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https://www.wired.com/story/apple-campus/
The ultimate hi-tech company, Apple, builds an isolated ring in the burbs away from transit (other than their own corporate bus). And the burbs limit new housing. So you have one of the most density friendly parts of the country actually going the other way. Many companies are moving out of the central city (Apple was already in Cupertino, but they are building an island).
Creating more opportunities for higher density in the city will lower housing prices and encourage companies to keep more jobs close in. Article mentions that Atlanta is adding housing at a higher rate than San Francisco. It also goes into Nimbyism even in California. ("...Between 2010 and 2015 the San Francisco Bay Area added 640,000 jobs, with more than a third of that growth in tech. But the region didn’t add nearly enough housing; with the exception of a spike during the boom years leading up to the 2008 recession, the number of new housing units built in the city of San Francisco has trended steadily downward, and the same is true for other Bay Area cities. Here’s what happens when supply fails to meet demand: The median price for a home in the Bay Area has climbed to $800,000. It’s even higher in Silicon Valley
.That’s starting to change. San Francisco has 62,000 units in the pipeline, and San Jose is adding thousands every year, too. (To be clear, those numbers are still far lower than places like Houston and Atlanta.) But the towns along the 101 and 280, the homes of companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook? Nope. Cupertino, Mountain View, and Palo Alto all have tens of thousands of workers in the tech business, adding more and more all the time, but those cities have been reluctant to build new houses or apartments.")
bu2, then why do we need laws preventing density? Let people decide on their own.
Also, be aware San Francisco has some pretty strict zoning / building codes itself. It did build out fairly densely originally as it has significant geographic barriers, but since zoning has come about San Francisco "F-U-I-got-mine" NIMBYs has not really allowed much more density to be built which has only push up housing prices more.
bu2, then why do we need laws preventing density? Let people decide on their own.
I'd rather spread the density around. Give the southside and the westside a chance. They've got huge areas with great infrastructure that have been languishing for way too long.
There's no need to have Midtown, Buckhead, the intown eastside and the northern suburbs scarfing up so much of the new development. Even with greatly increased density and high development costs it's not slowing down.
I don't see how adding density to the city of SF will help the bay area. Apple's HQ is a 50 min drive or Apple Bus ride from the Mission District, but it's a whopping 2.5 hours by mass transit. SF is already fairly dense and the streets are clogged with cars, and adding density will just add cars. The Bay Area needs to fix their mass transit so it moves people from the residential area to the jobs.
The ATL equivalent would be to add a ton of density in Forsyth County for people to drive to jobs in the City of Atlanta.
Already today we have house going for over $400K in SW Atlanta. At what point do you feel that prices have been forced too high everywhere in town that you will allow more people to live in existing nice neighborhoods?
This idea of pushing people out of areas of the city they would prefer to live in by artificially limiting the housing supply is not something I can support.
Think we are just going to have to disagree on this point.
I do not think the "F-U-I-got-mine" NIMBYs should have the power to tell other people in their neighborhood what to do with their land just because they don't want more people moving in and enjoying their neighborhood.
I'd rather spread the density around. Give the southside and the westside a chance. They've got huge areas with great infrastructure that have been languishing for way too long.
There's no need to have Midtown, Buckhead, the intown eastside and the northern suburbs scarfing up so much of the new development. Even with greatly increased density and high development costs it's not slowing down.
A lot of people did not buy into the current zoning scheme. We last overhauled zoning in the 1980s, many have owned longer than that.
Also, no one is making anyone do anything different. If you like your house the way it is, no one is forcing you to change it with this updated zoning.
It is more like someone buying a BMW then wanting to keep a law that only allows people in the neighborhood to own BMWs. It is great you want to pay for a BMW and I don't want to deny you that. But stop forcing everyone else to do the same, owning a BMW is just too expensive for many people. And "just move to another neighborhood" is not the solution.
Got nothing to do with "my" house. Has everything to do with "my" neighborhood. You're missing the point.
A lot of people did not buy into the current zoning scheme. We last overhauled zoning in the 1980s, many have owned longer than that.
Also, no one is making anyone do anything different. If you like your house the way it is, no one is forcing you to change it with this updated zoning.
It is more like someone buying a BMW then wanting to keep a law that only allows people in the neighborhood to own BMWs. It is great you want to pay for a BMW and I don't want to deny you that. But stop forcing everyone else to do the same, owning a BMW is just too expensive for many people. And "just move to another neighborhood" is not the solution.
People may not have bought their home after the current zoning scheme, however, THEY DID BUY their home believing that the neighborhood surrounding their home would continue in the character that it had at the time of their purchase.
Consider this, there are large houses of 4,000 square feet or more in every part of the Metro area, however, the price of the homes in areas like Buckhead, Druid Hills, Sandy Springs, Ansley Park, etc. are going to be considerably higher than that of a home of a similar size where there isn't a neighborhood surrounding it of similar size homes with similar size lots.
