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This is a well-timed thread for me! As of today it looks like the Austin City Council is going to shut down the 4-year, $9 million Land Development Code rewrite: https://twitter.com/AKMcGlinchy/status/1024715991144701957 Depending on who you ask, this plan was either rezoning all of Austin to be like Manhattan or a somewhat decent plan that might maybe improve some things at the margins. That gets to the plan's real problem, which is that it wasn't really going to change anything and so the people who should have been excited about it weren't, and the people who were going to scream bloody murder about it did so anyway. The planners made a ton of concessions to anti-density groups and then they came out very strongly against it regardless. At this point I think we'd be better off if the Council just bumped up the floor on every single residential zone so that you could build at least 2 units on every single lot in the city, if you wanted to. It would be a lot simpler and the effects would be much clearer.
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Aug 1, 2018 23:21
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Spacewolf posted:What's a charrette? Wikipedia is not very helpful in this context. It's a public input activity, usually for a specific area/project (like if you're building a new park, or redeveloping a brownfield site, or something like that). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charrette The ideal is that people who are affected by the project show up, say what they would like to see in the project, and then whoever is designing it (the City, an architecture firm, etc.) takes that into account and works on the design. This usually runs into two problems (in my opinion): 1) You only get a subset of people - often, the people who show up already hate [thing] and don't want it to happen, period. You can try to appease them but you just end up watering down the benefits of your project chasing these people who were never going to like it anyway. 2) You don't get input from the people who will actually be living in/working in/visiting the project in the future when it's done. This can lead to design elements that the people around the project like, but the people within the project do not. (2) is also a problem with planning more generally that is hard to solve. In participatory planning, the voices of the people who already live in a place are the only ones that are heard. Which is fine I guess, but it can perpetuate exclusion - of course the rich people who live in an exclusive neighborhood are going to give input that leads to the neighborhood staying exclusive.
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Aug 2, 2018 02:20
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ReidRansom posted:Without a broader plan in place though, you end up with something like some of the neighborhoods in San Diego, where you can tell that single family houses were just subdivided and additional structures built on the lot behind them, etc., until you have like 5 units on what used to be a small residential lot, and all the parking issues that come with that because no one bothered to consider transit issues that increased density brings. Austin has a housing problem, for sure, but that will sort itself out if it would bother to properly address its transportation issues. This is really a chicken/egg issue. No matter how amazing your transit system is, it’s still not going to have good ridership if no one is allowed to live near the lines. But if you upzone to allow that, people say the infrastructure can’t handle it. Unfortunately because of how cheap governments are nowadays new transit infrastructure is especially hard to come by. Getting more funding to improve existing operations is, surprisingly, even more difficult. Cap Metro, Austin’s regional public transit agency, basically cannot raise any more money for basic operations unless state law changes or they convince another city to join, and who knows whether the new revenue that brings in would outweigh the costs of having to provide service to that new city. As far as I know, Texas state law says member cities of a transit agency can give 1% of their sales tax revenue to the agency, max. Period. The agencies cannot raise taxes above that, so they depend entirely on continued sales tax growth if they want to expand.
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Aug 3, 2018 02:44
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As an example, there was a recent study about parking in NYC, Seattle, Philadelphia, Des Moines, and Jackson, WY and it found that every one besides NYC had more than 3 parking spaces per household: http://mynorthwest.com/1053061/study-plenty-seattle-parking/ As an additional stat, there was about $111k worth of parking per person who lives in Seattle.
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Aug 3, 2018 03:03
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Here's another interesting story on flooding and urban sprawl/development, using Houston as a particularly bad example: https://houston.texastribune.org/boomtown-floodtown/ Also I'm not sure why "we've always done it this way" is supposed to be a good reason to keep doing it.
