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About half or Portland is zoned single family. In the current market a developer would happily buy and knock down 4 -500,000 houses to build 10 -350,000 condos.
I ran up the Portland zoning maps and had no trouble finding neighborhoods dominated by single family homes that are zoned R2 (Multi-Family). I found whole quarter sections with no apartment complexes. If they were so eager to do it, there's nothing stopping them.
Zoning adds cost to housing stock and protects those that have homes and keep their property values high by limiting competition vs the option of no zoning. The cost of zoning includes extra time it takes to get approvals of plans. The process to gain plan approval also adds cost as plans must be reviewed and approved by zoning staff, this adds staff time for developer to conduct those reviews and adds government payroll for zoning staff vs a no zoning option.
Zoning provides predictability of land uses and locks in a man made design that may not match the market demands by types. Sure it can be modified but this takes time and delays the adaption to real market needs and conditions. I believe it does drive up prices vs a no zoning option as the density of single family development in a zoned city tends to be larger lot size than for a city such as Houston which has no zoning and where the market sets the density. These preserve the status quo and tend toward lower density in my view. The extra costs incurred vs no zoning are paid by someone, either in lower land prices (not likely) or lower developer profits (again not likely) or higher prices for the end product.
Man has proven a poor planner of land uses vs the market. I cant count the towns and cities with more land zoned for malls and commercial uses than the market provides them leaving vacant land that could add density and shorten commutes as a result.
I have lived in a no zoning city, Houston and a highly regulated metro in NJ. I currently live in a lightly zoned place, Plano Tx. I prefer this place to the others although there are more than just zoning differences in play.
Maybe. Can't really do it in San Francisco aside from a tiny sliver of the city. Of course, you also have infrastructure issues. Sometimes I'll spend the night out at my aunt's and take the N-Judah in to downtown. It's so packed they run buses roughly every 10 minutes on top of the light rail that runs roughly every 7.5 minutes. Geary is even worse, basically non-stop buses packed like sardines. They really need a Geary and Judah subway lines, but there's no money for it. Even if you tore down a bunch of the little million dollar houses on 2,500 square foot lots out in the avenues and built mid-rise apartments (probably more like ten stories) there's no infrastructure to support them. And those apartments would not be cheap. First you have to buy out the million dollar homes, tear them down, then the city needs to get revenue from somewhere (most likely those apartments) to build subway lines to them.
We can't build in SF? So are you a structural engineer and you know that it can't be done? If these arguments are true now they have always been true everywhere. Building more infrastructure and density is the challenge of every growing society on the planet. (One that is thriving anyway) If we didn't do this in just about every growing city we would still live in huts.
Subways can be built, taller structures can be built. The biggest barrier are these excuses, not the ability to solve the problems.
Actually our rights come from God, not government. The purpose of government in the USA is to defend and secure the rights of the people (including private property rights). See The Declaration of Independence.
Sadly, the vast majority of Americans are totally clueless about our inalienable rights.
I ran up the Portland zoning maps and had no trouble finding neighborhoods dominated by single family homes that are zoned R2 (Multi-Family). I found whole quarter sections with no apartment complexes. If they were so eager to do it, there's nothing stopping them.
I doubt your assertion, and I'd guess that IF such areas exist, they are in inconveniently-located places with poor or no transit access, which include a good part of NW (which also poses the issue of acquisition costs too high to be feasible) and outer SE.
I would vote for anything to increase the housing stock. Current housing starts are at an abysmal low and is creating a cost of living crisis in our country.
Mutli-family housing in particular has been depressed ever since Reagan gutted funding for multi-family housing construction in the mid 1980s.
Single family construction was healthy until the last recession, when it crashed, and now it is at a level possible not seen in our country since before WWII. Perhaps even longer but the data doesn't go back that far.
If laxing the zoning laws will allow builders to build more, I would be all for it. Our country grows by 2-3 million people a year and we are only building roughly a million housing units annually. This is growing into a crisis.
I doubt your assertion, and I'd guess that IF such areas exist, they are in inconveniently-located places with poor or no transit access, which include a good part of NW (which also poses the issue of acquisition costs too high to be feasible) and outer SE.
I would vote for anything to increase the housing stock. Current housing starts are at an abysmal low and is creating a cost of living crisis in our country.
A COL 'crisis'?
If anything we have too many houses. A lot of houses are sitting vacant.
2bdrm houses on 1 to 5 acres start at $30k in my area. I really do not consider that very high.
Quote:
... If laxing the zoning laws will allow builders to build more, I would be all for it. Our country grows by 2-3 million people a year and we are only building roughly a million housing units annually. This is growing into a crisis.
I don't see it.
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