|
|
What I'd like to see are rules requiring apodment complexes to invest like 25% of the money they save by not providing parking in mass transit and bike infrastructure, since these are both used as justification despite being currently inadequate. Then as the city gets denser we get to have nice things. It would also be nice for them to actually be affordable.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2017 22:45
|
|
|
George posted:It would also be nice for them to actually be affordable. Why charge 100k, when people are willing to pay 250k... (250k for a piece of ownership in concrete, excellent decision.) Hooray capitalism!
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2017 23:06
|
|
|
Rent control is increasingly sounding like the only option left. I think someone in the previous thread had a good argument against it, but his solution was "build more", and now that we can see building more isn't helping, might as well give rent control a shot.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 05:10
|
|
|
Build a lot more, directly on top of sfh's, and also institute a vacancy tax to discourage builders from still just making high-end poo poo and letting it sit empty for years until people meet the asking price.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 05:20
|
|
|
Freakazoid_ posted:Rent control is increasingly sounding like the only option left.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 05:28
|
|
|
Senor P. posted:The housing crisis is not going away. Even if new homes are built. The solution is the one thing nobody wants to talk about. Too much demand. If you have a 10 foot hole and only put 5 feet of dirt into it you're not going to fill it. I really get sick and tired of people saying, "Oh look, we allowed one new building but prices are going up, I guess building more housing isn't the answer after all!" Actually build real density. Freakazoid_ posted:Rent control is increasingly sounding like the only option left. Sure, lets have a limit on yearly increases and what not but like I said before, 5 feet of dirt in a 10 foot hole isn't going to fill it. I also really like the vacancy tax and other ways to improve access to mass transit.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 05:34
|
|
|
I honestly think that a real and effective solution would be large public affordable housing projects but that is unlikely to happen in Portland. The government would need to outbbuild demand too which is hard to do in a city this size with a net in-migration of 44k people a year.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 06:41
|
|
|
Last stat I heard for Seattle was 2,000 new residents arriving every week.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 06:46
|
|
|
HEY NONG MAN posted:Last stat I heard for Seattle was 2,000 new residents arriving every week. That can't be net.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 06:47
|
|
|
therobit posted:That can't be net. Yeah I don't believe it included exits. It was on KUOW so take it with whatever spin they put on things.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 06:51
|
|
|
That can't possibly be right or it has to include the entire MSA otherwise in the 2010 census there was ~610,000 people and the 2015 estimate is around ~684451 (pulled out of Wikipedia's rear end) if Seattle is actually adding 2000 people a week that means that population that grew by about 14,800 a year over that period has ballooned to 104,000 people a year if you multiply 52*2000, Seattle is growing alot but that rate of increase is unprecedented.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 07:46
|
|
|
Maybe they are counting the suburbs in the ~2k/week number.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 07:48
|
|
|
Peachfart posted:Maybe they are counting the suburbs in the ~2k/week number. It has to be MSA if the number isn't completely made up just a quick glance at Wikipedia the Seattle-Tacoma, WA Combined Statistical Area has a increase from 4274767 in the 2010 Census to 4,526,991 in 2014 Estimate, again it seems crazy to me this would balloon from 63,000 a year to 104,000 however that is much less of a leap than using the number for Seattle alone.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 07:53
|
|
|
What we want ideally is a poo poo ton of ~3-6 story apartment buildings with varying character and upscaleness. But a bunch of giant bland luxury single-bedroom apartment towers near downtown surrounded by a sea of aging suburbs might work out in the end, as long as we still have some amount of the midsize apartments out there. (I mean, either way we need to actually fund our housing subsidy programs. and for that to be sustainable we need to rework our entire tax structure so we can raise a reasonable amount of income without crushing the lower and middle classes. and for that to be politically feasible we need to finally flip our state legislature, and then pressure the ones nominally on our side to actually get the good poo poo done. and I don't know how to do that.) Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 09:52 on Apr 3, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 09:47
|
|
|
