This solves basically nothing because if there were pure market forces most of America's cities. would have ceased to be SFH long ago. Slow conversion into duplexes simultaneous pisses off the NIMBYs and doesn't really help add supply in any great deal.
The evening news quote for this would be something like "if it were up to us, we'd build the new high rise today. But the city requires us to build several buildings, have people move in, evict them, then demolish that & start over. Something has to change with this process"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-happened-when-m...
> Minneapolis had 425,336 residents as of mid-2021, the Census Bureau estimates, and 199,143 housing units as of April 2020. By my count the end of single-family zoning has so far allowed for the permitting of at most 97 new units (the above table shows numbers of buildings, not units), some of which haven’t been built yet. If things continue at this pace, ending single-family zoning will have increased the city’s housing supply by just 1% by 2040.
For a single family home, the footprint can't take up more than 50% of the lot. For a duplex, the footprint can't take up more than 60% of the lot. Duplex and triplex projects could be made much more compelling by loosening these restrictions.
https://minneapolis2040.com/media/1816/built-form-districts-...
That's just not true! People would do that in the neighborhood I live in now in Los Angeles if they could because it would allow you to make the same piece of real estate about 1.5x times as valuable.
More interestingly, in Piedmont California where I grew up, there is a lot of controversy about this. That's an area that is very desirable -- great schools, pretty, close to San Francisco -- but also really expensive. Because its been a nice area for a long time many houses are on huge lots or even have servant's houses (!) that can be built up into a pretty nice house. Of course a lot of the neighborhood hates the idea of converting a single family lot into two homes even under these posh circumstances. But the economic incentives are powerful. I see it happening on my parent very fancy street.
PS: One of the things that really bugs me (in my neighborhood and where I grew up) is when home owners argue about preserving the local character. I grew up in city where my mom and grandmother grew up. The house I grew up in was an adjacent piece of land that once had a single house. Now the neighbors would freak out if you took these large plots of land and built two houses on them or god forbid a duplex. But the truth is they haven't lived their that long and if they did they would know that the neighborhood has always been changing. I wish they could make peace with that.
One will see if the backyard ADU end up in a similar situation over time or if the larger "main unit" gives them more value. With duplexes where both units are rentals, there's also probably a bit of a "neither of these are receiving significant owner upgrades" factor compared to an owner-occupied home.
Twice as much housing is a lot more housing.
Now when her kids inherit the home & sell it to a developer, sure it'll happen then. But that is a slow, generational process.
I mean, I'm all for trying it, but we probably should have done it 30 years ago since the rent is too damn high now.
The part I wonder about are provisions for mixed use. At some point some business should be allowed. I think Japanese zoning has a linear system that covers this: https://www.rahulshankar.com/zoning-in-japan/
The Strong Towns approach is not really a solution for SF -- it's an approach to prevent the predicament from forming in the first place. Cities that are on the verge of becoming the next SF (Seattle, Portland, Austin) should take heed.
But do what you describe as “YIMBY absolutists” actually exist? Maybe they do, but from my perspective I don’t really see anyone arguing that everything should be buildable everywhere.
This. It means, if you don't want your precious quality of life messed up, be nicer to all those other people you normally think you don't have to give a shit about.
If there wasn't a mass of people with no good jobs or housing, then there wouldn't be an ugly tower being built in your back yard. If your neighbor had his own food, he wouldn't need to steal yours, and you wouldn't have to live within your own private prison.
Very few people suggest this seriously, and in any case allowing for this in the market, it's unlikely any developer would do that. Skyscrapers make sense when the land there is particularly in demand, above and beyond what you're likely to find in a SFH neighborhood (unless it's some grandfathered-in area of Manhattan).
You mean because then it would be in their back yard? Or why?
Perhaps you'd authorize that kind of development under condition of adding sime more infra to support the additional residents, but in itself getting a tower of residents doesn't look like an issue.
Further, no one bought and built a 7 bedroom and 9 bath room home on an acre lot to live next to a few hundred people. It’s utterly irrational and illogical.
It completely denies the role of status seeking behaviour in our societies which is a human universal. We need wealthy people enjoying all the trappings of wealth and feel special about their status because it is them who are subsidizing the vast majority of the rest of the population. If you don’t reward the golden goose, no free golden egg. Fight the right battle.
I've seen some really beautiful homes out in the country as well, but they aren't that practical unless you are retired.
I suppose I would take the above proposal over the status quo if it truly eliminated local control - but otherwise seems like a very long time for a neighborhood to upzone. Its almost never going to be economical to tear down a SFH and build a triplex unless the SFH is in disrepair - which may be after 50 years from initial construction in most cases.
Which doesn't seem a bad idea.. but where does the level of employment and services factor into this? If an area expands economically, you're going to need to expand housing options, regardless of what was traditionally there.. if the area does not produce a lot of economic activity, then allowing more low density housing is ostensibly not a problem.
For areas that don't have a lot of economic activity, I think very few homeowners will go through the expense of converting their properties because they won't be able to make the money back on rent. In those areas it would be more efficient to build new SFHs on vacant lots.
Either way, with byzantine zoning rules out of the picture, the pricing and incentives to build, sell, or rent will match the local area much better.
But a lot of cities are so far behind that they need a lot more very quickly. You need more radical rezoning to actually help people soon for that.
Of course, the most likely outcome is politicians hemming and hawing some more, putting forth grossly inadequate solutions, and passing the buck to the next generation, as is tradition.
The problem with NIMBY absolutists is obvious -- it becomes impossible to expand the housing supply in areas that need expansion.
The problem with YIMBY absolutists is also obvious -- it's probably not ideal to build a 30 story condo tower in the middle of a neighborhood of single family homes.
(Though, arguably a 30 story condo tower is better than a housing crisis, but the Strong Towns proposal is geared towards never letting a housing crisis happen in the first place)
The Strong Towns compromise is that it should always be legal to build the next increment of housing stock relative to whatever is the most common in the area. Where the increments are defined something like: single family -> duplex/triplex -> row house -> low rise apartments -> mid rise apartments -> high rise apartments. In a neighborhood with a majority of housing stock at one level, it should always be legal to build the next level.
The idea is that it allows neighborhoods to "thicken up" over a few decades.