Idea for fixing the housing shortage

[Stlin]

- Hartford is struggling with some pretty rough crime/homicide rates - by my math last year was about 30/100k, or about 5.5x the national average - that's high enough to impact demand noticeably.

I honestly would like to better understand the dynamics in CT that lead to that. Springfield, for example is generally thought of as a relatively rough city, yet it has a murder rate ⅓ that of Hartford 30 minutes down I-91. CT overall has roughly the same number of homicides as MA despite only having half the population. Granted, MA roughly quadruples CT in violent crime overall, but we apparently don't kill nearly as many. Our demographics are similar, similar gun control regimes, equally rich on average. CT may even be richer on PPP terms given the overall cost of living down there. I'd be interested in reading any ethnographies on this subject.

The experience of driving through it at night/weekends has been unsettling as well - few other cities have I been through that are so utterly deserted in large swaths of the "downtown" area.

I think that feeling is true of any area that's mostly offices that folks don't live though - to your point of no one living in downtown Hartford, this is the curse of zoning. I was recently in downtown Minneapolis on a weekend and it was eeriely empty too, but because the "commercial core" is centered on being a place to work, not being a place to serve residents. The two aren't mutually exclusive - activated ground levels are a good thing - but when people are only there for work it'll be pretty void of folks at night / weekends generally. People don't hang around office blocks, but if there are people around someone will serve that market. Personally, I feel this is why New Haven has a livlier downtown than Hartford or Springfield because it has people living downtown - be it because of Yale or something else.

 

[DZH22]

The Boston.com poll is in regarding the MBTA communities act. It doesn't seem particularly popular with the masses.

Here’s why readers say their town shouldn’t comply with MBTA Communities Act

With an end-of-2024 deadline to approve new zoning rules, tensions between towns and the state – and opponents and proponents of the law – are amping up.

www.boston.com

 

[Digital_Islandboy]

The Boston.com poll is in regarding the MBTA communities act. It doesn't seem particularly popular with the masses.

Here’s why readers say their town shouldn’t comply with MBTA Communities Act

With an end-of-2024 deadline to approve new zoning rules, tensions between towns and the state – and opponents and proponents of the law – are amping up.

www.boston.com

View attachment 51837

You don't say? Municipalities aren't down for Beacon Hill overriding their NIMBY-ism? ~DigitaL.

 

[KCasiglio]

The Boston.com poll is in regarding the MBTA communities act. It doesn't seem particularly popular with the masses.

Here’s why readers say their town shouldn’t comply with MBTA Communities Act

With an end-of-2024 deadline to approve new zoning rules, tensions between towns and the state – and opponents and proponents of the law – are amping up.

www.boston.com

View attachment 51837

The Casiglio household poll is in regarding mandatory vegetables with dinner. It doesn't seem particularly popular with the masses.

A self selected digital poll isn't worth the bandwidth it takes up. Even Milton was 54-46. I'd wager if put to a regional referendum of effected communities it would pass comfortably.

 

[Justbuildit]

The Boston conversion program has just been extended due to an injection of $15M from the Commonwealth. Key quote below, noting that there are 9 such applications already received (that's a few more since I last tried to keep track). It also extends the program past its initial expiration, which was a point of complaint from some developers due to its short lifespan.

The money would help Mayor Michelle Wu continue a program that offers property tax breaks for office-to-residential conversions. Since the program was launched in October, developers have filed nine proposals to convert office space across 13 buildings that collectively could bring another 412 housing units to the Boston’s central business district.

With the state money coming, the Wu administration has decided to keep the program going until the end of 2025, instead of ending it on June 30 as initially planned, with the hopes of spurring another 300 to 500 units.

