The Hub on Causeway (née TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

TallIsGood said:
Forcing developers to build affordable housing (and by forced it obviously means not economically feasible to do so) you are increasing costs which makes them focus only on luxury housing to support the additional costs.
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From an economic theory standpoint, forcing developers to build affordable housing is dumb. You are implicitly taxing on activity you want more of: building market rate housing. It would be better to fund affordable housing out of a general revenues or better yet a tax on NIMBY neighborhoods that restrict new construction.

But from a practical political standpoint, requiring builders to include affordable housing has 2 benefits: 1) politically it builds support for new housing construction and 2) it (albeit inefficiently) provides funding for new construction via an backdoor tax that is too abstract for most voters to realize(and by extension oppose).

I'm no political scientist, but I would imagine an inefficient but tangible policy will beat our efficient but abstract policy every time.
 
Economically I totally agree with dhz. But you could also argue that it's restrictive zoning and an inefficient and politically corrupt approval process that constrains the supply of housing even more so then economic reasons.

Also I would actually put a bit of the blame on regionwide housing unaffordability on surrounding towns. Places only a few miles from Boston have "snob" zoning that often requires an acre plot of land and only allows single family development on that plot of land. That's never going to be affordable.

So region wide I'd acutally say that the 40b affordable housing law is one of the best things the state has ever come up with.
 
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KentXie said:
The truth of the matter is, the more luxury towers you build, the more the land value surrounding it increases, whether it is because of the amenities the new tower brings, or the scarcity of land to build on. This results in the next developer building more luxury housing to justify the cost of land. Without intervention, pretty soon affordable housing will no longer be feasible except at the fringes of the city limit and if you think this is the best way for the city to grow, then I hope you find yourself a $200,000 job soon.
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Towers arent meant for the middle class never really were. Mid rise brick/concrete housing types yes but not glass high rises and Im okay with that. But they have to get lower priced housing in there somehow. Also theres nothing really wrong with the prices decreasing as you go further from the core. The middle and lower class besides a few lottery picks will always be taking transit from outside the core into it. Its when you see luxury apartment complexes going up in dorchester/roxbury that I start to get mad. These are 2 of the many workforce engines of the city. Keep luxury in the core, and give some lucky ones affordable there, but dont touch the lower 3 neighborhoods with luxury that is obnoxious.
 
Want lower housing prices? Increase supply greater than the increase in demand. Markets work, distorted markets don't work as well.

How do you increase supply?
- reduce costs by not requiring union labor (which is an unofficial practice here)
- speed approval of projects
- increase zoning density and as of right building (vs. reducing density of most projects as a win)
- reduce affordable housing fees/requirements
- reduce community benefits (lower legal extortion)
- simplify zoning, more certainty for developers means lower costs
 
Increase height along Mass Ave and the parcels along the south wall of the Pike..... Increase height along Huntington Ave to Brookline.
 
datadyne007 said:
Oh dear...

https://twitter.com/SteveAdamsTweet/status/970775863426977793

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https://twitter.com/SteveAdamsTweet/status/970778854762704898

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If we really have to have this get rid of the freaking double podium at least for christs sake. Seriously only in Boston would you get this. Who thinks ooh it would look really great to build another podium on top of the podium its on. Quit dickin around tryin to make everything look shorter than it really is at the expense of everything else. Yea it sucks but it would be much better without the podium on top of a podium. Get rid of that and Ill only cry a little bit vs a lot when they destroy something that they had already had perfected.

I think im in the minority but I was pumped with the tall residential masonry tower and the black glass office tower. That was great I think we need some black glass here. Always looks good and designers want glass but always go blue leading to overkill.

Someone already photoshopped the podiums all the way up, can someone photoshop what it would look like without the podium and just the japanese part.

If we could have gotten the spire version of the office tower and the masonry or whatever 600' residential this would have been amazing. Instead we get....

Luckily the most important part is its best part- the podium and Im grateful for that.
 
jpdivola said:
From an economic theory standpoint, forcing developers to build affordable housing is dumb. You are implicitly taxing on activity you want more of: building market rate housing. It would be better to fund affordable housing out of a general revenues or better yet a tax on NIMBY neighborhoods that restrict new construction.
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If you were to allow developers to build luxury towers but require that they develop affordable housing off-site, then you are not taxing them. You're merely requiring them to build affordable housing on top of their market rate housing at the same time without decreasing the number of luxury units they can build. Their overall profit margin may go down but it wouldn't put them under.
 