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Aug 4, 2018 19:43
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This is just my opinion as someone who’s pro-density, but many PHIMBY people also tend to put forward public housing as the only solution, and oppose any privately developed project at any size because it involves people making money. This is usually summarized (uncharitably, to be clear) as “we shouldn’t do X because it doesn’t decommodify housing.” California DSA chapters seem to be worst about this for some reason. If you’re interested in a sort of synthesis of the viewpoints, Seattle DSA put out an interesting document on a socialist pro-density perspective (which I can’t find right now). If you want the opposite you can check LA, SF, or East Bay DSAs. I would bet most DSA chapters are internally divided. I think something that they also miss out on is that density is way better than what we’ve got for the environment too. If you’re serious about dealing with climate change, that has to involve putting more people in a smaller space (ideally, closer to their jobs and other frequent destinations). e: to give PHIMBY people credit, I think a lot of the time YIMBY people focus solely on zoning and don’t talk about tenant protections and rent control enough. I think both of those things are important parts of the solution. I just think densification is too. Badger of Basra fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Aug 6, 2018 |
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Aug 6, 2018 17:56
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Yeah I forgot to mention resource constraints. I don’t usually mention “how will you pay for this” or “is this feasible” since there’s lot of stuff I want to do that people would respond in the same way to. There are probably less than five cities in the US that are large and rich enough to do public housing out of their own budgets (NYC, LA, Boston?, Houston?, Chicago?) and I think of those only NYC actually has one (NYCHA) and it’s pretty badly run. E: separate issue but also, most US transit agencies are also very badly managed and instead of asking agencies from Europe or Asia for technical assistance they just keep doing weird “innovation” stuff that never works Badger of Basra fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Aug 6, 2018 |
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Aug 6, 2018 18:18
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fermun posted:YIMBY people often ignore the fact that their typical pro-density development ideas result in displacement of the people that actually use public transport, and result in a net increased greenhouse gas emissions due to displacing the poor who then have to commute by car. Which is why I said tenant protections and rent control are also important! I just think a massive public investment in housing is not going to happen at the local level - cities do not have enough resources to shoulder the burden on their own, and even if they did their voters wouldn't let them. I would be happy to vote for more public housing, and I'll be voting for the big housing bond we have coming up this year. But the homeowners who you team up with now to stop upzonings are going to be just as forcefully against any sort of public housing in their neighborhoods, no matter how big it is or how much they pretend to care about the people who need it. Austin has a $250 million housing bond coming up this year - that's 4% of the estimated need in terms of housing, just to meet existing demand. It still might not pass. Cities do have the power (depending on the state) do protect tenants and allow more housing to be built. Subsidizing housing is a part of that, but if that's all of it then it's never going to be enough. Ardennes posted:I image it is just an outgrowth of the more advanced concentration in particularly the bay area. But yeah, no one is talking about banning the construction of private housing or attached subsidized affordable housing, but as long as public housing is neglected, this issue is going to only get worse. It is simply a matter of supply, and it isn't feasible for the private housing market to provide the vast amount of low-cost housing coastal cities need. Where do you get the idea that YIMBY policy is just bad streetcars? A lot of those came about recently because of the USDOT TIGER grant program incentivizing stuff like that and boosterism from Chambers of Commerce etc. Everyone I know who's actually involved in this stuff thinks they're bad and wants actual transit investment - Seattle and LA have actually done this, and Seattle is one of the only cities in the country that has rising transit ridership. It's been falling pretty much everywhere else across the country since the end of the recession.
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Aug 11, 2018 14:08
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There was a funny thread a couple months ago in the NUMTOT Facebook group where someone posted a picture of a new apartment building complaining about how all this new luxury housing is ugly etc. and it turned out to be a 100% affordable development.
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Aug 14, 2018 23:31
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I guess this thread is perhaps dead but I wasn’t sure where else to post this article: https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2018/10/prop-j-initiative-exposes-rift-among-austin-environmentalists/ Interesting discussion of how density splits environmental groups, including one leading Austin environmentalist saying we should just do more sprawl development because that’s good for the environment somehow.
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Oct 9, 2018 14:51
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luxury handset posted:exactly, and this is the problem This has always been so interesting to me because from what I understand in most states municipal borders and special districts could be completely reorganized just by passing a bill in the state legislature - there's no state that has constitutional language about municipal rights or anything like that. But since suburbs dominate the legislature they get to run the state.
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Oct 12, 2018 02:59
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I feel like this is underreported compared to the shittiness of the MTA (maybe just because I follow too many reporters who live in NYC), but WMATA is also terrible now and no one in management there seems interested in fixing it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...0b1f_story.htmlquote:Some Metro officials are not convinced the agency can win back riders fleeing the system because of sparse off-peak service — or that it should try — in the face of looming financial obligations, budget constraints and the endless backlog of maintenance needs. 