Healey offers $15 million to help Boston convert downtown office buildings into housing - The Boston Globe

Developments that have been proposed so far would bring 400 units to the central business district.

www.bostonglobe.com

 

[bigpicture7]

NYTimes Op-Ed today about how U.S. building code uniquely drives expense in housing construction relative to rest-of-world:

Opinion | The American Elevator Explains Why Housing Costs Have Skyrocketed

An illness led Stephen Smith to study why America has so few elevators. What he learned explains why housing costs are so high.

www.nytimes.com

^That author's non-profit that examines building codes and associated costs in North America:

Center for Building in North America

www.centerforbuilding.org

I thought about creating yet another housing-related thread on this particular topic, but feared it would turn into a dumpster fire about the role of regulation.
To me, stating this as apolitically as possible, building code is a vastly under-examined dimension of the housing crisis debate, which instead tends to be dominated by discussion on NIMBYism and zoning.
Yet building code is an integral part of the system that affects housing costs and production, and I say this someone who cares deeply about safety. I think there is a mindset among some pro-housing folks that building code is sacred ground regarding safety and environmental compliance, and is therefore implicitly assumed to be pure and morally untouchable. To me, that is a flawed approach; it ought very much to be in the conversation. Code is "impure" for at least two reasons, 1) it has not been driven purely by safety, accessibility, and environmental consideration, but also by business special interests who profit from the huge expenses that go into code compliance, and 2) it is not sufficiently progressive. With regard to 2), what I mean is that you have tiny projects (painting your front porch) that require zero money toward bringing a structure up-to-code, and then there are trigger points prompting projects to require massive expense for compliance that dissuade people from undertaking projects in the first place; there is some but really not much middle-ground. There's hardly a sliding scale. Old/crumby structures are left as old/crumby because full compliance costs a fortune, OR, they're completely gutted and flipped into $million+ luxury units to ensure profitability after the huge expense of code compliance. You literally can't just "spruce up" an old building. Don't get me wrong: insulation, efficiency, safety, etc, are vitally important -- but when you look at the big picture of all of the buildings in, say, a neighborhood in Chelsea, is the neighborhood more safe if there are 1,000 old noncompliant buildings and 20 luxury flips, or if there are 1,020 partially updated/compliant buildings?

I don't know enough to know if this particular op-ed author is right/wrong/coming from a good place, but I do feel building code ought to have more of a place in the conversation about housing production and affordability.

 

[thepixelnation]

NYTimes Op-Ed today about how U.S. building code uniquely drives expense in housing construction relative to rest-of-world:

Opinion | The American Elevator Explains Why Housing Costs Have Skyrocketed

An illness led Stephen Smith to study why America has so few elevators. What he learned explains why housing costs are so high.

www.nytimes.com

The price difference between US and European elevators is jaw dropping (as well as the unnecessary work the unions have won), but I wonder how the ADA comes into play with those elevators. My experience with a great number of hotel/apartment elevators in Europe is that it can be difficult to fit 2 people and their luggage, much less someone in a wheelchair. Maybe some of those prices differ because they are just smaller elevators.

I understand there's a plethora of regulations and code keeping elevators expensive, but there's a danger in lumping ADA in with those. The ADA is a win for Americans, and keeping our buildings accessible is a must.

when you look at the big picture of all of the buildings in, say, a neighborhood in Chelsea, is the neighborhood more safe if there are 1,000 old noncompliant buildings and 20 luxury flips, or if there are 1,020 partially updated/compliant buildings?

I think this is the right takeaway from this article. making it easier for individuals to navigate compliance and be able to update without too much legal work would allow private citizens to renovate buildings with much less capital investment. Accessibility and Safety are of the utmost importance, but if that building is already inaccessible, it might not make the most sense to require 100% accessibility.

 

[bigpicture7]

The price difference between US and European elevators is jaw dropping (as well as the unnecessary work the unions have won), but I wonder how the ADA comes into play with those elevators. My experience with a great number of hotel/apartment elevators in Europe is that it can be difficult to fit 2 people and their luggage, much less someone in a wheelchair. Maybe some of those prices differ because they are just smaller elevators.

I understand there's a plethora of regulations and code keeping elevators expensive, but there's a danger in lumping ADA in with those. The ADA is a win for Americans, and keeping our buildings accessible is a must.


I think this is the right takeaway from this article. making it easier for individuals to navigate compliance and be able to update without too much legal work would allow private citizens to renovate buildings with much less capital investment. Accessibility and Safety are of the utmost importance, but if that building is already inaccessible, it might not make the most sense to require 100% accessibility.