For example, who would pay $2 million for a house when they know in the future, there is a possibility that a duplex or apartment building could be built next door? The guarantees of keeping the character of a neighborhood of single family homes by means of zoning or restrictive covenants are what keep the prices up. The governments of the City of Atlanta, Fulton and DeKalb counties greatly benefit from the large property taxes which they receive from the homes in these neighborhoods. If you took away these guarantees and allowed haphazard redevelopment of these neighborhoods, the property values would fall greatly and therefore, the property taxes received would, too.
I don't know why the City of Atlanta is being singled out as being unique for having zoning which is preventing higher density development - Drive down Sunset Boulevard in L.A. and you will see miles of homes on estate lots as you travel through parts of Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills and the Bel Air neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles. I doubt there is a thread in the Los Angeles section where people are asking to throw out the zoning for these neighborhoods so that duplexes and apartment buildings can be built. The L.A. area has far greater sprawl than the Metro Atlanta area and yet they don't seem to mind that a lot of their closer in neighborhoods are low density. By contrast, the City of Los Angeles is happy to receive the windfall in property taxes which these neighborhoods produce so that the City can provide services to less affluent neighborhoods where the property values have not increased so much.
Finally, it is hard to see how a developer can make the numbers work of buying homes in low density neighborhoods to pack in "affordable housing" - It is either high density apartments or cluster homes of $600,000 homes like you see on North Druid Hills near Toco Hills. I don't consider those in the category of affordable housing, yeah they are more affordable than what's available in Buckhead, but I don't think that is what most would consider that affordable. In fact, many areas of close in suburbs like Smyrna are seeing $400K cluster homes or townhomes because the land value is so high. These are just the realities of the market of a large metro area.
People may not have bought their home after the current zoning scheme, however, THEY DID BUY their home believing that the neighborhood surrounding their home would continue in the character that it had at the time of their purchase.
And this new zoning would not allow significant changes in the character of neighborhoods either. In fact the rezoning in the 1980s probably did a lot more harm to the character of neighborhoods than this new overhaul would do. It made it illegal to build homes like the other homes in the area in places like Ormewood Park. You can tell the new homes because they look like they belong in the suburbs due to their huge setbacks and parking requirements. Where as the original character of the neighborhood had houses close together with little to no parking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David1502
For example, who would pay $2 million for a house when they know in the future, there is a possibility that a duplex or apartment building could be built next door?
Apparently many would. Because our some of the most expensive homes in the metro back right up to skyscrapers in Buckhead and Midtown. Not to mention there are plenty of duplexes and other missing middle homes still left from when they were legal in other pricey neighborhoods like Inman Park...
Quote:
Originally Posted by David1502
The guarantees of keeping the character of a neighborhood of single family homes by means of zoning or restrictive covenants are what keep the prices up. The governments of the City of Atlanta, Fulton and DeKalb counties greatly benefit from the large property taxes which they receive from the homes in these neighborhoods. If you took away these guarantees and allowed haphazard redevelopment of these neighborhoods, the property values would fall greatly and therefore, the property taxes received would, too.
...so clearly your notion that allowing density will prevent neighborhoods from appreciating value is straight false. In fact, I bet you will find a strong positive coloration between property value and neighborhoods that have higher density mixed in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David1502
I don't know why the City of Atlanta is being singled out as being unique for having zoning which is preventing higher density development - Drive down Sunset Boulevard in L.A. and you will see miles of homes on estate lots as you travel through parts of Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills and the Bel Air neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles. I doubt there is a thread in the Los Angeles section where people are asking to throw out the zoning for these neighborhoods so that duplexes and apartment buildings can be built. The L.A. area has far greater sprawl than the Metro Atlanta area and yet they don't seem to mind that a lot of their closer in neighborhoods are low density. By contrast, the City of Los Angeles is happy to receive the windfall in property taxes which these neighborhoods produce so that the City can provide services to less affluent neighborhoods where the property values have not increased so much.
I never said Atlanta was unique in having harmful zoning. Most of the US does. That doesn't make it right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David1502
Finally, it is hard to see how a developer can make the numbers work of buying homes in low density neighborhoods to pack in "affordable housing" - It is either high density apartments or cluster homes of $600,000 homes like you see on North Druid Hills near Toco Hills. I don't consider those in the category of affordable housing, yeah they are more affordable than what's available in Buckhead, but I don't think that is what most would consider that affordable. In fact, many areas of close in suburbs like Smyrna are seeing $400K cluster homes or townhomes because the land value is so high. These are just the realities of the market of a large metro area.
New construction will always be higher priced than comparable older housing stock, but if you cannot understand how artificially limiting supply raising prices we may need to take a few steps back.
Ultimately, it just comes down to that I don't think you should have a right to tell your neighbors how to live. One could make a strong case that requiring every car in a neighborhood has to be a BMW would help "maintain the value" of a neighborhood. And it very well might since it would make it hard for those of lessor means to live there and everyone would have mini hard-ons as they drove around and saw BMW after BMW. But I don't think you should get to control your neighbors choices to that extent.
Last edited by jsvh; 06-16-2017 at 05:06 PM..
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