TallIsGood said:
Want lower housing prices? Increase supply greater than the increase in demand. Markets work, distorted markets don't work as well.

How do you increase supply?
- reduce costs by not requiring union labor (which is an unofficial practice here)
- speed approval of projects
- increase zoning density and as of right building (vs. reducing density of most projects as a win)
- reduce affordable housing fees/requirements
- reduce community benefits (lower legal extortion)
- simplify zoning, more certainty for developers means lower costs
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A free unregulated market is the reason why there is inequity in the world.

Also I'm against using non-union workers. Unions are one of the reason why income inequality isn't worst. You force construction workers to compete for the lowest salaries and you basically reduce their income which also reduces their ability to afford houses.

Besides the whole " just cut construction cost" is essentially the same thing as lowering corporate tax for large corporations. Developers are not going to suddenly build more because it's cheaper. They're going to funnel the extra profit to their stakeholders.
 
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stick n move said:
Towers arent meant for the middle class never really were. Mid rise brick/concrete housing types yes but not glass high rises and Im okay with that. But they have to get lower priced housing in there somehow. Also theres nothing really wrong with the prices decreasing as you go further from the core. The middle and lower class besides a few lottery picks will always be taking transit from outside the core into it. Its when you see luxury apartment complexes going up in dorchester/roxbury that I start to get mad. These are 2 of the many workforce engines of the city. Keep luxury in the core, and give some lucky ones affordable there, but dont touch the lower 3 neighborhoods with luxury that is obnoxious.
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I know towers aren't meant for the middle class and I'm ok with housing prices decreasing from further from the core. That's what I've been arguing about. If a developer wants to build a luxury tower in downtown, then the developer should be required to build affordable housing off-site somewhere further from the core.

My concern is that everyone here is saying, all we need to do is build more luxury towers and it will eventually lower the cost. That doesn't work. There's already a scarcity of land in downtown. Guess where's the next spot that luxury developers will look at? The middle class zone outside the core where they will start displacing those neighborhoods with more luxury development. The effect of that displacement would eventually increase the land value of adjacent properties, eventually making those places no longer affordable for the middle class. If this is kept unchecked, pretty soon you will have only fringe area in the city where affordable housing can exist.

Don't believe me? I use to live in Charlestown, where as a child back in the 1990s, it was one of the area where it is relatively cheap to live that is within the city of Boston. Nowadays, prices has nearly doubled since the early 2000.

https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Charlestown-Boston/3440/market-trends/
 
KentXie said:
A free unregulated market is the reason why there is inequity in the world.

Also I'm against using non-union workers. Unions are one of the reason why income inequality isn't worst. You force construction workers to compete for the lowest salaries and you basically reduce their income which also reduces their ability to afford houses.

Besides the whole " just cut construction cost" is essentially the same thing as lowering corporate tax for large corporations. Developers are not going to suddenly build more because it's cheaper. They're going to funnel the extra profit to their stakeholders.
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A free market is the best way to increase living standards. We will always have inequality. That's life. US society lives much better today than they did 20, 50 or 100 years ago. Retarding a market will reduce progress.

I didn't say I was against union workers. I'm against union workers having a monopoly on construction jobs. That drives up prices because its not the actual market.
 
Thank you Milton Friedman. A "free market" often has many externalities that are not priced in correctly, and moreover is based upon assumptions (rational people, perfect information) that are debatable in the least.
 
Which ones are free market, exactly? Are there countries operating out there completely bereft of regulation, taxes, or, for our purposes here, housing legislation?
 
Yeah, there's definitely no such thing as a free market. In the U.S., capitalists enjoy government interventions such as import taxes and trade regulations that shield them from competitors, they enjoy a comparatively low tax on investment returns, they enjoy the benefits and protectionism of limited liability public corporations (which are a government-bestowed benefit). Without the government, capitalists would have it a lot harder here than they do.

All markets exist in the context of the societally-derived "norms and values" that (when things work) reflect of the will democratic voters, such as theft, bribery, and murder being illegal. We as a capitalistic democracy have the right to instill norms and values that reflect our collectively agreed-upon human values. Markets also exist in the context of the "frictions" associated with sociological tendencies (e.g., the the "best" subcontractor doesn't get hired because the GC hired his buddy's firm).

Welcome to democracy and social reality.
 
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