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Oct 13, 2018 19:29
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hailthefish posted:I mean, it wouldn't be a D&D thread about urban planning without posters assuming every rural or suburban is just an ignorant racist needing to be forcibly relocated to the city, or at the very least bussed in to watch a production of Hamilton. This but assuming every city person is a quote:white collar six figure techbros who think 'affordable housing' means a bigger, cheaper Bay Area condo for them so they can finally afford to buy a boat. Suburbs might be bad or good but they are going to destroy the planet
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Oct 14, 2018 23:43
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luxury handset posted:quote plz https://twitter.com/awalkerinLA/status/1060683628093464577
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Nov 9, 2018 16:23
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suck my woke dick posted:tbf “his first idea” implies he eventually rejected it too Well the idea he settled on of building tunnels for no reason also sucks
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Nov 11, 2018 01:54
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https://twitter.com/JSadikKhan/status/1106678391007264768 This is also a good time to point out that in some states (or maybe federally? idk) road widening is considered good for the environment because it allows cars to go faster. So putting a train in that has a level crossing with a road is bad for the environment because it slows down the cars.
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Mar 16, 2019 18:42
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Insanite posted:I don't have a spreadsheet or anything. Just around over the years, for the most part--and if not always skyscrapers, then certainly big, girthy buildings. In the vast majority of Americans urban land row houses and triple deckers barely exist so I’ve definitely seen more fetishizing of those forms in particular than I have of skyscrapers Like in a lot of places “relaxing height limits” could mean going up to like 60 feet
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Mar 18, 2019 16:35
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https://twitter.com/jamesleerwc/status/1113709134946361344?s=21 Can’t build in poor neighborhoods because it causes gentrification Can’t build in rich neighborhoods because it doesn’t cause gentrification (SB50 is the new version of the California bill from last year that upzones everything around a transit stop. It’s been amended this session to focus more on upzoning rich neighborhoods)
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Apr 6, 2019 15:31
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Mooseontheloose posted:here is the tough thing around building affordable housing, from the things I have read. Laws that create physical affordable housing (so say requiring to build X amount of units in a Y project) have to be super careful to NOT destroy the ACTUAL affordable housing that exists. Developers will just rebuild the units and not add more, so no net gain in affordable units. I think that's why the new SB50 focuses more on rich areas - there's way less existing affordable housing to demolish (or just very little housing in the first place)
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Apr 6, 2019 17:51
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Cool article about how public engagement at the local level is insanely toxic: https://twitter.com/rottenindenmark/status/1147494116885798912?s=21 I know some people have problems framing it as age rather than class, but I think the basic problem (public engagement processes are fundamentally broken and do not improve outcomes at a Citywide level) can work either way you look at it.
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Jul 8, 2019 17:56
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JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:I’m horney for providing all human beings with dignity, human rights, and social services so that they may live a prosperous and fulfilling life Have you considered how this will affect my ability to park my car for free on public property
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Aug 4, 2019 12:53
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If this works I imagine this is going to start happening a lot more whenever any transit projects are proposed. It already happens a lot in California through CEQA from what I understand. They really need to amend these laws.
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Aug 15, 2019 17:33
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pointsofdata posted:if city councils could call a national convention there would be a 28th amendment to the consitution by now There would be 10 million amendments writing zoning restrictions for specific lots into the constitution https://twitter.com/BrooklynSpoke/status/1162016063720218624?s=20
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Aug 16, 2019 15:38
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Squalid posted:Weirdly Phoenix, which is one of the most insanely suburban old chuddy cities ever, seems like one of the places now most determined to keep expanding light rail networks and public transit. They're having a referendum right now to unapprove the light rail line they already voted for, so don't get so optimistic.
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Aug 16, 2019 20:51
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https://twitter.com/jboehm_NEWS/status/1166546655778234368?s=20 Phoenix is going to stick with the light rail expansion that the Koch brothers forced them to have a vote on (they had already voted to approve it once).
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Aug 28, 2019 04:42
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A state rep in VA has introduced a bill to legalize ADUs statewide and people aren’t taking it well: https://twitter.com/lukerosiak/status/1210354563049500676?s=21
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Dec 27, 2019 23:32
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But where does everyone park!