All great points, and definitely 100% with you about importance of accessibility and not lumping that with other types of codes. In fact, I'd bet the complex mix of code types/origins is part of what makes this so tough to tackle in the ongoing discourse about housing costs in the first place. I hope an expert can correct me, but I don't think all (or necessarily even most) of the cost that makes U.S. housing construction comparably more expensive is coming from ADA though. I mean, some of it, as discussed, is bolstering stretcher/emergency response access in buildings of a certain size. Perhaps some relates to lack of differentiation between pure residential vs. commercial or mix. And/or elevator size vs. building height, which is not a pure accessibility thing. I mean, I think there's some analogy to specs for fire trucks here vs. Europe. European fire trucks are comparably tiny and must navigate some ridiculously constrained streets; ours are freaking enormous.
Your takeaway about making this more reasonable to navigate for smaller-player developers and landlords, coupled with a big-picture view of how much legacy stuff lingers in an out-of-compliance state anyway, strike at what I wanted to raise. Let's face it, a lot of development is an insider's game, some of the code was set and/or lobbied for by inside players, and it creates a huge barrier to entry for smaller players, as well as a status quo bias for those small players.

 

[thepixelnation]

Let's face it, a lot of development is an insider's game, some of the code was set and/or lobbied for by inside players

An additional reason the legal/code spaghetti can be tough to navigate could be inside players using safety/accessibility as reason to further their own agenda. Easy to sugarcoat a law that would better your pockets by using safety and accessibility to obscure one's true motives. And more difficult to repeal.

 

[aquaticko]

An additional reason the legal/code spaghetti can be tough to navigate could be inside players using safety/accessibility as reason to further their own agenda. Easy to sugarcoat a law that would better your pockets by using safety and accessibility to obscure one's true motives. And more difficult to repeal.

Yes, this, too. There is a truly gross amount of bad faith argument over things like sidewalks/bike lanes which would take away car space in the name of friendliness to the disabled. As if ensuring the nearly-mandated costs of car ownership ALSO apply to people with disabilities is any kind of “justice”….

 

[Charlie_mta]

Interesting article on the reasons for the high cost of housing in the Boston area at https://www.boston.com/real-estate/local-news/2024/07/22/why-is-housing-in-boston-so-expensive/

 

[Johnnyrocket891]

An economic/stock market crash?

Not even close---- most likely heading for the biggest crypto boom in history.
Maybe 2025-2026 Crash

Amazing that Bitcoin was a .01 at one point and now hovers at $66,000

 

[Johnnyrocket891]

Interesting article on the reasons for the high cost of housing in the Boston area at https://www.boston.com/real-estate/local-news/2024/07/22/why-is-housing-in-boston-so-expensive/

Massachusetts has had an incredible run in the educational sector. However, universities have expanded significantly into the housing landscape, converting basic housing supply into dorms for students, impacting everyday families in Boston.
MIT, in particular, has transformed the fabric of Cambridge with advancements in biotech and robotics, leading to unprecedented levels of innovation and entrepreneurship.
One of the major factors in the housing demand vs. supply issue is the influx of students coming to Boston, Somerville, Cambridge, and the surrounding areas. This influx has changed the dynamics of the city, supported by a solid infrastructure, including the MBTA, which services the region.

This is one reason for the high cost of housing in and around Boston.

 

[thepixelnation]

However, universities have expanded significantly into the housing landscape, converting basic housing supply into dorms for students, impacting everyday families in Boston.

I wonder whats going to happen in the next couple years when the minor colleges get bought out. BC bought Pine Manor, UMass bought Mt. Ida, BU Wheelock, etc. Newbury college closed, but with the exponential growth these colleges are looking for, who's going to live in boston?

 

[bigeman312]

I wonder whats going to happen in the next couple years when the minor colleges get bought out. BC bought Pine Manor, UMass bought Mt. Ida, BU Wheelock, etc. Newbury college closed, but with the exponential growth these colleges are looking for, who's going to live in boston?

These colleges will have to come to terms with a new reality very soon.

The United States hit its peak births in 2007, at 4.3 million. Those kids are turning 17. Then, the Great Recession kicked off a prolonged baby bust that continues today.

