Idea for fixing the housing shortage

jklo said:
You'd be surprised, especially with Dog Mania.

Framingham is a good example. People with kids used to avoid the town just because of the schools... yet you see SFH selling for 600-800k and up. While some of that is clearly desperation for an SFH (and only an SFH)... some of it has to be apathy torwards schools since they don't have any kids but have a dog.
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I probably shouldn't be surprised given how few people have kids these days, especially in Massachusetts
 
Justbuildit said:
There’s a perception that Americans don’t want to raise families in urban multi family buildings, and that if you can afford it you’ll move to a nice suburb with a yard. Demonstrating that there is such demand is really hard, especially if there’s such low supply that a market can’t be established. If I fail to find anything where I could house a family of 4 in the city, give up, and move to the suburbs, that failure isn’t registered anywhere.

In reality this group is probably pretty small, but it’s gotta be larger than effectively zero and it would be great to have some more options in the city. Not sure how these people can better express this sentiment.
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I reject the notion that Americans only want a house with a yard as well. When my wife and lived in Cambridge, I'd talk to people in suburbs all the time telling me they wished they could live in the city, but they couldn't afford it. I'd also hear, from time to time, people who were tired of keeping up a yard.

I realize it's not everybody, but there should be enough to warrant a demand.
 
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Justbuildit said:
There’s a perception that Americans don’t want to raise families in urban multi family buildings, and that if you can afford it you’ll move to a nice suburb with a yard. Demonstrating that there is such demand is really hard, especially if there’s such low supply that a market can’t be established. If I fail to find anything where I could house a family of 4 in the city, give up, and move to the suburbs, that failure isn’t registered anywhere.

In reality this group is probably pretty small, but it’s gotta be larger than effectively zero and it would be great to have some more options in the city. Not sure how these people can better express this sentiment.
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That perception is borne out by US Census statistics. Families generally live in the following three housing types: trailer parks, detached single family homes, and attached single family homes. After that, the number of children per family drops off significantly.

This article doesn’t address that specific point, but pretty much everything remotely related to it:
ifstudies.org

More Crowding, Fewer Babies: The Effects of Housing Density on Fertility

With fertility falling to record lows in the United States, it is increasingly important to understand what factors may be preventing Americans from having the families they want to have. One factor that many people immediately think of is housing, cities, and density. Because children require a...
ifstudies.org ifstudies.org
 
No doubt that’s what the census data show. There are maybe 5 places in the country that have a fully built urban environment that allow for completely or mostly car free living in what could be called a City. I don’t expect there are many people with 4 kids living in multi families in Topeka. For what it’s worth I dont think people “want” to live in trailer parks, but it’s a reflection of personal economics and existing housing stock (or ability to build it).

I guess I’d wonder what the vacancy rates are for 3+ bed units and smaller units in a given city. Is there actual under supply or am I such a weirdo that I don’t deserve access to such dwellings?

I guess my point is it’s hard to make this call if the counterfactual of actually having built a lot of multi family urban housing never happened.
 
jklo said:
You'd be surprised, especially with Dog Mania.

Framingham is a good example. People with kids used to avoid the town just because of the schools... yet you see SFH selling for 600-800k and up. While some of that is clearly desperation for an SFH (and only an SFH)... some of it has to be apathy torwards schools since they don't have any kids but have a dog.
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A lot of people send their kid to a private or parochial school instead of a public school.
 
Has there been any talk about removing parking minimums at the state level? Minnesota introduced a bill earlier this year that does such a thing.


minnesotareformer.com

DFL lawmakers to introduce bill to ban parking minimums statewide • Minnesota Reformer

Minnesota Democrats will introduce legislation to ban city-imposed parking mandates statewide during the 2024 legislative session. If passed, municipal governments would not be allowed to require developers to build parking spots. The legislation, spearheaded by Sen. Omar Fateh...
minnesotareformer.com minnesotareformer.com


www.startribune.com

Minnesota senator wants to do away with minimum parking requirements

The People Over Parking Act would allow business owners and developers decide how much parking to offer
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com
 
BOS2BON said:
Has there been any talk about removing parking minimums at the state level? Minnesota introduced a bill earlier this year that does such a thing.
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Kinda need parking in Da Burbz.
 
Eliminating parking minimums is not a ban on parking. Developers in Da Burbz can always build more parking if they want, but mandatory construction makes things more expensive.

BOS2BON, I'd be in favor of it in principle, but there's no way anyone outside of 128 is going to support that, and it'll look like a weirdo urbanist fantasy driven by Boston. Maybe there's a middle ground for TOD and reduced parking requirements. I presume those limits are set by municipalities, so not sure if there are any non Boston/Camberville towns that are taking the lead here.
 