Freakazoid_ posted:Rent control is increasingly sounding like the only option left. Although I wouldn't mind German-style rent control, coupled with German-style land use policies. But for some reason American rent control always seems way more absolutist than the former, and there's zero chance of the latter because increasing density in SFH areas or allowing a bakery means literally killing America. quote:I think someone in the previous thread had a good argument against it, but his solution was "build more", and now that we can see building more isn't helping, might as well give rent control a shot.  if you think any of the progressive high-demand cities have actually tried building more. They allow a tiny bit more density and then go "well wouldja lookit that it didn't help! (while there continued to be a flood of new people in a booming economy)"Progressives are okay with density, as long as it's density that happened a long time ago. New density is gross.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 11:00
|
|
|
Vacancy tax is increasingly important for us to implement. Didn't Vancouver finally implement one? I'm concerned that would put extra pressure on Seattle.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 18:11
|
|
|
Build build build. This will drive rents down over time, and keep us from becoming San Francisco 2.0 as so many NIMBY's want. It is a long term solution though. As for a short term solution... I don't think there is one.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 18:17
|
|
|
In the meantime you do whatever you can to piss off existing home owners so they'll want to leave faster.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 19:33
|
|
|
HEY NONG MAN posted:In the meantime you do whatever you can to piss off existing home owners so they'll want to leave faster. Just move to the suburbs. Having a SFH in the city is already incredibly expensive, and will only become more and more difficult. Buy now while the prices are only somewhat insane.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2017 20:55
|
|
|
Someone vandalized a ton of Nike rental bicycles, lol https://twitter.com/BikePortland/status/849382740030095360
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2017 23:23
|
|
|
Bertha finally... birthed. We are one step closer to getting the tunnel none of us wanted! (First we need to tear down the viaduct, then build a highway in the tunnel, then finish new surface streets, so uh... see you in 2019)
|
|
#
?
Apr 4, 2017 23:26
|
|
|
As someone who is forced to drive through downtown occasionally, Bertha and the tunnel was the least-bad option. Permanent gridlock and no easy driving options on the west side of Seattle would be a nightmare. It is an expensive and crappy project, but it's better than just knocking it down and pretending we don't need the traffic volume.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 01:46
|
|
|
Peachfart posted:As someone who is forced to drive through downtown occasionally, Bertha and the tunnel was the least-bad option. Permanent gridlock and no easy driving options on the west side of Seattle would be a nightmare. We could've invested that money in mass transit...
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 01:53
|
|
|
I'd rather not re-debate tunnel vs street level highway vs new viaduct again. I'm just glad the tunneling is done and no giant sinkholes appeared on 1st. Gonna miss that Western Ave off ramp, though. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 01:58
|
|
|
I'm kind of impressed Bertha didn't find more metal poles stuck in the ground.got any sevens posted:We could've invested that money in mass transit...
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 02:02
|
|
|
The nice thing about the viaduct is you got an excellent view of the sound when stuck in traffic.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 02:16
|
|
|
anthonypants posted:I'm kind of impressed Bertha didn't find more metal poles stuck in the ground. Well you can squarely blame Clark Co. for that one.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 02:51
|
|
|
As a new Portland resident I actually haven't heard the full story on the erosion of Columbia river bridge talks. All I know is that everyone from Washington blames Portland, and the city's desire to bring the devil MAX to the fair people of Vancouver.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 12:01
|
|
|
The Puppy Bowl posted:As a new Portland resident I actually haven't heard the full story on the erosion of Columbia river bridge talks. All I know is that everyone from Washington blames Portland, and the city's desire to bring the devil MAX to the fair people of Vancouver. The people who live on one side of the river and do cross the bridge are those that avoid taxes at all cost. The people that don't cross the bridge don't want to pay taxes on something they don't personally use. Oregon, on the other hand, wants there to be features to the bridge that appeal to their constituents, despite any 'extra' feature is going to be crapped on by the other side as evidence of tax waste.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 14:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 13:48 |
|
|
The problem is people who live in Vancouver tend to be tax cheats in that they use Portland for services but dont want to pay taxes and use an artificial line created by governments to avoid them. I have this vague idea in my head that we should use some sort of computer model to determine distance from services so people cant play the tax equivalent of sitting in the back seat of the car with their fingers an inch from your face going "nah nah im not touching you!" Of course fixing such a thing would probably make Vancouver disappear overnight.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 15:19
|
|