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Jan 8, 2020 20:12
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nrook posted:I don’t think that’s necessarily true, states trying out policies is a classic way to show they can work on the federal level. Like Obamacare was heavily inspired by Romneycare, right? California is rich, they could fund public housing. It’s when this train of thought goes into “therefore we must oppose all other reform” that it loses me. States can try it out but it is absolutely impossible for California to pay for all the housing it needs using resources from only within California. LA is building affordable units for $800k per and is missing like 1.5 million units.
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Jan 31, 2020 03:22
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Is there anywhere that does minimums on units, like you see for parking? Like in this zoning category you must build one unit per acre or something like that.
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Jan 31, 2020 21:52
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Phew well I’m glad all the rich people who want to move to Boston and outbid people for existing housing won’t do that after we stop building anything
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Feb 28, 2020 15:18
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https://twitter.com/rabonour/status/1237424594526416896?s=20 There was a piece in the LA Times yesterday that was a nice example of the “only good gentrification is my gentrification” genre, and also a little bit racist. The third pic is my favorite. “I bought here because I couldn’t afford anywhere else, how dare people gentrify it!”
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Mar 11, 2020 17:41
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Dylan16807 posted:I feel like I'm missing something obvious. A young white professional not having enough money to move to a rich neighborhood and so moving to a cheaper, usually nonwhite one is usually how gentrification happens. You can be a gentrifier even if you don’t want to be because it’s not about whether you like, go to a yoga studio, but about who is bidding for a limited supply of housing. I think the article is dumb because she wants to separate herself somehow from people doing the same thing she did now just because she did it first. Also it’s kinda racist.
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Mar 13, 2020 13:36
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Gentrification is not about whether you shop at local businesses or whatever. It’s not an aesthetic problem in the way she is talking about it. She moved there because she could not afford to live where she wanted. The people who came after her are doing the same thing. Because she (and these new people) make more money than the existing residents and can pay more for the same housing, they push them out unless new housing gets built to house the extra people (either in the gentrifying neighborhood or in some other already rich neighborhood the new rich people would live in). Even if all the new residents shopped at the locally owned grocery store, the existing residents would still get pushed out because they can’t afford to pay the same amount for housing that the new ones can.
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Mar 13, 2020 21:19
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Solaris 2.0 posted:The problem is..that is subjective depending who you talk to in the neighborhood and you will never get an agreement. This reminds me of an architecture book I read where the author talked about this neighborhood in Philadelphia(?) that everyone loved as a real "authentic" place.Turns out it was built from scratch in a field by a developer, but because they did it 100 years ago everyone just pretends it sprang up from the ground like that.
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Mar 14, 2020 20:40
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Nitrousoxide posted:People on fixed incomes or even incomes that don't increase with the property prices in their neighborhood will get priced out by increasing property taxes. Do you think there are no renters with fixed or low incomes
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May 2, 2020 15:37
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1) It's a massive subsidy to homeownership, which is bad 2) If they sell the house it's still a capital gain 3) Lol renters? Who cares
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May 2, 2020 15:54
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Some states also don't collect income tax but also prohibit local governments from doing it for ideological reasons (Texas).
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May 2, 2020 20:06
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There's also a social cost to letting 1-2 old people take up an entire family-sized house just because it feels nice, especially when there's not enough of those to go around
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May 2, 2020 22:47
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luxury handset posted:this conversation is going in circles mostly because you either believe without validation the assertion that restrictive single use zoning mandating detached homes is the primary driver of housing unaffordability, or you do not believe that. it's not about the policy itself really, it's about how you approach the debate and the assumptions you have in mind before you click post If it's not restrictions on supply (in desirable areas/cities) when what explains the consistent increase in housing prices in these areas/cities? Like it used to be way more affordable to live in California near the coast than it is now. Why is that? It can't all be foreign speculators trying to launder money. e: I guess if you add the proviso "they're building it, it's just not what people want," why aren't they building what people want? There's definitely a market for it considering how expensive it is.
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Jul 10, 2020 20:40
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gonger posted:In the most difficult markets like NYC and the SF Bay Area, it’s literally not possible to build affordable housing without subsidy. Last time I checked for SF, the break even per-unit cost of a 5 story 100 unit building required tenants to have something like 130% of area median income to be reasonably “affordable”. There actually is appetite for subsidy in California! It's just that building housing costs so much there that a lot of subsidy doesn't get you very far. https://twitter.com/dillonliam/status/1248278000140832769?s=20
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Jul 10, 2020 20:43
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