BOS2BON said:
Has there been any talk about removing parking minimums at the state level? Minnesota introduced a bill earlier this year that does such a thing.


minnesotareformer.com

DFL lawmakers to introduce bill to ban parking minimums statewide • Minnesota Reformer

Minnesota Democrats will introduce legislation to ban city-imposed parking mandates statewide during the 2024 legislative session. If passed, municipal governments would not be allowed to require developers to build parking spots. The legislation, spearheaded by Sen. Omar Fateh...
minnesotareformer.com minnesotareformer.com


www.startribune.com

Minnesota senator wants to do away with minimum parking requirements

The People Over Parking Act would allow business owners and developers decide how much parking to offer
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com
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I'm pretty sure Oregon did so in 2020; it's an interesting thing to consider. but I suspect that the places it would impact would revolt. Maybe if it were narrowly tailored to the gateway cities and middle+ size communities to include places like Framingham, Quincy and Medford but not Concord.

That said, I do think better coordination between jurisdictions is necessary, especially with our messy jurisdictional boundaries - along Broadway lots are split, and Medford has parking minimums while Somerville has maximums. No developer is going to want to get waivers in both directions from 2 different cities.

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Did a little cursory searching over lunch and found these two articles. Not a statewide discussion per se, but could be useful:

1. Map of cities and towns that have done away with minimums (minima?). Couple surprises here in the Northeast, including for Seabrook NH(?!) which has apparently removed minimums and added a maximum.
parkingreform.org

Parking Mandates Map - Parking Reform Network

A map of cities which have reduced or eliminated costly car parking mandates (parking requirements).
parkingreform.org parkingreform.org

2. Brief article in Commonwealth Beacon tying it all back to housing. Looks like Everett moved the authority for parking limits from zoning to planning, allowing for more flexibility. Key quote:
"Under the new ordinance, the planning board now uses a scoring system that lets developers reduce the number of parking spaces, which he said are generally financial losers for them, in exchange for everything from added green space to bike-share stations or providing a shuttle service to the closest T station. "

Stop making people build stuff they don't want to!!!

commonwealthbeacon.org

Battle over parking often really about housing and development

A focus on parking and parking minimums have shaped post-war development in the US for the worse, says author Henry Grabar. But he says we're in the midst of an encouraging "parking science renaissance" that's rethinking those policies.
commonwealthbeacon.org commonwealthbeacon.org
 
TallIsGood said:
More housing? Easy:
- remove/limit zoning
- remove/limit architectural review, planning board, neighborhood reviews
- prohibit inclusionary zoning / set asides (which is a tax on production)
- prohibit community benefits
- remove parking minimums
- remove requirements for traffic, shadow, etc studies
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Mostly agree, but not with the easy part. This might in fact be the prescription for lowering housing costs and expanding supply. But there is absolutely no consensus on this within the general public, nor among the politicians who listen them. We can say, look, here's the answer! But it might take a few decades to shift the actual regulations in place. We need a faster answer.
 
HenryAlan said:
We need a faster answer.
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Do you have any suggestions for anything faster?

I'm mostly with you, here. This seems like a good list of things to jumpstart housing construction. I'm maybe more optimistic that things can change faster than you say. And I'm up for anything that works faster, but I don't know what that might be.
 
ritchiew said:
Do you have any suggestions for anything faster?

I'm mostly with you, here. This seems like a good list of things to jumpstart housing construction. I'm maybe more optimistic that things can change faster than you say. And I'm up for anything that works faster, but I don't know what that might be.
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Some of the folks who are opposed to @TallIsGood's list might be amendable to something involving more government intervention. So I'd recommend some sort of grand bargain involving a period of subsidized construction that is phased out as the market based reforms are phased in. To get to a place where something can happen, we need to build a broader coalition, which will mean accepting some ideas that we don't think are the most useful.
 
HenryAlan said:
Some of the folks who are opposed to @TallIsGood's list might be amendable to something involving more government intervention. So I'd recommend some sort of grand bargain involving a period of subsidized construction that is phased out as the market based reforms are phased in. To get to a place where something can happen, we need to build a broader coalition, which will mean accepting some ideas that we don't think are the most useful.
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Maybe we could ask ourselves: "What is Everett doing right?" And then try to replicate the Everett model 20 times around greater Boston in appropriate locations (hopefully a few that already have transit access).
 
JeffDowntown said:
Maybe we could ask ourselves: "What is Everett doing right?" And then try to replicate the Everett model 20 times around greater Boston in appropriate locations (hopefully a few that already have transit access).
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(Housing shitpost incoming)

Everett took a look at underutilized third-rate light industrial space and decided to just put up a ton of housing. My modest proposal for Boston is to take the area below, outlined in white, eliminate all zoning related to housing, and just let people build until the FAA tells you to stop. Newmarket, Upham's Corner, Broadway and Andrew are nearby to at least part of this map, and it's surrounded by the Expressway, Mass, Cass, Bypass Rd and some other major thoroughfares.

I'd simply create a Free Trade Zone/Special Economic Zone for housing and let developers build whatever they wanted, including single-room occupancy, single-loaded stair buildings, no parking, whatever. I believe the city owns at least a couple of parcels in this area as well, so they could earn additional revenue by selling them off to the highest bidder. Accelerate the inevitable and start letting people live across this stretch. Bonus tax breaks if you put a lid over the freeway.

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sean99090900 said:
Too bad everyone thinks a municipal assembly knows better than the developer on site how much parking is needed to make a project viable 🙄
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Too bad developers would build without sufficient parking and expect the surrounding streets to absorb the cars
 
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