Year	Live Births	% Down from 2007	Expected Freshman College Fall
2007	4,316,234	+0.0%	2025
2008	4,247,694	-1.6%	2026
2009	4,130,665	-4.3%	2027
2010	3,999,386	-7.3%	2028
2011	3,953,590	-8.4%	2029
2012	3,952,841	-8.4%	2030
2013	3,932,181	-8.9%	2031
2014	3,988,076	-7.6%	2032
2015	3,978,497	-7.8%	2033
2016	3,945,875	-8.6%	2034
2017	3,855,500	-10.7%	2035
2018	3,791,712	-12.2%	2036
2019	3,747,540	-13.2%	2037
2020	3,613,647	-16.3%	2038
2021	3,664,292	-15.1%	2039
2022	3,667,758	-15.0%	2040
2023	3,591,328	-16.8%	2041

Colleges are about to see an 8.9% drop in the pool of incoming freshman over a six year period from which to choose from next year to 2031. They will see a 16.8% drop over a 16 year period from next year through 2041.

Colleges across the country will need to pivot, contract, or fold over the coming years.

 

[thepixelnation]

Colleges across the country will need to pivot, contract, or fold over the coming years.

I assume many will fold over in the coming years, but I doubt that'll impact the buying up of campuses. Harvard, MIT, BC, BU, Emerson, and a bunch of others have enough in their endowment to stay open, have a bunch of prestige that will continue to attract students.

I doubt the major Boston Colleges and Universities will be the one impacted by this, but small private colleges that are already getting bought out or have closed down.

The exciting option that could be pursued would be using some of these campuses for things beside education. I understand that universities want massive campuses in boston, but seeing that Newbury College is now an old folks home seemed like an interesting development for the neighborhood instead of a removed campus that requires a student-only shuttle bus to access.

These campuses are inherently walkable or already integrated into city life. There's a lot of talk about the difficulties of converting offices to housing, but converting colleges to housing is a fascinating option.

 

[bigeman312]

I assume many will fold over in the coming years, but I doubt that'll impact the buying up of campuses. Harvard, MIT, BC, BU, Emerson, and a bunch of others have enough in their endowment to stay open, have a bunch of prestige that will continue to attract students.

I doubt the major Boston Colleges and Universities will be the one impacted by this, but small private colleges that are already getting bought out or have closed down.

The exciting option that could be pursued would be using some of these campuses for things beside education. I understand that universities want massive campuses in boston, but seeing that Newbury College is now an old folks home seemed like an interesting development for the neighborhood instead of a removed campus that requires a student-only shuttle bus to access.

These campuses are inherently walkable or already integrated into city life. There's a lot of talk about the difficulties of converting offices to housing, but converting colleges to housing is a fascinating option.

Converting college campuses to “old folks homes” is a very interesting development and one that will make more and more sense as we transition demographically.

 

[aquaticko]

Boston's higher ed industry has enough international renown that I don't know how much a domestic decline in young people will impact it, assuming it continues to be a fairly welcoming environment for immigrants. It's definitely something the region should be worried about, but inasmuch because high housing costs and poor entry-level salaries mean any students (American or otherwise) will likely continue having to leave once they graduate than anything else.

Greater Boston can continue to coast along--as it has for decades now--courtesy of Harvard/MIT/Latin School/Mass Gen, being Mass' (and basically New England's) capital, etc. However, that won't last forever, and just because it can coast, doesn't really forgive it squandering all of those advantages.

 

[HenryAlan]

Converting college campuses to “old folks homes” is a very interesting development and one that will make more and more sense as we transition demographically.

I'm having a whimsical thought about retiring to my old dorm room. It really would be a pretty decent set-up in my senior years -- near the subway, a dining room with a variety of prepared meal options, could easily enough add a health care clinic. Really seems ideal in a lot of ways.

 

[thepixelnation]

I'm having a whimsical thought about retiring to my old dorm room. It really would be a pretty decent set-up in my senior years -- near the subway, a dining room with a variety of prepared meal options, could easily enough add a health care clinic. Really seems ideal in a lot of ways.

At this point a lot of senior housing is like college life. I remember reading that STDs were rampant in some because it's a lot of people with nothing to do hanging out in their bedrooms. And the drug culture discussion is avoided since it's all prescribed.