upzone2

In which case the property value should be fine. As far as view goes, I believe I addressed that further up (but to recap: thoughts and prayers for people who are so burdened by others having a place to live).

Can you not spare a shred of sympathy for people who want to live in the city they work in but can’t because property owners won’t let them? Sorry, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who actively block building new housing because “screw you, got mine”. (Also, building housing doesn’t just tank the value of your home, trust me.)

If you can show me that building more housing causes everyone else’s property values to fall, I’ll believe you. Until then, these are the exact same arguments people use to prevent building any housing.

Remember, this all rests on the assumption that building housing necessarily depresses property values, and that isn’t a guarantee. You can tell because it goes further than that. It’s hard to build any housing at all. My city had about 100,000 people in it. I know some smart urban planners and they estimate it would take about 20,000 to 30,000 new units to stabilize our rental market. Not drive prices down, just stabilize. But we can’t even build ONE apartment building, let alone tens of thousands of units. Even if more housing would drive property values down (which it doesn’t necessarily), it would take so much housing before it ever got to that point.

And once again, we can have empathy and we can build housing. I promise one or two apartment buildings isn’t going to ruin grandma and grandpa’s home value. I promise.