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A guy in Portland proposes a 25-unit development of 200-sf houses that he says can be built for $15.000 to $35,000 each and pencil out at monthly rents in the range of $250-$350 (which is less than the cost of renting a room and close to half the cost of a studio apartment). He notes this would be vastly cheaper than the 130 apartments the city recently built for homeless people at an average cost of about $250,000 per unit.
Of course, he needs some city code changes to make it happen, and of course NIMBYs everywhere in the city will come out of the woodwork to prevent that.
Granted the homeless building you are talking about is a building downtown, thus the costs are going to be higher. Plus it was more of an apartment building than it was single family houses.
I am all for what this guy is proposing, but for it to work the city would need to create guidelines that was basically rent control for these homes to prevent developers from building something like this and then charging $1800 in rent.
There is already the EkoHaus apartments going up that are tiny apartments but the rent it too much for how little the space is.
A guy in Portland proposes a 25-unit development of 200-sf houses that he says can be built for $15.000 to $35,000 each and pencil out at monthly rents in the range of $250-$350 (which is less than the cost of renting a room and close to half the cost of a studio apartment). He notes this would be vastly cheaper than the 130 apartments the city recently built for homeless people at an average cost of about $250,000 per unit.
Of course, he needs some city code changes to make it happen, and of course NIMBYs everywhere in the city will come out of the woodwork to prevent that.
Granted the homeless building you are talking about is a building downtown, thus the costs are going to be higher. Plus it was more of an apartment building than it was single family houses.
I am all for what this guy is proposing, but for it to work the city would need to create guidelines that was basically rent control for these homes to prevent developers from building something like this and then charging $1800 in rent.
There is already the EkoHaus apartments going up that are tiny apartments but the rent it too much for how little the space is.
Would YOU put YOUR money in a rent controlled project???
Granted the homeless building you are talking about is a building downtown, thus the costs are going to be higher. Plus it was more of an apartment building than it was single family houses.
I am all for what this guy is proposing, but for it to work the city would need to create guidelines that was basically rent control for these homes to prevent developers from building something like this and then charging $1800 in rent.
There is already the EkoHaus apartments going up that are tiny apartments but the rent it too much for how little space is.
That building "downtown" is, of course, in Old Town, which arguably isn't technically downtown once you cross Burnside, not to mention that there are a cluster of private charities in Old Town serving the homeless, and the rents and land values are far lower there than they are south of Burnside.
As for preempting developers who might want to reap profits as copycats, there's no reason the city can't rezone specific properties as they are proposed or why they can't extend certain preferences to non-vulture developers, such as on property taxes and system development fees.
The required zoning change(s) would require new classification, meaning that no existing property can be put to similar use without rezoning.
Yeah, I rode a bus past two EkoHaus buidings while under construction and I checked out the rents. The one on Glisan is called Glee (and the two on Mississippi are called Miss and Sippi. Do you get a sippy cup when you sign a lease? ) and I was all ready to send a sarcastic email saying that the only one there with any Glee is the owner who is laughing all the way to the bank. (But their website at the time offered only a phone number and no email contact.)
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) and I was all ready to send a sarcastic email saying that the only one there with any Glee is the owner who is laughing all the way to the bank. (But their website at the time offered only a phone number and no email contact.)
